Universal Controller 6.2.0 Release Notes

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Last updated: Mar 20, 2015Version comment
5 min read

Workflow Improvements

Ability to Insert a Task into an Active Workflow

While workload is active you sometimes need to make ad hoc changes and insert additional tasks. This improvement gives you graphical ability to select the predecessors and successors within the Workflow and graphically insert the task, resulting in a new rendering of the workflow graphic. Loop prevention avoids negative impacts to insertions.

You can also right click on a single task to insert successor(s) or predecessor(s) and the line will be drawn automatically.

Ability to Hide Skipped Tasks

Having the ability to view tasks that are NOT eligible to run during that instance can help you visualize the entire workflow. But, in the cases of extremely large workflows, with various run criteria, the picture can seem too cluttered.

So in 5.1.1, you have the option to “hide” skipped jobs and have the graphical display redrawn with only selected tasks to run in that instance.

Ability To “Unskip” a Task

There are times when a task that is typically “skipped” may need to actually run during that instance, possibly the run criteria was interpreted incorrectly. You can now select the UNSKIP command to actually select the job to run. If the predecessors have already been met, the task will execute immediately when unskipped.

Added a “Find in Graph” function within the Workflow

You may be running some large workflows and sometimes it can be difficult to locate the task quickly. The “Find” function will take you immediately to the desired task.

Expanded Forecasting Ability

Include Tasks within Workflows

Previously, all task types could be forecasted, but if the task type was a Workflow, only the Workflow task itself appeared on the Forecast Calendar, not the tasks within the Workflow. In 5.1.1, you can choose between the Forecast Calendar view, which will just list the Workflow name, and the Forecast List view, which will show the tasks within the Workflow as well. The Forecast Calendar View will now allow you to drill down into the workflow and see the list of all the child tasks within the workflow.

Forecasting has also been updated to include new built-in reports. These reports can display the task run criteria information and only show the tasks that are actually expected to run during that particular workflow instance. For example, you can omit any task being “skipped” for that instance.

For tasks within a triggered workflow, the estimated launch time of those tasks will likely not be the same as the trigger time of the workflow. Therefore, we have added a new column to the forecast record; specifically, Trigger Time. This allows you to create a report for tasks that are triggered in during a specific time window but do not necessarily start running within that same time window.

With Tasks within Workflows included in the Forecast, we have added an additional action of Recalculate Forecast when you right-click a Trigger or a Workflow. If you change Run Criteria or add/remove tasks within a Workflow you might want to Recalculate the Forecast. The Forecasts are recalculated each day at midnight anyway.

Forecast data now includes agent-related information. For example, you can add the Agent for which the task will run on to the list. Then you can forecast what impact taking an agent offline will have so you can find a good window where no tasks are scheduled to run on that agent.

Expanded Date/Time Functions

Expanded Time Triggers

Added DAY STYLE of ‘EVERY’, allowing you to set a trigger to occur every nth days, starting on a certain date. You can also enable an offset of the time, specified in hours and minutes, to give you even more robust capabilities in a single trigger definition.

Expanded Calendar Functionality

We have added the ability to define Custom ‘Periods’ in addition to Custom Days. This can allow you further definition simplification by using a series of dates in one Custom Day .

Calendars will now associate which triggers are referencing a particular calendar, allowing you to more effectively manage calendar definitions, eliminating obsolete calendars safely.

Additional Changes

Ability to Prioritize Workload When Tasks are in Resource Wait Status

Many times you know which tasks could compete for resources and already have a prioritization order. Now you can define this in advance so that the correct tasks will have preference when resources are constrained. This can prevent a long-running, low-priority task from grabbing a resource instead of the higher priority task.

New Bundle Option

“Follow References” option, similar to “Export with References” will gather all related artifacts, i.e. tasks, connections (email, database, SAP), email templates, credentials, and virtual resources. All related items will be reflected in the Bundle Report.

Expanded SAP Functionality

We have extended the SAP capability to include SAP Business Warehouse to allow for Process Chains and Infopackages to be managed using Opswise.

Changes in Opswise Controller Properties

New Properties have been added to control behavior in certain product areas:

  • Enable Trigger Simulation - If you enable this option, the launching of tasks when a trigger fires is simulated. All other aspects of the trigger execution, including generation of forecast data, are enabled. Trigger Now and Launch commands are not impacted by this property.
  • Exclude Holidays for Business Days – If you enable this option, defined Holidays will change Business Day to a “non-business” day. Before changing this property be sure you know the affect on current workload behavior.
  • Workflow Search Result Limit - By default, query results from the Task Find/Open Workflow pop-up dialogs in the Workflow Editor now will be limited to a maximum 200 records to improve performance within the editor in cases where a user does specify an appropriate name/type filter. If the query results exceed the maximum, only the initial 200 results will be returned, along with a message in the Console indicating that you have exceeded the limit and that you should use a more specific filter.

“Opswise Mode” and “Use Logic for Opswise Groups” are no longer in the Properties.

New UI Properties

Added “Items per Page” property to UI Properties Automation Center Administration.

Improvements to File Transfer Task for Opswise MFT (Infitran) Customers

Added MFT code page to Infitran File Transfer Task.

Two already were provided – extended list of support code types available with Opswise MFT.

Miscellaneous Changes

  • Allow List Import/Export of a sys_user_group’s Opswise Permission.
  • Rebranded Opswise Groups to Business Services – to avoid ambiguity with Security Groups.
  • New command that combines “Cancel” and “Force Finish” --> Force Finish/Cancel.
  • Provide a bundled Opswise Controller installation package for AIX.
  • HTTP mechanism to determine the status of a cluster node.
    • More for Load Balancing.
  • Sort variable by name on Launch/Trigger with variables dialog.
  • New ops-update-resource-limit CLI support in the Opswise Controller (will require a future outboard release).