WebFOCUS 8207.22 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
Monday, December 14, 2020

wf121120c Gen 9

wi121120c

as121120c

8207.22 Gen 1927

New Features

Passing Global Variables Through Drilldowns

A global variable is a variable that maintains its value for the duration of a WebFOCUS session or until a different value is assigned. Global variables are identified by double ampersands. As opposed to local amper variables, which you can pass different values from a drilldown, to filter target content based on the value that you select, the best use for global variables is to maintain a single consistent value as you run different content items.

The advantage of using a global variable is that its value is not contingent on the content item that is passing it. A local variable, when passed through a drilldown, must be set in the parent procedure, so a field must be added that contains values that the local variables can pass. This is not the case for a global variable, which is set externally to the procedure. However, since the global variable is not set by the procedure that passes it, the drill-down value that you select will not affect the value that is passed, unless the global variable is set to be dependent on a local variable.

When creating drilldowns in WebFOCUS Designer, you can choose to pass a global variable as a parameter value, as an alternative to a static value or field value. If you choose to pass a global variable, you can choose the global variable that you want to pass from a menu that contains a list of all global variables defined in your environment, as shown in the following image.

Passing Global Variables Through Drilldowns

Some of these global variables are automatically defined in your environment, and you can define others yourself by running a procedure that sets a value for a new global variable.

Once you select the global variable to pass as a parameter, you can use it to set filter values in the content that is the target of your drilldowns. To learn more, see the Adding Drill-Down Links to Content topic.

Adapter for REST: Passing Multiple Values to a Parameterized URL in a WHERE Phrase

If a WHERE phrase includes multiple values for a field that is defined as a parameter in the REST URL, multiple calls will be made to the REST service, one for each value.

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF

Adapters for SharePoint and SharePoint Drive: Support for OAuth Grant Password Authentication

In prior releases of the Adapters for SharePoint and SharePoint Drive, the only type of OAuth authentication that was supported was OAuth Authorization Code authentication. Now OAuth Grant Password authentication is also supported, as shown in the following image for the Adapter for SharePoint Drive.

Adapters for SharePoint and SharePoint Drive: Support for OAuth Grant Password Authentication

For more information, see the WebFOCUS Release Notes PDF.  


Fixes

  • After uploading a chart extension .zip package, the extension shows up with the wrong name in the Admin Console. (201105114)
  • Cannot create an empty array when using OMIT_MISSING=NO, MISSING=ON, and ACCESS_PROPERTY=(ARRAY_ITEM) attributes. (201113013)
  • When a data point in a percent area chart is flanked by 0 values on either side, a vertical line is displayed instead of a triangular spike. This results in gaps in the chart, and does not look correct. Non-percent area charts do not have this issue. (200708001)
  • Issue where a page that contains AHTML content automatically scrolls to the bottom of the page, when run as an individual page or in a portal. (201102067, 200806084)
  • Custom theme is not applied during development (Visualization) and execution (converted to Page) for report (Grid and Standard Report). (200918167)
  • JScript is not being executed when run from edit mode in WebFOCUS Designer. (201116123)
  • Sorting occurs in an incorrect order when using filters from Numeric columns in WebFOCUS Designer. (201118045)
  • A FOC370 error is thrown when joining two parent tables to a child table in InfoAssist. (201006028)
  • Publishing and unpublishing multiple ReportCaster schedules from ReportCaster Explorer does not work. (200820005)
  • German currency abbreviation for thousands is not applied in data labels. (200325013)

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 87, Firefox version 82, Microsoft Edge Chromium version 86 (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