WebFOCUS 8207.21 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
Tuesday, December 1, 2020

wf112020a Gen 9

wi112020a

as112020a

 8207.21 Gen 1926

New Features

New Processing Format Conversion Error Options when Uploading Data

When uploading data from a delimited or Excel file, a format conversion error can occur, such as when a numeric field contains a non-numeric value. You now have load options to control how to process rows that contain format errors, and to control how many format errors are allowed before processing stops.

The following conversion error load options are available when uploading files:

  • Conversion error processing.

    You can select values Reject or Ignore. Reject, the default value, rejects the record. Ignore replaces the values causing errors with default values, and continues processing the record.

  • Conversion error limit.

    You can enter values of 0 to 999999. This sets a limit for the number of records allowed with warnings about data conversion errors. 0 is the default value, which allows unlimited warning messages.

Get Data Page Accessibility

The initial Get Data page is now accessible, so that all options can be performed from the keyboard without requiring a mouse.

You can navigate through the page, using a combination of the Tab key, Shift+Tab key, and arrow key actions. Pressing the Enter key performs the primary action of the selected element. Pressing the Esc key closes a panel.

You can jump to areas of the page that are not near each other by pressing the key combination Shift+Ctrl+F10. This opens an accessible context menu that you can scroll through using the Up arrow and Down arrow keys. You can jump to the following areas:

  • First tile in the LOCAL FILES section.
  • First tile in the SERVER FILES section.
  • Common Adapter Settings link.
  • Information Diagnostics link.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF. 

Assigning Slowly Changing Dimension (SCD) Columns in the Web Console

A Slowly Changing Dimension (SCD) is a dimension in which the data does not change frequently or on a regular schedule. Slowly Changing Dimensions are common in data warehouses.

When a Synonym has SCD columns defined, the changes to the records in the database can be handled following Type I and Type II (Type 1 and Type 2) implementation techniques. The SCD implementation techniques are applied when such a Synonym is being used as a target in a Data Flow, and the Load Option on this target is set to Slowly Changing Dimensions.

For example, customer addresses change only when a customer moves. A customer who moves may change spending habits at the new address, so tracking customer data for that customer may depend on the address. Therefore, it could be useful to keep historical records of those changes.

Other types of changes may not require keeping a record of the change.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF. 

Adapter for OData: Support for Date-Time Functions in Filters

When a field is defined with OData data type Date or DateTime, you have the option to enable Date Functions processing. With this option enabled, decomposed dates in WHERE/IF statements will be processed by the OData Service, rather than the Reporting Server engine. If Enable Date Functions is not selected, and Decompose Date fields into components is On, DEFINE fields will be created in the metadata for the Date and DateTime fields, and these will be processed by the Reporting Server.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF. 

Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics CRM: Support for OAuth Grant Password Authentication

In prior releases of the Adapter for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the only type of OAuth authentication that was supported was OAuth Authorization Code authentication. Now OAuth Grant Password authentication is also supported.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF. 

Adapter for Apache Drill: Using Parquet as a Transfer File to HDFS

In prior releases, when you used DataMIgrator or a Data Flow to create a file in the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) in Parquet format, an intermediate text file was created.

Now, a file in Parquet format can be created in the local file system and transferred to HDFS without the need to create an intermediate file.

This option can be enabled in the Load Options for a flow by setting Allow Direct Load to Parquet File to ON.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF. 

Changing the Number of Columns in a Page Section

When you resize a panel on a page, it snaps to the nearest row and column. The number of columns therefore affects the precision to which you can set the width of each panel. By default, each section in a page contains 12 columns. You can therefore set panel widths in increments of one twelfth of the page width.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF. 

Previewing Fonts in WebFOCUS Designer

When selecting a font to use in different areas of a chart, such as axis labels, the legend, data labels, or headers and footers, each font in the Font menu is labeled using its own typeface. This helps you to choose a font to fit the style and theme of your content, even if you do not already know what every font looks like. 

For more information about adding fonts to your WebFOCUS environment, see the WebFOCUS Font Support topic in the Creating Reports With WebFOCUS Language technical content. For information about font styling in WebFOCUS Designer, see the Controlling Font Display in a Chart topic on the WebFOCUS KnowledgeBase.

Previewing Numeric Field Format Changes

The field format determines how the values in a field display in your content. Depending on your field type, you may be able to change the maximum number of characters in your field values, and the symbols that are added to your values to provide units, separation of components, and other information. For example, when changing the format of a numeric field, you first choose whether the numbers display as integers, decimal values, currency values, or percentages. Then, depending on the type of numeric value that you selected, you can set the total number of characters, the number of digits after the decimal point, currency symbols, thousands separators, and indicators for negative values.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF. 

Creating Dual-Axis and Bi-Polar Axis Bar, Area, and Line Charts

In many cases, the values in one of the measure fields in your data source may be much larger than those in another field. When these fields share the same axis in a bar, area, or line chart, it may be difficult to visually approximate or identify the smaller measure values.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF. 

Fixes

  • After load of Save Parameters, JavaScript® function event is not triggered again. (200911011)
  • Resetting a value other than YMD in a calendar control does not work. (201008165)
  • When using the text editor to edit an HTML Canvas file that was created using an AS/400 server, after saving the file and attempting to reopeon it on the server, errors are displayed and the file is unreadable. (201014041)
  • Unable to set variables (for example, !IBI.AMP.TITLE) in the Page Title in an HTML file created in App Studio. You cannot use the exclamation mark in the title as well. (201117011)
  • A run-only-deferred report inside an HTML page is not run if the domain name has an underscore symbol and IBIMR_domain(pass) was added in site.wfs. (201001027)
  • When attempting to load a page, an error occurs. (201026048)
  • When creating a report in Designer with a parameter that lets the user choose which field to use, the error message should be clearer. (200610028)
  • If you have duplicate field names (for example, Sample, sample_001, sample_002) and modify any one field name in the Master File definition (for example, Sample to test) using the text editor, after restoring the .fex in InfoAssist, a Field not found error displays for all the fields. (200902146)
  • Library reports larger than 2 GB are limited to 2 GB when they are downloaded and they are truncated. (200917056)
  • When a drill down on a report is clicked, the multi-drill menu pops up or renders near the top of the html page. (191219076)
  • When a data cell has a single "space" character, it is not preserved in the report output for XLSX format. (200130099)
  • ibihfreezeVer.js used in a report output is not refreshed if the file is in the browser cache. (200722171)
  • Missing duplicate rows in PCHOLD FORMAT JSON. (200911017, 200619051)
  • Create a Data Flow to load to Salesforce® objects, so that when the source columns contain null values, the mapped target column gets updated correctly. (200708100)
  • DataMigrator lists branches after the remote or local repositories are deleted, causing a code conflict and users do not receive a clear, informative message when the code conflicts occurs. (201008137)
  • NLS characters ö and ß are not being pulled or translated properly when pulled from Salesforce in WebFOCUS 8207. This works in WebFOCUS 8206. (200901121)
  • When uploading a csv file using the Adapter for Python™, only one line is returned. (201019118)
  • Sporadic DataMigrator failures when creating HOLD files. (191121073, 201026059)
  • DataMigrator flow with Restart option shows it is still running in ETLSTATS despite completing successfully. (200811054)
  • When submitting a DataMigrator flow from the DMC, the Console Log window at the bottom should show that the job completed. (201020132)
  • Trusted connection to WebFOCUS Server allows fex to execute even if the password is invalid or expired. (191212108)
  • Adapter connections in group profiles are not shown to members of the group when METAP is allowed. (200819155, 200909143)

Upgrade Notes

  • When upgrading to Release 8207.21 and higher, ReportCaster might fail to start if there are encrypted password credentials in the configuration file. For example, for the SMTP Server, if the Java version that is used, does not contain the Java Cryptography Extension (JCE), ReportCaster might fail to start. In order for ReportCaster to work to encrypt and decrypt passwords, ReportCaster requires Java Cryptography Extension (JCE). This applies to both the Application Server and the ReportCaster Distribution Server. This is not an issue if you are using a current version of Java that includes the JCE by default, such as Java version 180_62.

  • As of WebFOCUS 8207.15, the default setting for ALLOW-NOPRINT is ON. In AHTML reports using the new Designer style (ARVERSION=2), you can select hidden or NOPRINT fields, when you create a new component from the Options menu. These fields are also available in the fields list, when you create a chart, rollup, or pivot from the Column menu.
  • 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

Known Issues

  • 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.
  • When creating stacked bar, area, and line charts in WebFOCUS Designer, you can select Show stacked totals, in the Series options on the Format tab, to show the total value of the stacked riser above each bar or point in the chart. You can also use series-level data labels to show a value for each series, representing a subset of the stacked riser. If the position of the series-level data labels is set to Above, then the label for the top-most series may overlap with the total label for the stacked riser. To avoid this overlap, select a different option from the Position menu.
  • In Release 8207.19, McAfee VirusScan Enterprise prevents WebFOCUS JSP files from getting compiled during deployment of the WebFOCUS application. For more information and a workaround, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF.

Browser Information

This release is certified and has been tested with Google Chrome version 86, Firefox version 81, Microsoft Edge Chromium version 85 (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.