WebFOCUS 8207.12 Release Notes


The following topic provides all the information that you need to know about this release of WebFOCUS.

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Release and Gen Information

Release Date Gen Information Reporting Server
Wednesday, June 24, 2020

wf061920a Gen 9

wi061920a

as061920a

8207.12 Gen 1917

New Features

New Option to Save Data Files When Bulk Load is Used in a Flow

When Bulk Load is selected for a target in a Data Flow, the option Save Data Files appears, as shown in the following image.

Bulk Load

The default value, No, deletes intermediate *.ftm files from the directory for temporary files (for example, edatemp) after the corresponding portion of data is successfully committed to the target table during the Bulk Load Flow execution.

If you select Yes, intermediate *.ftm files are deleted from the temporary directory (for example, edatemp) after the job completes execution.

Show Confidence Level When Selecting an Existing Target in a Flow

When selecting an existing target in a data flow, the file picker shows the confidence level, based on matching column names and data types for each prospective new target, showing how compatible it is with the existing source, as shown in the following image.

Show Confidence Level When Selecting an Existing Target in a Flow

Slowly Changing Dimensions (SCD): Re-run for Missing Date

Using the Web Console and Slowly Changing Dimensions, you can re-run an SCD flow for a missed day, after subsequent days have already been processed.

For more information, see the topic in the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF.

Adapter for REST: Sending Multipart/Form Data in a POST Request

You can send a single part of content type Multipart/Form data in a POST request using the Adapter for REST.

For more information, see the topic in the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF.

Adapter for REST: Sending Credentials in the POST Request Body

When OAuth authentication is used for the Adapter for REST, and the OAuth Grant Type is Password, the configuration parameter Client Credentials in Body has been added to the connection configuration panel, as shown in the following image.

Adapter for REST: Sending Credentials in the POST Request Body

Selecting this option will add the attribute bdyclt:true in the connection string.

By default, client credentials for OAuth Grant Type Password are sent Base64 encoded in the HTTP header. However, if the web service being used does not support sending these credentials in the HTTP header, you can use this feature to send them in the body instead.

Adapter for MS Dynamics CRM: Support for Printing LOOKUP Fields

In prior releases, lookup fields were returned as missing values in requests using the Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Now, the values for these fields are returned. It is recommended that you recreate the metadata prior to issuing a request with a lookup field.


Fixes

  • An issue occurs when interpreting the XML response from a REST request using the REST adapter when the XML response contains only two tags. (200512100)
  • When the AnV format is run in conjunction with conditional styling with all styled formats, the null value is not accounted for. (200401125)
  • If an application folder contains one or more subfolders, and you update a DataMigrator Flow's schedule, the folder tree listing collapses and it must be expanded again. (200528116)
  • When opening a data flow with Optimize Load unchecked in the Data Management Console, it would reparse and the Optimize Load would be enabled automatically.
  • In a Data Flow when viewing the Profile charts showing the distribution of values for a field, in the window that appears when you hover over a bar that shows the name of the bar, the count and the ratio show incorrect values.
  • When adding a function from the palette to a data flow and hovering over a source node in a data flow, the Union and Join bubbles appeared inappropriately.
  • Using the Power BI installed from the Microsoft Store with the ODBC connector fails to connect when using the Power Bi required downloading and running the setup program.
  • When you select Popup style for a control and Add runtime Paging/Search Control at runtime, the paging/search control will render all values despite the range set. (200414007, 200414009, 200421020)
  • Under Tasks & Animations, the Refresh action ignores the Number or Range properties of the Paging/Search control. (200430097)
  • When changing visualization formats from a Standard Report to a map in Designer, the Rows field will carry over as a Color field for the map. However, for the Choropleth map format, this field will not be displayed in the query panel. Instead, the Color bucket will show no field. If the procedure is run, it will still execute with the color field in place despite not appearing in Designer. (200506033)
  • Using an -HTMLFORM request to display a report and a graph returns an internal exception processing error. (200302033)
  • While refreshing the ETL Log report, the selected sort order is not retained. (200526141)
  • User receives an error when retrieving data from a Cluster Join synonym that uses Master Profiles and DBA: _EDATEMP/tmp_from_src HELD AS SQL_SCRIPT (FOC14010) NOT A VALID COLUMN NAME: name (200129146)
  • In a Unix environment when installing the WebFOCUS Client, the pre-installation process logic checks for available space at /root when it should check the space available for the installation location. (200109120, 200129011, 200401108, 200416049, 200504047, 200515054)
  • When using Internet Explorer or certain versions of Microsoft Edge, a JavaScript error occurs when logging into WebFOCUS or creating a new visualization in WebFOCUS Designer. (200528122)
  • Incorrect user description is displayed when using x509 after authentication. (200521130)

Upgrade Notes

  • When upgrading from release 8206.xx to 8207.xx, the WebFOCUS Integrated Installation does not automatically assign the Unicode UTF-8 (CP65001) code page to the Reporting Server configuration. In order to configure the Reporting Server to use the UTF-8 code page, you can select the entry directly from the CODE_PAGE? list. In the Web Server console, this list appears in the NLS Configuration tab of the Workspace node.

    We recommend that you apply this change because, as of release 8207, WebFOCUS Integrated Installations configure all installed components to use the UTF-8 code page. Changing the Reporting Server code page to UTF-8 will ensure that there is no mismatch of code pages between WebFOCUS, Tomcat, and the Reporting Server, which could result in data retrieval issues.
  • In Release 8207, Magnify functionality is not available. To add Magnify functionality to Release 8207 and higher, see the manual steps outlined in this topic.  
  • As of Release 8207, in App Studio, the Domains node in the Configured Environments tree has been renamed to the Workspaces node.
  • The WebFOCUS Server on Linux using the Adapter for salesforce.com now requires using OpenSSL version 1.1.1. While current distributions include this release older ones do not.

    This software can be downloaded from https://www.openssl.org/source/ and it must be compiled with the shared option.

    Ater this, create symbolic links to the required libraries. For example, if the directory used was /usr/local/ssl, issue the following commands:

    sudo ln -sf /usr/local/ssl/lib/libssl.so.1.1 /usr/lib64/libssl.so
    sudo ln -sf /usr/local/ssl/lib/libcrypto.so.1.1 /usr/lib64/
    libcrypto.so
  • As of release 8207.12, new installations of WebFOCUS install Apache Solr™ Release 8.5.1.

Known Issues

  • The WebFOCUS help system does not work when the Application Server is configured with Java Version 11. As a workaround, you can configure your WebFOCUS instance to use help hosted by IBI. This provides an additional benefit, as users will have access to the latest content. See the workaround in the Release Notes PDF
  • The canvas of WebFOCUS Designer for this release is an interactive canvas based on AHTML. When creating a report, page and row break settings are not supported on this canvas for this release. If you select any other output format, such as HTML, PDF, PPTX, or XLSX, you will see these breaks at runtime. These output format options are available for stand-alone content items only. This will be resolved with the introduction of the non-interactive document canvas in a future release.
  • When an Insight-enabled chart created in the 8207.00 version of WebFOCUS Designer is added to a visualization as external content, the Insight icon does not appear on the chart when the page is run, so Insight features cannot be accessed. Resave the chart in WebFOCUS Designer 8207.01 or later to make Insight available when the chart is added to a visualization.
  • When working with the Cell menu in an interactive report, the filtering functionality does not work as expected.
  • When saving an artifact (from or of and interactive report, chart or dashboard), the output file name is ARsave.html rather than ARhtml.html.
  • If you create a report or chart in ARVERSION=2 (In-Document Analytics) and you set the output format to PDF Analytic Document, an error occurs when you run it. If you change the option in Procedure Settings to Legacy, the report or chart is produced correctly.
  • If you are working with an In-Document Analytics chart in landscape mode on an Android mobile device and you switch to portrait mode, your content displays in fullscreen mode. Your chart displays at the bottom. If you run your content in new window mode, your In- Document Analytics chart does not display in fullscreen mode, displaying the chart on the right.
  • HIDENULLACRS, which hides across columns that have null or zero values in the entire column, is not supported with interactive content using the new Designer style of In- Document Analytics capabilities.
  • If you add an existing ARVERSION=1 report to an AHTML document set to ARVERSION=2, it fails at run time, displaying JSON text on the screen instead of the expected report output.
  • If you are working with a procedure (.fex) and you change the ARVERSION to ARVERSION=2, global filters do not display when you run the procedure.
  • In a scatter plot chart or bubble chart, multiple measure fields on the horizontal and vertical axes generate separate axes, resulting in a grid of scatter plots for each combination of measure fields. In WebFOCUS Designer, if you create a scatter plot chart or bubble chart with multiple measures in the Vertical or Horizontal buckets, only the axis for the first measure in each bucket displays on the canvas. When you run the chart, all measure fields in the Vertical and Horizontal buckets are shown as separate axes, as intended.
  • The Expression Editor has a an area that displays objects that you can add to an expression, which are columns, variables or functions. The selection and display of these was controlled by buttons above the area, but when then size of the area was compressed, some of the buttons were hidden. Now there is a single button with a pull-down menu that allows selecting what objects are displayed.
  • Both the db_collation.sh file and the db_collation.bat file generate the "Main WARN Error while converting string [] to type," error message in the Command Prompt window at the end of their run. This message has no impact on the functionality of this post-installation utility, and it completes the run successfully.
  • The load_repos.sh file generates the "WARNING: sun.reflect.Reflection.getCaller Class is not supported. This will impact performance," error message in the Command Prompt window at the end of its run. In addition, the db_inplace_update.sh, WFReposUtilCMDLine.sh, and update_repos.sh files generate the "Main WARN Error while converting string [ ] to type," error message in the Command Prompt window at the end of their run. These messages have no impact on the functionality of these post installation utilities, and each one completes its run successfully.
  • App Studio upgrades are currently not supported. Messages related to failures that occurred while merging changes in the mime.wfs and languages.xml files display during the upgrade installation process.
  • In Release 8207, you cannot install a standalone version of ReportCaster. If you attempt to do so, you receive an error message after you click Next to exit the Advanced Configuration page of the installation wizard. Currently, there is no workaround for this issue. However, you can successfully install ReportCaster by including it in a WebFOCUS installation.
  • When using MS SQL Server as the database platform for the WebFOCUS Repository and upgrading from 8105M to 8207.06, only MS SQL Server 2008 and 2012 are supported. MS SQL Server 2014 and later versions are not supported.

Browser Information

This release is now certified and has been tested with Google Chrome version 83, Firefox version 77, Microsoft Edge Chromium version 82 (WebFOCUS only), Microsoft Edge version 44 (WebFOCUS only), and Internet Explorer version 11. Internet Explorer Compatibility mode is not supported. For additional browser details, see Browser Information

As of this release, new installations of WebFOCUS install Apache Solr™ Release 8.5.1.