Action Request System 6.0.1 Release ... - NC State Remedy …remedy.ncsu.edu/project/advisory/ARS60Rel_Notes.pdf · Introduction W 5 Chapter1 Introduction These release notes provide

Action Request System 6.0.1 Release Notes

April 28, 2004

Part No: AR-601-RN-01

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This edition applies to version 6.0.1 of the licensed program.

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Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Overview of these Release Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0.1? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Menu style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Dialog box styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Selection list style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Table style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

What’s new in Flashboards 6.0.1? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

CSS control over Flashboards appearance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Flashboards modifiable parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Simplified development of applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Miscellaneous features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

What’s new in Flashboards 6.0? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Drill-down capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Summary collection of data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

New Flashboards URL option. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Customized options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

AR System 6.0 and other Remedy products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Compatibility information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Operational guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Contact information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Telephone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Contents 3

Action Request System 6.0

Chapter 2 Internationalization issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Languages supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Localized forms included . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

AR System installed in an international environment—UNIX . . . . . . . 36

Login pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Default font settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Data imported in XML format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

European language issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Euro symbol and Oracle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Database compatibility issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Product compatibility matrixes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Japanese language issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Compatibility issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Full text search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Input method editor (IME). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Double-byte issues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Passwords . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Install directory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

General issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Same locale settings for mid tier and web client . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Support of Unicode with multiple languages on shared database . . . . . . 42

View fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Status-History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Chapter 3 Open issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

4 Contents

Chapter

1
Introduction
These release notes provide information you need if you are installing and

using Remedy® Action Request System® (AR System®) 6.0.1. Read these release notes thoroughly, as they will help you avoid pitfalls you might otherwise encounter. Read this chapter before installing the software and before contacting Remedy Customer Support to report a bug.

Overview of these Release Notes (page 6)

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0.1? (page 6)

What’s new in Flashboards 6.0.1? (page 11)

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0? (page 19)

What’s new in Flashboards 6.0? (page 28)

AR System 6.0 and other Remedy products (page 29)

Compatibility information (page 29)

Operational guidelines (page 30)

Contact information (page 31)

Important: To obtain the most current version of release notes, which include all open issues, go to the Remedy Customer Support home page: http://supportweb.remedy.com

Introduction 5

http://supportweb.remedy.com

Action Request System 6.0.1

Overview of these Release Notes

These release notes include the following chapters:

Chapter 1, “Introduction” (this chapter), lists new features and provides product compatibility information and operation guidelines.

Chapter 2, “Internationalization issues,” discusses supported languages and compatibility.

Chapter 3, “Open issues,” describes open issues in the AR System 6.0.1 release. Suggestions for working around these issues, if known, are provided.

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0.1?

The information in this section provides an overview of the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) control over the following aspects of the web client GUI added in AR System 6.0.1:

“Menu style” on page 7

“Dialog box styles” on page 8

“Selection list style” on page 10

“Table style” on page 11

Note: Some AR System CSS classes might not work as expected for Netscape Navigator or Mozilla. For more information about this topic and about AR System and CSS in general, see the Using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) with AR System 6.x white paper available from the Documentation link at http://supportweb.remedy.com/

Warning: Make a backup copy of the original CSS in case your changes do not work and you need to restore the original values to the CSS.

AR System 6.0.1 also consists of numerous bugs fixed since 6.0 and includes all patches in the AR System code line up to the present time.

For latest version of the 6.0.1 Release Notes, go to the Documentation link (under Issues and Solutions) at http://supportweb.remedy.com/

6 Chapter 1—Introduction

http://supportweb.remedy.com/beta/compatibilitymatrix_AR51_beta.htm


Release Notes

Menu styleYou can control certain web client menu styles for character fields, currency fields, and the query bar using the following CSS classes:

MenuStyle controls the style of the entire menu, such as the border attributes, font attributes and background attributes.

MenuFocusStyle controls the style of the menu item that currently has focus, either by mouse cursor or keyboard.

MenuDivStyle is used internally by the system to properly display the menu.

Note: Do not modify the MenuDivStyle class.

The following illustration shows a menu displayed using new 6.0.1 style sheet values.

This example uses the following style sheet classes:

.MenuStyle {border: 1px solid #717375; border-collapse: collapse; cursor: default; background-color: #fafafa; font-family:MS Sans Serif; font-size:8pt;}

.MenuFocusStyle {background-color: #D1F291; font-weight: normal; }

.MenuDivStyle {visibility: hidden; position: absolute; z-index: 1000000;}

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0.1? 7


Here is the same menu displayed using a custom style sheet.

This example uses the following style sheet classes:

.MenuStyle { border: 1px solid blue; border-collapse: collapse; cursor: default; background-color: #DAD9FF; font-family: Arial; font-size:10pt; color: blue; }

.MenuStyle TD { border: 1px solid blue; }

.MenuFocusStyle {background:#A7A3FD url(menuhighlight.gif) repeat-x;}

Note: The image for the submenu arrow can also be changed, but not using CSS. That image is called menu_arrow.gif and is located under the <Mid-Tier install directory>/apps/shared/images. Any changes to that image will affect menus in all applications deployed through the mid tier.

Note: The menus for Drop-down List fields are controlled with the existing DropDownStyle class. This class affects the data portion of the field itself.

Dialog box stylesYou can control body styles (background, font, and so on) and button styles for various types of dialog boxes using CSS classes.

Body stylesDialogBody is the parent class that defines the attributes of all system dialog boxes. Use the following classes to control the appearance of various dialog boxes on an individual basis:

ErrorMsgBody controls the appearance of active link error message dialog boxes. This class is applicable only to Internet Explorer browsers.

WarningMsgBody controls the appearance of active link warning message dialog boxes. This class is applicable only to Internet Explorer browsers.


Release Notes

NoteMsgBody controls the appearance of active link note message dialog boxes. This class is applicable only to Internet Explorer browsers.

SelectDialogBody controls the appearance of selection list dialog boxes. See “Selection list style” on page 10 for more information about selection lists.

DateTimeDialogBody controls the appearance of date/time calendar popup and date picker dialog boxes.

AttachDialogBody controls the appearance of Attachment dialog boxes.

EditDialogBody controls the appearance of text editor dialog boxes for a character and diary fields.

CurrencyDialogBody controls the appearance of Currency dialog boxes.

ConfirmDialogBody controls the appearance of system-generated Overwrite Changes and Save Request confirmation dialog boxes. This class is applicable only to Internet Explorer browsers.

StatusHistoryDialogBody controls the appearance of Status History dialog boxes.

Button styles

DialogButton is the parent class that defines the attributes of all buttons in system-generated dialog boxes. Use the following classes to control the appearance of various buttons on an individual basis:

DialogOKButton controls the appearance of OK buttons in system-generated dialog boxes.

DialogYesButton controls the appearance of Yes buttons in system-generated dialog boxes.

DialogNoButton controls the appearance of No buttons in system-generated dialog boxes.

DialogCancelButton controls the appearance of Cancel buttons in system-generated dialog boxes.

DialogCloseButton controls the appearance of Close buttons in system-generated dialog boxes.

DialogBrowseButton controls the appearance of Browse buttons in system-generated dialog boxes.

Note: The DialogBrowseButton style is currently used by Attachment dialog boxes only. It affects the style of the both the input box and the Browse button. You can only change the border of the Browse button.

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0.1? 9


Selection list styleYou can control background and font styles for AR System selection list using the following CSS classes:

SelectDialogBody sets the properties for the entire selection list window. Typically, the color you set using this class is ineffective, because the list and footer take up the most, if not all, of the window. But if background color is not set for List and Footer, they take their background from this rule.

SelectDialogList sets thebackground color for the list part only.

SelectDialogList PRE sets the font family and size of list items. The browser’s default fixed-width font is used if Font Family is not declared. If the Font Family is declared, designate only fixed width fonts to maintain column alignment.

SelectDialogFooter sets the background color for the footer, where control buttons are.

Note: To change the style of the footer buttons, create an extra CSS rule with the contextual selector, .SelectDialogFooter BUTTON.

Here is an example of an AR System selection list.


Release Notes

Table styleYou can apply alternating row styles to table fields using the TableAlternateRowStyle class. By setting the TableAlternateRowStyle class, alternating rows of the table field assume the attributes of that class, as shown in the following illustration. The existing .TableDataStyle class is used for the other rows.

What’s new in Flashboards 6.0.1?

Remedy Flashboards 6.0.1 introduces CSS control over certain aspects of Flashboards appearance and some new modifiable parameters.

CSS control over Flashboards appearanceYou can control Flashboards user customization widgets using the AR System CSS (arsys_ie.css or arsys_nn7.css) or the application-specific CSS (application_ie.css or application_nn7.css). You enable the display of these widgets by setting the customization option in the Custom Properties on the Flashboards field properties dialog box. See the Remedy Flashboards Administrator’s Guide for information about how to set the customization option.

You can use the cssstyle parameter to exercise CSS-like control over your Flashboards’ appearance. See “User-customizable widgets parameter” on page 12 for more information.

What’s new in Flashboards 6.0.1? 11


Flashboards modifiable parametersYou can control certain aspects of your Flashboards using modifiable parameters. This section describes modifiable parameters introduced in Remedy Flashboards 6.0.1.

Note: Use the procedures described in the Remedy Flashboards Administrator’s Guide to set the properties described in the following tables.

User-customizable widgets parameter

Parameter Description

cssstyle The value from this parameter will be embedded in a style tag in the HTML returned by the flashboards mid tier. You use this parameter only when the customization option is turned on.

You can specify values for the following CSS classes:

DropDownStyle—Controls appearance of all drop down lists.

EditFieldStyle—Controls appearance of all edit boxes.

PushButton—Controls appearance of the button to customize the chart.

Specify this value using standard CSS notation.

The following example specifies that push buttons will be red and have a font size of 8 points:

cssstyle=”.PushButton { color:#FF0000; font-size:8pt;}”


Release Notes

General chart parameters

Title parameters


chartoutlinecolor Indicates the color of the chart’s outline. Specify this value using the color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

chartoutlinewidth Indicates the width of the line outlining the chart. Specify a positive integer.

appalias A string that identifies the application web alias for the application with which this flashboard is associated. The appalias parameter is used to pick up an application-specific style sheet (application_ie.css or application_nn.css) under the Resources directory for an application.


showcharttitle Indicates whether to show the chart title.

0=Do not show chart title.

1=(Default) Show chart title.

charttitlefont Indicates the font used for the chart title. Use a font str format to express this value. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

charttitlecolor Indicates the color of the text in the title. Use a color str format to express this value. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

charttitlealignment Indicates how the chart title is aligned horizontally.

0=Left

1=Center (Default)

2=Right

charttitleplacement Indicates where the chart title is placed vertically.

0=Top (Default)

1=Bottom



Legend parameters

Graph parameters


legendtitlefont Indicates the font used for the chart’s legend title. Specify this value in font str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

legendtitlecolor Indicates the color of the chart’s legend title. Specify this value in color str format See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

legendtitlealignment Indicates the alignment of the legend title’s text.

0 = Left

1 = Center (Default)

2 = Right

legenditemfont Indicates the font to be used for the items in the chart’s legend. Specify a value in font str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

legenditemcolor Indicates the color of the items in the chart’s legend. Specify a value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

legendbackgroundcolor Indicates the color of the background of the chart’s legend. Specify a value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

legendoutlinecolor Indicates the color of the outline of the chart’s legend. Specify a value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

legendoutlinewidth Indicates the width of the line outlining the chart’s legend. Specify an integer.


showyaxis Indicates whether to show the Y axis.

0 = Do not show the Y axis.

1 = Show the Y axis. (Default)

yaxislabelfont Indicates the font used for the label on the Y axis. Specify this value in font str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.


Release Notes

yaxislabelcolor Indicates the color used for the label on the Y axis. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

yaxisshowticks Indicates whether to show tick marks on the Y axis.

0 = Do not show tick marks.

1= Show tick marks. (Default)

yaxistickscolor Indicates the color used for the tick marks on the Y axis. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

yaxisshowtickslabel Indicates whether to show tick mark labels on the Y axis.

0 = Do not show tick mark labels.

1 = Show tick mark labels (Default)

yaxistickslabelfont Indicates the font used for the tick mark labels on the Y axis. Specify this value in font str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

yaxistickslabelcolor Indicates the color used for the tick mark labels on the Y axis. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

yaxisgridlinecolor Indicates the color of the gridlines associated with the Y axis. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

showxaxis Indicates whether to show the X axis.

0 = Do not show the X axis.

1 = Show the X axis. (Default)

xaxislabelfont Indicates the font used for the label on the X axis. Specify this value in font str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

xaxislabelcolor Indicates the color used for the label on the X axis. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

xaxisshowticks Indicates whether to show tick marks on the X axis.

0 = Do not show tick marks.

1= Show tick marks. (Default)




Value label parametersThese parameters apply to the value labels that appear when point values are displayed (show Values=1).

xaxistickscolor Indicates the color used for the tick marks on the X axis. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

xaxisshowtickslabel Indicates whether to show tick mark labels on the X axis.

0 = Do not show tick mark labels.

1 = Show tick mark labels (Default)

xaxistickslabelfont Indicates the font used for the tick mark labels on the X axis. Specify this value in font str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

xaxistickslabelcolor Indicates the color used for the tick mark labels on the X axis. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

xaxisgridlinecolor Indicates the color of the gridlines associated with the X axis. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

graphbackgroundcolor Indicates the color of the background of the graph. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.


valuelabelfont Indicates the font used for the label shown above the bars. Specify this value in font str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

valuelabelcolor Indicates the color used for the label shown above the bars. Specify this value in color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.



Release Notes

3-D parameters

Meter parameters


3daxisxoffset Indicates the width of the 3D wall on the X axis. Specify this value in natural number format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

3daxisyoffset Indicates the width of the 3D wall on the Y axis. Specify this value in natural number format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

3dwallcolor Indicates the color of the 3D wall. Specify this value in the color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.


normalcolor Indicates the color of the normal range of the meter. Specify this value in the color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

needlecolor Indicates the color of the meter needle. Specify this value in the color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

warningcolor Indicates the color of the warning range of the meter. Specify this value in the color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.

alertcolor Indicates the color of the alert range of the meter. Specify this value in the color str format. See “Flashboard parameter value formats” on page 18.



Flashboard parameter value formatsSome Flashboards modifiable parameters require that you specify values using a specific format. The following table describes these formats.

Format Description

natural number Any positive integer or zero (0).

Note: Specifying a negative integer might return unexpected results.

font str Font string specified by using following format:

style-size-fontname

where

style is one of the following:

0 = Normal

1= Bold

2 = Italic

3 = Bold & Italic

size is the font size in points.

fontname is the name of the font.

For example, 1-10-SansSerif indicates a 10 pt., bold Sans Serif font.

color str Color string specified by a hex string of the following format:

RRGGBB

where,

RR - red color component

GG - green color component

BB - blue color component

For example, FF0000 indicates red, 00FF00 indicates green, and 0000FF indicates blue


Release Notes

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0?

Warning: Your pre-6.0 AR System licenses will not work with the 6.0 release. You must obtain new licenses. Remedy Customer Support has simplified this process by providing a web interface to the application that regenerates your license file. The Remedy Customer Support page provides a link for accessing the license update page. For complete information on obtaining and activating your licenses, see the Configuring AR System guide. If you have additional questions, speak to your representative about obtaining a new license or modifying your existing licenses.

The information in this section provides an overview of the features that were added in AR System 6.0. See the AR System 6.0 documentation for more specific information about these features.

AR System 6.0 improves the development environment for rapidly designing, deploying, and managing applications. It also:

Simplifies how developers package and deploy applications, their permissions, and their data.

Simplifies how users access AR System applications.

Lets developers license their applications.

Allows workflow to be “locked” and hidden it modification.

Lets you manage and track applications and systems more easily.

AR System 6.0 also consists of numerous bugs fixed since 5.1.2 and includes all patches in the AR System code line up to the present time.

For earlier versions of the 5.1.x Release Notes, go to the Documentation link (under Issues and Solutions) at http://supportweb.remedy.com/

These Release Notes also list bugs fixed in earlier product versions.

What’s new in Action Request System 6.0? 19



Simplified development of applicationsThe following 6.0 features provide an architecture for applications that clearly defines what is local and unique to an application, while allowing sharing of data and functionality from other applications. These features also let administrators structure workflow so that it can be re-used and shared. Developers can now reduce the number of individual elements required to make an application function.

Deployable applicationsDeployable applications are applications that use permissions based on roles and are easily portable to other servers.

Roles are server objects similar to groups, except that role permissions are determined by application. Roles are mapped to groups on the target servers at the time of installation, making deployable applications especially useful when the groups on target servers are unknown or vary by server.

Roles are mapped to groups for particular application states, such as Maintenance, Production, or Test. This lets you assign different permissions based on the phases of the application life cycle. For example, you can map group Test to role Manager for the Test state, and map group Management to role Manager for the Production state.

Deployable applications and the objects inside them can be exported into a single definition file, and then imported onto a new server. You can also choose to export and import data (such as control data) with your application.

Application home page and simplified entry pointsThe “Home Page” is a console window that is generated from the AR System. The Home Page window appears by default on both web clients and Remedy User when users log in to the AR System. This window lists the available applications and their exposed entry points on a given server or server group.

“Entry points” let you customize the way applications, forms, and active link guides are accessed by users, so users do not have to worry about which server an application resides on, or which “mode” is required to perform their task. You customize the labels of the entry points to make them task-specific and easily identifiable.


Release Notes

Auto layoutThe auto-layout feature precisely aligns fields in rows and columns according to a one-, two-, or three-column layout. Each field on the page is sized and aligned properly without manual adjustments. An exposed style sheet dialog box lets you specify the space between rows, headers, within navigation areas, and so on. Using the style sheet provides consistency among all forms and applications, if you choose to do so.

Application access points

Application access points are forms and guides in an application marked for integration with other applications.

When creating workflow that specifies source or target forms and guides, the developer can choose to limit the list of available forms and guides to only those within the current application and to those outside the application that have been identified as access points. This reduces the number of forms and guides to choose from, and ensures that developers select from forms and guides intended for integration.

Enhanced development environmentUpdates have been made to the Remedy Administrator graphical user interface to facilitate development within an application. When you create or open an application, it appears in an application window, which is similar to a server window, except it only shows those objects included in the application. As you create new objects, they are added to the application. Objects in one application window can be dragged and dropped into another application window. You can still develop outside of an application, or create new objects in the server window and add them to an application later, as desired.

You can also view objects by type, or in a tree that groups objects into folders based on naming conventions you define using colon (:) delimiters. For example, all objects named HD:<name> are grouped in the HD folder.

Non-editable character fieldsA new, non-editable character field type lets you constrain the field entries to options that appear in a field list. The list appears when you click an arrow button beside the field. You cannot type an entry in this character field. The list options can change according to current workflow needs.



Open Window action can open certain viewsThe 6.0 release provides a client-side extension to the name of a view that controls which view is opened from an Open Window action. This feature is especially useful for users with accessibility needs. For example, a special view for a screen reader can be opened based on workflow, depending on a new user preference.

Archiving dataThis feature provides a simple way to back up and store data periodically without involving a database backup. When you select a form for archiving, you have two options: 1) copy the selected entries to a shadow form and delete the data, or 2) delete the entries. You can archive all types of forms except for Join forms and Display forms. To record whether the archive has taken place, the administrator can turn on server events by using the Server Events tab in Server Information.

Dynamic workflowThe Dynamic Workflow feature lets you acquire a server name and form (or guide) at runtime from workflow, or from information a user would enter into certain fields.

AR System group enhancementsThree new types of groups are included in this release—computed groups, dynamic groups, and single-user groups.

Computed groups allow you to specify permissions based on the list of users who belong to, or do not belong to, specific groups or sets of groups. For example, you can create a computed group that includes the list of users who are members of both groups A and B, or members of group C, but not members of group D.

Dynamic groups extend the Assignee Group (field ID 112) functionality to include field IDs in the range of 60000 to 60999. For example, when you create a group with group ID 60000, its user list includes members of any group or role that appears in field ID 60000.

You can specify individual user names in computed group definitions or in dynamic group fields. In these contexts, user names behave like “single-user groups,” or groups that include only one user; you do not need to create new groups and assign single users to them.


Release Notes

Server groupsThis feature lets system administrators combine multiple AR System servers into one logical server grouping. All servers in the Server Group must be connected to one AR System database. The Server Group feature allows the sharing of floating licenses, and provides automatic fail-over for certain operations (for example, escalations) for the servers in the Server Group.

Auto-Generation of web viewsThe administrator can elect to have fixed web views automatically created from Windows views. Fixed web views provide a match between Windows and web views for a consistent look between Remedy User and browser interfaces. This eliminates several steps required in prior releases to create and manage multiple views.

GUID enhancementThere is a new field ID (179) that, when assigned to an empty character field, triggers the server to auto-populate the field with a GUID. It eliminates the need to contact the server with the $PROCESS$ command each time a GUID needs to be generated.

Window-scoped global fieldsA window-scoped global field is a display-only field similar to a global field, whose value remains the same when the window is cleared, or when next or previous requests are displayed. Unlike a global field, the value of a window-scoped global field is set for one window and cannot be shared across multiple windows.

Server-side table fieldsThe server-side table field feature lets you use workflow to manipulate data on the server without exposing it on the client. The greatest benefit of using server-side table fields is performance, because you are not using API calls from the client to the server.

Track and monitor applicationsThis release provides the ability to track and monitor an application, reporting the number of times an application has been accessed, when it was accessed, and other variables associated with the application. These statistics enable administrators to monitor and analyze the performance of their applications.



Built-in application licensingThis feature lets customers make their AR System applications licensable either at the application level or the user level.

Object lockingWith the object-locking feature, you can “lock” objects during export to prevent them from being modified (Read-Only) or viewed (Hidden).

Miscellaneous featuresThe 6.0 release also includes these additional features:

Improvements to the 6.0 AR System documentation

The C API Quick Reference Guide is a new document that lists the syntax of the C API calls and the XML API calls.

If you use Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the Action Request System Master Index manual online, you can click on the individual index entries to link to the other PDF manuals. However, these links only work if all the PDF files for the Action Request System library are in the same directory.

The Developing AR System: Basic and Developing AR System: Advanced manuals both include a combined index, which is also hyperlinked. When viewing the PDF files, you can click on the individual index entries to link between both manuals.

Note: Use the 5.x or the 6.0.1 (or later) versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the combined index. Do not use the 6.0 version.

Improved definition importThe improved definition import feature lets you overwrite existing forms without deleting existing data or breaking links to workflow.

Simple network management protocol (SNMP) interfaceThis feature lets system administrators and IT personnel use SNMP-compliant management consoles (such as BMC Patrol) to monitor AR System statistics remotely.


Release Notes

Unicode databaseSupport for Unicode databases lets applications support both multi-byte languages (such as Chinese and Japanese) and single-byte languages (such as English and German) using the same database. Maintaining one database for multiple languages greatly simplifies administration and maintenance of applications in global installations. Note that multiple AR System servers can share a single database and that for each character set, a separate AR System server is required.

Simplified Chinese localization AR System supports Simplified Chinese as a localized language.

Character-based functions This internationalization feature lets you create workflow with character-oriented (not byte-oriented) functions, LEFTC(), LENGTHC(), LPADC(), RIGHTC(), RPADC(), STRSTRC(), and SUBSTRC(). Before this feature was available, a developer working in a multi-byte language, such as Japanese, would not be able to obtain the five leftmost Japanese multi-byte characters.

Improved password protection This feature provides stronger encryption for passwords, using an algorithm that is 64-bit ARC4. The encryption is backward-compatible to earlier releases of AR System.



Mid tier enhancementsThis feature consists of five subfeatures:

Web reporting—This subfeature enables UNIX support for the mid tier and Crystal Enterprise by allowing users to run the mid tier on UNIX and Crystal Enterprise on Windows. The feature also lets Crystal Enterprise users to configure multiple AR System servers and authentication strings for each mid tier.

Web deployment—This subfeatures lets users display a list of dates and times an application was deployed.

Application-specific cascading style sheets—This subfeature lets users specify a style sheet for each AR System application.

“onError” parameter for LoginServlet—This subfeature streamlines authentication procedures by allowing administrators to redirect authentication requests to a specified location.

User interface for proxy settings (Remedy Administrator, mid tier, AR System servers)—This subfeature simplifies the process of adding proxy settings for Remedy Administrator, mid tier, and AR System servers by providing a user interface to add or modify common proxy settings.

Updated handling for user_cache tableThis feature defines the maximum number of times a user license can be modified to a fixed write license type and describes how system administrators can reset users who have been blocked because they exceeded the number of attempts.

License tool in Remedy Administrator toolThis feature makes all licensing information available to the user through Remedy Administrator, which is the tool users employ to add other configuration information.

License API to import and export licensesThis feature lets users add new license information by importing a license file to the server and either overwriting the existing license file or appending the contents of the new file to the existing file. Users can also use Remedy Administrator to add license information.


Release Notes

Improved loggingYou can add logging options that improve the performance of logging by reducing contention within the server, and enable each thread to maintain its own workflow logs. An option has been added to buffer logged lines by the file system instead of immediately writing them to disk, which improves performance. Another new option lets an administrator specify per-thread logging, which reduces contention for semaphores and file handles to improve performance. In addition, the API log on the server has been enhanced to include more information about the client that submitted the API call, making it easier to identify the source of the call.

License changes in 6.0

Unlike past releases of the AR System, the same user now cannot be logged in to an AR System server from different client machines at the same time. For example, a user can still run multiple instances of the clients on one machine using the same user name and password, but they cannot have two active sessions on two different physical machines. You still can use multiple clients from the same machine. AR System administrators are exempt from this restriction and can be logged in from multiple machines at the same time.

Remedy has added a Restricted Read license type to the 6.0 release. The Restricted Read license lets users access the AR System from multiple machines at the same time using the same login for search and submit tasks, but without the ability to modify records. For example, a Restricted Read license is ideal for anonymous or guest access scenarios where users are completing on-line surveys. Using this license type, a user can submit and search for tickets, but they cannot modify their own or any other user’s records.

For additional details, see the Configuring AR System guide.

JRE no longer included in email engine installerJRE version 1.4.1_01 is no longer installed automatically by the email engine installer for you. Consult the compatibility matrix at http://supportweb.remedy.com/ for the exact JRE requirements to use with the email engine for your system. To download the latest version of the JRE, visit the Sun Java website at http://java.sun.com/.


http://supportweb.remedy.com/


http://java.sun.com/


What’s new in Flashboards 6.0?

The Remedy Flashboards® product lets you graphically display and monitor information from the AR System database. Flashboards 6.0 provides you with the ability to customize and personalize your flashboards, and lets system administrators to create flashboards in an easier and faster manner.

To use the Flashboards product directly with deployable applications, you must change group permissions manually. See the Flashboards Administrator's Guide for more information.

Note: Flashboards are not localized for the 6.0 release.

The Flashboards 6.0 release has the following new features:

Drill-down capacityThe drill-down feature introduced in 6.0 lets you interact with the graphs Flashboards creates. You can now click on your flashboards and see, modify, and delete the values the server used to create that section of the flashboard.

Summary collection of dataThe summary collection of data feature lets system administrators summarize historical data collected for a flashboard. For example, you can use summary collection, in conjunction with regular scheduling, to collect AR System data daily and summarize and display the data every week.

New Flashboards URL optionThe 6.0 release introduced a new parameter for the Flashboards URL to support dynamic qualification, which lets administrators create qualifications that override an existing variable’s qualifications. For example, you create a flashboard that displays bug information, such as bug priority, person assigned to the bug, and person who assigned the bug. You then create and set qualifications based upon these fields.

This feature lets system administrators create a flashboard that displays customized statistics for screen data in real time, without the need to modify the flashboard's variable definition.


Release Notes

Customized optionsThe 6.0 release includes new customized options, which allow you to customize your flashboards charts. For example, you can change the chart title of an existing flashboard.

AR System 6.0 and other Remedy products

Updates to other AR System products (such as Migrator) that are compatible with the AR System 6.0 release are being planned. Further information will be available as these updates become available.

For the most current information about compatibility of various AR System products with AR System 6.0, see the product compatibility white paper found at http://supportweb.remedy.com.

Compatibility information

Compatibility matrices for Remedy products, which identify the hardware and software requirements for installing this release, are available in the Software pages of the Remedy Customer Support web site at: supportweb.remedy.com.

Remedy recommends that you check the web sites of the suppliers of the platforms in use at your site to verify they are still supported. Remedy does not support platforms that are no longer supported by the vendor.

The latest, most accurate product compatibility information is always documented in the compatibility matrix. Carefully read the system requirements for your particular OS, especially necessary patch requirements.

AR System 6.0 and other Remedy products 29





Operational guidelines

To install, use, and troubleshoot Action Request System 6.0.1 software:

1 Read these release notes in their entirety to ensure you have complied with all system requirements and you understand any dependencies forAction Request System 6.0.1.

2 Read the Installing AR System guide before installing Action Request System 6.0.1.

3 Install the product according to the directions in the Installing AR System guide.

4 If a problem occurs while installing or operating Action Request System 6.0.1, follow these steps:

a See these Release Notes to determine whether the problem you are experiencing is an open issue with a known resolution or workaround.

b See your documentation to make sure you are following recommended procedures.

c For troubleshooting information, see the following:

The appropriate knowledge base on the Remedy Customer Support web site: http://supportweb.remedy.com

The Action Request System Error Messages Guide

The Remedy Error Messages form provided with your server for message descriptions; to install the form, see the Action Request System Error Messages Guide.

d If you cannot find a solution or feel the problem is one that should be reported to Remedy for action, contact Remedy Customer Support through one of the methods described in “Contact information.”



Release Notes

Contact information

Remedy has an extensive online customer support web site available 24 hours a day. From this web site you can obtain product licenses, submit service requests and surveys, consult our Knowledge Base, review Technical Notes, obtain product documentation, and enter enhancement requests.

1 To access the Remedy Customer Support web site, go to http://supportweb.remedy.com

2 Enter a current login name and your password. If you do not know your user name and password, contact Remedy Customer Support.

3 Click the Issues and Solutions link to submit tickets, access the Compatibility Matrix, and obtain licenses. You will be notified and given a ticket number when Remedy Customer Support receives your request.

Telephone Direct access to Remedy Customer Support engineers is available by telephone. You can find the telephone numbers for all Remedy products by accessing the Customer Support web site at http://supportweb.Remedy.com. Before contacting Remedy Customer Support, have ready your user name, password, and system and environment information.

International customers outside these areas, contact your local Remedy Partner for support.

Email Remedy also accepts technical inquiries by email. Send your requests to [email protected]. You will receive email notification when your message is received.

If you have specific questions or comments about the content of the product documentation, send email to [email protected].

Contact information 31







Chapter

2
Internationalization issues
This chapter discusses the following issues for international users:

Languages supported (page 34)

Localized forms included (page 35)

AR System installed in an international environment—UNIX (page 36)

Login pages (page 36)

Default font settings (page 38)

Data imported in XML format (page 38)

European language issues (page 39)

Japanese language issues (page 40)

Double-byte issues (page 41)

General issues (page 42)

Internationalization issues 33


Languages supported

AR System 6.0 supports data input and manipulation in the following languages:

Western Europe: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish (windows-1252)

Central Europe: Albanian, Croatian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, and Slovenian (windows-1250)

Baltic: Estonian, Greenlandic, Lappish, Latvian, and Lithuanian (windows-1257)

Traditional Chinese (BIG5)

Simplified Chinese (GB2312)

Japanese (Shift-Jis and EUC)

Korean (EUC-KR)

Note: On Japanese operating systems, AR System 6.0 supports JIS X 0201-1976 and JIS X 0208-1978 Shift-JIS character sets. However, due to a non-Remedy limitation, some Japanese characters are not supported in web browsers. (See http://www.w3.org/TR/japanese-xml/#ambiguity_of_yen for conversion problems from Shift-JIS to Unicode.)

For Kanji, JIS Level 1 and Level 2 are supported. Gaiji (extended characters) is not supported; if used, data can display incorrectly or be corrupted. On Japanese UNIX servers, AR System 6.0 only supports the EUC character set.

AR System supports mixed language environments if the languages belong to the same language group and the AR System server is running on a localized operating system with a localized version of the database; otherwise, characters might not be properly handled and displayed.

For example, the following combinations are supported since the languages belong to the same language group:

Czech and Polish clients on a server set to Hungarian

French, German, and English clients on a server set to German

34 Chapter 2—Internationalization issues

http://www.w3.org/TR/japanese-xml/#ambiguity_of_yen

Release Notes

Although languages from the same language group can be mixed, for some advanced locale-specific operations involving sorting and date and time format, the language version of the server operating system and database must match that of the client to ensure optimal performance.

Combining languages from different language groups is not supported, for example:

Spanish and Japanese

Estonian and Croatian

French and Polish

Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese

Localized forms included

The language version of the forms and data installed with the AR System server is relative to the language selected for the installation. With AR System 6.0, the following forms are localized in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese:

If you install the AR System server on an operating system set up for one of the following languages, French, German, Italian, or Spanish, the forms just listed will contain views in these languages as well as English. For example, if you install the AR System server on an Italian operating system, these forms will contain views in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish. The data installed by default will be the Italian data. All other language versions will also be installed on your local drive and can be imported using the AR System Administrator and AR System Import tools.

Group Home Page

User Report

Alert List ReportCreator

AR System User Central File ReportSelection

AR System User Preference ReportType

Localized forms included 35


If you install the AR System server on a Japanese operating system, the forms just listed will contain views in English and in Japanese. The data installed by default will be in Japanese. Only English and Japanese definitions and data will be installed on your local drive and can be imported using the AR System Administrator and AR System Import tools.

AR System installed in an international environment—UNIX

You must create a database with a character set that is capable of storing your data. Also, set up the database NLS parameter correctly to support the database NLS functionality. The AR System will not take care of these database NLS setup issues.

The user must check the following language environments prior to installation:

LANGNLS_LANG (Oracle only)

The current value of LANG can be determined by issuing the locale command. The values to those parameters vary between platforms. Refer to the appropriate manual of the operating system and database; otherwise the user will experience the wrong character set conversion in forms, data, and FTS functions. In addition, you will not be able to import data properly.

Login pages

AR System provides login pages for the following languages: English, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese. This allows users to log in entering a user name and password in their native language. (Note that you can use only ASCII characters in passwords.) For languages that do not contain login pages, create a new Login.jsp page by following these steps:


Release Notes

To create login pages:

1 Make a copy of Login.jsp located in your mid tier install directory under \apps\shared. By default, it is:

C:\Program Files\AR System\Mid-Tier\apps\shared

2 Add the language variant to the file name following this convention:

Login_xx.jsp

where xx is a language code found in the ISO 639 standard table. To refer to that standard, go to the following web page:

http://www.unicode.org/unicode/onlinedat/languages.html

3 Open the newly created file in a plain text editor (such as Notepad) and replace the character set encoding name (UTF-8) in the following two lines:

<%@ page contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8"%>

<input type="hidden" name="enc" value="UTF-8">

with the following values:

Latin 1 users (Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, and so on): windows-1252

Latin 2 users (Central European—Polish, Czech, Hungarian, and so on): windows-1250

Latin 4 users (Baltic—Latvian, Lithuanian, and so on.): windows-1257

Traditional Chinese: big5

Simplified Chinese: gb2312

Korean: EUC-KR, iso-2022-kr

4 Modify the English labels (for example, Welcome, User Name, Password) to the language you are localizing.

5 Place this new Login_xx.jsp file into the directory where the original Login.jsp resides.

Login pages 37

http://www.unicode.org/unicode/onlinedat/languages.html


6 To display your newly created login page, do one of the following:

Type the URL pointing to it in your browser. For example:

<mid_tier_installed_directory>\apps\shared\login_ja.jsp

While accessing a specific form such as (for Japanese):

<host_name>\arsys\apps\ja\<host_name>\test\test_test.jsp

you are automatically redirected to the login page corresponding to the locale of the mid tier. Otherwise, if the locale is not one of the login page languages provided (Japanese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese), the English login page appears.

For more information, refer to the chapter on localizing AR System applications in the Developing AR System Applications: Basic guide.

Default font settings

All default fonts should be set to the appropriate locale’s fonts. If display problems occur, select a different font in AR System Administrator on the Form Fonts tab by choosing the menu option: File >Preferences.

For example, if you are creating a Japanese view in AR System Administrator, check the default font used, so that all of the user interface appearing on the form will be displayed correctly. The preference is stored in the ar.ini file. In Remedy User, fonts are already set.

Data imported in XML format

When importing Japanese data in .xml format, the data can be Shift-Jis or EUC, but the appropriate character set encoding must be declared at the top of the header file.

For example, if the data is Shift-Jis, the .xml declaration line at the top of the header file should read:

?xml version="1.0" encoding="shift_jis" ?

There is no variation for any other language relative to the type of files imported. Other language .xml files should follow the same rule. The content of the file must be the same as the character set encoding specified at the top of the header file.


Release Notes

The following table displays the generic default character set encoding names.

European language issues

The following sections discuss various issues with European languages.

Euro symbol and OracleTo save, use, and display the Euro symbol € when you are using an Oracle database, be sure to use the WE8MSWIN1252 character set for the instance where you want to install AR System, even on UNIX.

Database compatibility issuesSome Latin sorting with the Oracle database differs from that of the MS SQL Server database. Letters are sorted before numbers. Also, in most cases, “ss” should come before “ß” in a German sort order; with the Oracle database, the “ß” sorts before “ss.”

Language Encoding Name

Traditional Chinese big5

Simplified Chinese gb2312

Western European languages, such as English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and so on.

windows-1252

Central European languages, such as Polish, Czech, Hungarian, and so on.

windows-1250

Baltic languages, such as Latvian, Estonian, and Lithuanian.

windows-1257

Japanese EUC, shift_jis

Korean EUC-KR, is-2022-kr

European language issues 39


Product compatibility matrixesThe AR System products have been installed and tested on combinations of computer platforms, operating systems, and database software. You can obtain the most current version of the compatibility matrixes on the Internet through the AR System home page at:


The latest, most accurate product compatibility information is always documented in the compatibility matrix.

Japanese language issues

The following sections discuss various issues with the Japanese language.

Compatibility issues

Operating systemThe Japanese Emperor calendar is not supported.

Certain configurations of Sendmail for UNIX support Hankaku (single-byte) Katakana. Refer to your Sendmail manual to find out if you can use Hankaku Katakana by changing your configuration.

Full text searchFTS is available for Japanese on the Solaris platform. All the available FTS support files are shipped with AR System. AR System has the following FTS issues:

Hankaku (single-byte) Katakana is not supported for FTS searches. Use Zenkaku (double-byte) Katakana instead.

You cannot search double-byte symbols.

You cannot search Hiragana.

FTS does not differentiate single-byte from double-byte numbers and alphabet.


http://supportweb.remedy.com/CompatibilityMatrix/ars5.1.htm

http://supportweb.remedy.com/supportweb/

Release Notes

Input method editor (IME)An input method editor (IME) program converts keystrokes and ideographs or other characters, usually by using a user-guided dictionary. AR System 6.0 uses intelligent IME switching. AR System turns off IME automatically when the user must enter numeric or alphabetic data. When using the IME, remember the following rules:

IME is turned off in numeric fields (integer, decimal, real).

IME is turned off when the cursor is on a character field whose pattern is digit, alphabet, and alphanumeric.

IME will be on or off depending on the global state. IME is not forced to be in double-byte mode if its last state is single-byte mode.

Double-byte issues

With an Oracle database, double-byte numeric characters at the beginning of field and form names generate the following warning message:

ARERR69—SQLView is not created correctly.

Workaround Do not use double-byte numeric characters at the beginning of fields, form names, or in AR System server object names.

PasswordsYou cannot use double-byte characters for passwords in all AR System clients.

Install directoryDouble-byte characters do not work in the path name for mid tier installation.

Workaround Do not use double-byte characters for the mid tier installation path name.

Double-byte issues 41


General issues

The following sections address miscellaneous issues.

Same locale settings for mid tier and web clientFor Remedy web applications to run properly, the mid tier and web client must use the same system locale setting.

Support of Unicode with multiple languages on shared databaseTo use AR System with the Unicode Database Option to support multiple languages using a shared database, you must install an English version of AR System server before you install multi language AR System servers.

View fieldsView fields with non-English path names do not work on the web. They are available for Windows view only.

Workaround Use only English characters in the path name, or use an attachment pool, inserted picture, or file link in the view editor for Windows.

Status-HistoryWhen using the search bar on a non-English web client, do not use the Status-History submenu of the search bar menu because the items are not localized correctly.

Workaround Enter the localized string manually by using Field ID 15 to represent the Status-History field in the string, for example, 15.New.TIME.


Chapter

3
Open issues
To obtain the most current version of release notes, which include all open issues, go to the Remedy Customer Support home page: http://supportweb.remedy.com

Go to this URL to view issues that have been identified and are still open with the AR System 6.0.1 software. Where possible, workaround solutions are suggested.

Open issues 43



44 Chapter 3—Open issues

*AR-601-RN-01**AR-601-RN-01**AR-601-RN-01**AR-601-RN-01*

*AR-601-RN-01*

Documents

Action Request System 6.0.1 Release ... - NC State Remedy …remedy.ncsu.edu/project/advisory/ARS60Rel_Notes.pdf · Introduction W 5 Chapter1 Introduction These release notes provide