The initial release of Version 9.0 will be deployed to the frevvo Cloud on 8/24/2019. The v9.0 download is available for in-house customers from our Software Downloads Directory.

Publish Flows as Templates

Designers can now publish form AND workflows they have created as templates. The ability to publish workflows as templates was only available for forms in previous releases. Form/Flow Templates make it easy to reuse existing work you have done in previously created forms/flows and to share that work with other designers.

Follow these steps to publish a workflow:

1. Click the Publish icon on the Flows Home Page for the workflow that you want to publish.
   
   
   
   
2.  Fill in the fields on the workflow Publish Template wizard.
   
   
   
   
   • Template Name – This defaults to the name of your form.  You can keep this name or overlay it with a different one.
   • Tags – Type at least one tag that will help you quickly find your template. Type as many tags as you like; if you type more than one, separate them with a comma or a space.
   • Categories - Check the category you want to assign the form to. If no categories appear in the wizard contact your tenant admin to create Categories. It is the responsibility of the tenant admin to create Categories and Manage Templates. You can assign the template to more than one category.
   • Make Public - Check this box to add your form/flow to a queue of Installable templates that can be made available to designers in all tenants. The frevvo global template administrator must share your Installable template across all tenants in the frevvo Cloud for your template to be available to everyone.
   • Description – Enter a description of your form that will display when Forms By Category or Forms By Tag is selected.
     
     
3. When you or other designers in your tenant are ready to use the published workflow template to create a different flow, click the Templates tab, select Forms/Flows by Category or Form/Flows by Tag  then click the category/tag that you specified when you published it.
   
   
   
   
4. The Form and Flow Templates table displays
   
   
   
   
5. Click the Try icon for a preview of the workflow.
6. Click the Create icon to to add it to an existing application. If you do not select an application, will create a new one for you.
7. Click Finish. The Workflow template is imported onto the Flow Designer canvas.
   
   
   
   
8. Now you are ready to modify the workflow template to create a different workflow.

Refer to Templates for more information about publishing forms/flows.

Form and Flow Categories

It is the responsibility of the tenant admin to create Categories  and Manage Templates. Category names now support spaces.

Internet Explorer 11 no longer supported in Design Mode

Designing forms/flows in Internet Explorer 11 is no longer supported. You will see these error messages if you attempt to do so.



You can still run in this browser. Refer to Supported Platforms.  

Additional Locale options for Internationalization

Creole, Hatian (Creole) and Somali locale options have been added to the locale dropdown when internationalizing forms/flows.


 

Sign Up for a free 30 day trial

A Free Signup button has been added to the login screen. Click this button to sign up for a free 30 day trial tenant. Install form/flow templates from our website to get started. Workflow templates automatically launch a Guided Tour to show you how to run the workflow, explain application screens and guide you through some small modifications.

Error Description Column in the Submissions Table

The Error and Error Description columns in the Submission table provide troubleshooting information if a submission logs an error. The Error column displays the error icon and the Error Description column shows a description of the error . The Error Description column has been moved to the last position in the table. Click the Plus icon to see this column if it is not automatically displayed.

Manage Logged in User Sessions through the

frevvo UI.

Users are reporting a Max user limit has been reached error message when they try to login to ?  What does the Superuser/tenant admin(s) do?  In v8.1, you no longer have to restart or wait for the configured session timeout to terminate sessions.

The Manage User Sessions UI makes it easy for the Superuser/initial tenant admin or additional admins to see who is logged in and take action to terminate user sessions. Once the max user limit is reached, only the Superuser admin or the tenant admin that was set up when the tenant was created (initial) are allowed to login. Additional  admin users will be prevented from logging in.

Admins access the Manage Sessions page by clicking the link on the Manage Tenant screen.

The Manage Sessions page displays the following:

• The current number of sessions in the tenant and the maximum session count based on your license.

• A table of the currently logged in user sessions with columns providing the    User Id,   Login Time  , Last Access Time  , Is the user a designer?,   User's device (phone/tablet/desktop) and the Session Timeout value configured for the tenant.

• Option to send a customizable email to a user requesting they logout or kill a user session. The user is notified via email that their session has been terminated by an administrator.  
  
  

Refer to Manage Logged in User Sessions for the details.

Increased Maximum Size for Attachments

The maximum size for attachments uploaded to Upload controls in forms/flows in the frevvo Cloud has been increased to 20 MB (20971520 bytes). As a reminder, there are three places to set the maximum size of attachments in .

1. The server can be configured with a configuration property to specify the maximum size for attachments. The upper limit for attachments in the frevvo Cloud is 20 MB. Uploading attachments greater than this value shows this error message:
   
   
   
   
2. The tenant admin can set the maximum file size per user by editing their profile. Add the value in bytes to the Max Attachment Size field on the Edit User screen.  
   
   
   
   The value in this field overrides the max size value configured on the server level, as long as it does not exceed that value. For example, if the Server was set for 20 MB and the user profile was configured for 15 MB, the user sees this error message when trying to upload a 30 MB attachment:
   
   
3. Designers can specify the max file size per the Max Size property of individual Upload Controls. The image shows a 5 MB Max Size property specified for an Upload Control.
   
   
   
   If a user uploads a file larger than 5 MB to this control, they will see this error
   
   
   

The value of the Max size property of individual Upload controls overrides the value per user which overrides the max size property on the server level. All values must be specified in bytes. If a maximum file size is specified at the server level, the values in the user profile Max Attachment Size field and the Upload Control Max Size property cannot exceed the server max size.

Redesigned Flow Designer Canvas

When you launch the Flow Designer, you will see a more intuitive canvas to create/edit workflows. Designer can quickly see how the flow is routed and have easy access to the properties for each workflow step.

The new canvas:

• Displays workflows in a flow chart format. 
• Adds Lines and arrows are automatically as you build/edit your flow.
• Flashing green “bulls eye” to indicate the exact place where a step is to be placed.
• Flow Step Properties are located on tabs that are easy to get to from the flow step or the Properties Navigator. Help text is provided to make configuration quicker and easier. Each tab contains a link to the documentation if more information is required.
• Designers are notified if tabs contain invalid information and in some cases, you cannot continue until it is fixed.
• Selecting a flow step shows important properties and their values via a new Properties Navigator and action icons relevant to the step e.g. create a linked step, edit the form associated with a form step etc.
• Preconditions represented as a decision box (yellow diamond)
• Simplified routing to a user, role or email address
• Linked steps display a double box indicating that the step is a copy of a prior step in the flow.
• On hover feature for Linked steps shows the name of the parent form that the linked step was copied from.

Easily Add an Anonymous Step to your Workflow

Anonymous steps in a workflow are steps that are performed by an non-authenticated user. This means the user does not have to login to to perform their step in the workflow. 

This a common workflow scenario. Some examples are:

• a Membership workflow that requires reference letters from an external person.
• a Purchase Order Approval requiring the customers review and signature.
  
• a workflow that is sent to an External Vendor for a Quote.

Anonymous steps are simply form steps that route to an email address in version 8.0. That's it.

Create an anonymous step in your workflow by following these simple steps:

• Create the step you want the recipient to see or link to an existing one.
• Click on the step then click the Edit Step Properties icon
  
• Navigate to the Assignment tab.
• Enter a valid email address in the Assign to Email field. Leave the Assign to User and Assign to Role fields blank. Only one email is allowed. checks that the entered address is in the correct format for email. An error displays if it is not. 
• You can use Control Templates in the email field so that it’s dynamic. Enter the left curly brace - { - then start typing the control name and a pick list will appear with matching controls. Selecting the control form the list enters it into the field with the closing curly brace - }  
  
• Customize the email that the anonymous user receives. Control Templates can be used in the email Subject and Message for dynamic behavior as well.
  
• Click Submit.

At runtime, the value in the Assign to Email field is evaluated and an email that contains a link to the anonymous step is sent. The recipient clicks the link to perform the anonymous step. Logging into is not require

•  It is no longer a requirement to set the Who can start the form/flow permission to Anyone (No login required) - called Public in previous releases. The anonymous step will work with any of the Form/flow Visibility choices.
• Designers can now design a workflow that rejects to an Anonymous step.
  
• The Modify a Task feature now allows Tenant/flow administrators to reassign an anonymous step to a different email address.

Existing workflows, created with Email/Anonymous steps, will continue to work after the upgrade to v8.0. However, the ability to reassign an anonymous step to a different email address or rejection to an anonymous step are not available for workflows created with these types of steps. Please review Migrating Flows with EMAIL/Anonymous Task Steps for information to manually migrate these flows to take advantage of the new features.

Migrating Flows with Email or Anonymous Task Steps

Designing a workflow step performed by a non-authenticated (anonymous) user in previous versions required dragging/dropping an Anonymous Task Step from the Flow Designer Palette and configuring it with an email address. The step that followed the Anonymous Task Step was the actual step that the recipient would perform. This design approach was confusing and error prone.

To convert your flow from pre v8.0 to v8.0, we suggest you follow the same procedure that you use to update any other form/flow in Production. Review Administrator Best Practices if you need a refresher.

To convert your Anonymous Task Step to the v8.0 Simple Anonymous step(s) follow these instructions:

1. Login to your Production tenant or the user account where your Production forms/flows are located.
2. Ensure there are no flows in flight for the workflow you want to update.

3. Download the workflow from your Production tenant or Production designer account.

4. Upload it into a different application in your test tenant or designer test account

5. Edit the existing Email/Anonymous Task step.

6. Click the Edit Step Properties icon. Click on the Assignment tab.
7. Copy the information in the Assign to Email, Task Notification Subject and Message fields. Paste this information to a text pad and save to your desktop. Click Cancel.
8. Click on the step following the Email/Anonymous Step. (the step performed by the anonymous user)
9. Click the Edit Step Properties icon. Click on the Assignment tab.
10. Paste the information you copied in step 7 into the Assign to Email, Task Notification Subject and Message fields.
11. If the Message field contains the {task.notify.url} template, change it to {task.perform.url} or {task.list.url}.
12. Click Submit.
13. Delete the Email/Anonymous Task step from the workflow.
14. Save and Test the workflow.
15. To replace the production workflow with the updated flow, download the updated flow from your test tenant or designer test account.

16. Upload the updated workflow to your Production tenant. Be sure to check the checkbox to REPLACE an existing flow with the same ID. The checkbox to use existing schemas is checked automatically.
    
    
    
    

Anonymous Steps and the Audit Trail

If your workflow was created in a version of previous to v8.0, then the step performed by the customer (anonymous user) was designed by dragging an EMail or Anonymous Task step from the Palette and dropping it on the Flow Designer canvas. Workflows designed in this manner will still work  but the Audit Trail will show the task in a WAITING state.

In version 8.0, the same flow can be designed by simply assigning the step to an Email Address. The Audit Trail, shows the step performed by the customer (anonymous user) in a Pending state and displays the Email address it was sent to.

Refresh Searchable Fields per Form/Flow

Designers now have the ability to run a Refresh Searchable Fields for an individual form or flow. You may want to run this process to update existing submissions to reflect changes to Searchable Fields. In previous releases, this process could only be performed by the tenant or superuser administrators and could only be done for the entire instance or the entire tenant.

Administrators can still run the process, of course but version 8.0 provides a way for form/flow owners ( the designer user that created the form/flow) or any designer user given the Who can edit the form/flow permission to run it for a single form/flow. The designer can start/stop/abandon the process and view a list of processes run.

It's easy. Simply login to your tenant as a designer user and click on the Refresh Searchable Fields icon that you see on the Forms Home Page or the Flows Home Page. Follow the onscreen directions or check the docs for more details.

View My Task

Let's say you submitted an Expense Report or a Vacation Request to your manager. A few days later, you want to check the status of your request and view the information you submitted. users now have the ability to view completed tasks in a workflow that they performed. You search for your task and view the Audit Trail to see the progress of the workflow. You will  see a new View icon for the steps that you performed. Click it and a read-only view of the workflow step with the submitted data displays. Screenflows and tasks with multiple submissions i.e. Save on Navigate is turned on, display a Next button to move forward. Only the last step will be viewable for multiple submissions but the first step displays when you click the View icon.

A watermark displays to to remind you that you can view data but you cannot change it.

In previous releases, designers had to send an email with a PDF to the user at the completion of a step to provide them with a record of the submitted task. This is no longer necessary with the View My Task feature.

Workflow Step Properties Wizard

The configuration/editing of workflow step properties is easier and more intuitive. The wizard consists of a series of easy to get to tabs designed to collect the necessary information for each property.

A Properties Navigator provides a quick view of important flow-step properties. This view changes based on the type of workflow step i.e. form, HTTP or Linked step.

There are three ways to open a properties tab:

• Click on the workflow step then click the Edit Step Properties icon. Navigate to the relevant tab when the wizard appears.
• Click anywhere in a section of the Properties Navigator for quick navigation to the relevant tab for immediate editing.
• Click the Edit Step Properties icon in a section of the Properties Navigator.

Once the tab is displayed, the following features make the properties setup/editing easier to understand help with property

• On hover feature providing explanatory help text
• Links to the documentation
• Many fields have pick lists that can be filtered by typing ahead. Controls from your form/flow and built-in templates appear in the dropdown lists. Fields are populated when you click on a dropdown choice.
• Type a left curly brace - {followed by a control name then select the field from the pick list that displays and the selection will be added to the field as a Control Template automatically adding the right curly brace - } -.
• Changes are saved when you click the Submit button. If there are invalid property settings on any of the tabs, tabs with validation errors are displayed in red with a red asterisk.
  

Refer to Editing Flow Properties for detailed information about properties and feature setup.

Dynamic Option Improvement

Options for Selection Controls (Dropdowns, Checkbox, Radio) are set up using the syntax: value=label. When these controls are used in a template, uses the option label when resolving the template at runtime. This is desirable when you want your users to see the labels as options. If you are using the Dynamic Options feature and you have a template in the Options URL for a Selection Control, the template resolves to the label at runtime. This may cause the query to fail. Template syntax has been expanded to force the use of the true value as opposed to the option label if the template control is a Selection Control. Use {controlName.value} in place of {controlName} in the options URL to substitute the value instead of the label at runtime.

Refer to Populating a Selection Control based on the Value of Another Dynamically Populated Selection Control for an example.

Message controls as a spacer

Message controls re commonly used as a spacer to center other controls in forms/flows. In previous releases, the Message property had to be set to a single space. The Message control can now be set to an empty string eliminating the need to add the space. Refer to Centering Images using the Message Control for an example.

IE11 Browser no longer supported for Design mode

The new Flow Designer UI is no longer supported in the Internet Explorer 11 browser.  A warning message "The flow designer functionality is not supported in this browser" displays if IE11 is detected. Internet Explorer 11 is still supported when using forms/flows on a desktop.

Flow Visibility option description changed.

The explanatory text for the Who can use the form/flow permission in the Access Control list has been changed to Who can start the form/flow. The functionality remains the same.

Email/Anonymous Task Step removed from the Palette

The Email/Anonymous Task has been removed from the Flow Designer Palette. Workflow steps performed by an anonymous user are form steps that route to an email address in version 8.0.

Image Modified

Publish Trigger Control as a Control Template

The ability to publish a Trigger control as a Control Template has been restored. This feature will be supported in v7.2.8+, v7.4.6+ and v8.0.0+ going forward.

Document Action Post Failures include the server name

When A Document Action post fails to reach it's destination, tenant/flow admins receive an email notifying the admins doesn't include any info about the server hosting the form which makes it impossible to know which environment the failure originated (e.g. app.frevvo.com vs staging-app.frevvo.com). The server name is now included in the message of the email.

Visual Rule Builder and Rules with Repeat or Table Controls

The Visual Rule Builder now adds the itemAdded code to a rule that references Repeat or Table controls. The itemAdded code is needed to guarantee that the rule runs when the user clicks the Plus icon to add a Repeating Section or a row. This code will be added to rules with/without conditions. It will not be added if the Initialization Only box is checked. Here is an example of a rule created using the Visual Rule Builder, that makes a Repeat Control visible when a text field starts with a.

var Text_start_index = Repeat1794.itemAdded ? Repeat1794.itemIndex : 0;
var Text_end_index = Repeat1794.itemAdded ? Text_start_index + 1 : Text.value.length;
var event = form.load;
for (let i = Text_start_index; i < Text_end_index; i++) {
 if (Text[i].value && Text[i].value.startsWith('a')) {
 Repeat1794.visible = true;
 }
} 

Since Tables are grid layouts of Repeating items, the itemadded event will be generated for rules with Tables as well.

Form Styling Improvements

Additional Form Styling Improvements related to corners, colors and fonts are now possible. Changes for custom fonts include:

• Adding Custom Fonts to the Message Control:
  • Make custom JavaScript available to all designers in your tenant.
  • Using custom fonts in the Message control markup 
  • Adding custom fonts to the Message Control Rich Text Editor

Additional Information for In-House Customers

The initial release of version 9.0 will be deployed to the frevvo Cloud on August 10, 2019. Version 9.0 will be released for in-house customers on 10/16/2019. In-house customers should review the topics below, the instructions in the Upgrade Guide and Supported Platforms before migrating. It is recommended that you perform a full installation of  v9.0.0 when upgrading.  Please remember that In-house customers must upgrade to JDK 11 before upgrading to  v9.0.

v9.0 License

JDBC Driver Upgrade

• MySQL Connector/J 8.0 is highly recommended for use with MySQL Server 8.0, 5.7, 5.6, and 5.5. Note the difference in the driver classname:

Connector/J 5.1: driverClassName="com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"
Connector/J 8.0: driverClassName="com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver"

• The SQL Server JDBC Driver (mssql-jdbc-7.2.2.jre11.jar ) is included in the frevvo tomcat bundle in the <frevvo-home>\frevvo\tomcat\lib directory.
  

Tomcat and Insight Server version Upgrades

The version of tomcat has been upgraded to 9.0.19 in the Live Forms Cloudthe frevvo Cloud. and in the frevvo tomcat bundle for the v9.0 release.

The version of the Insight Server has been upgraded to Solr 7.5.0 in the Live Forms Cloud the frevvo Cloud and in the frevvo tomcat bundle. Server functionality remains the same with the exception of the name of the directory in the tomcat bundle where Solr resides. In-house customers should review the Start the Insight server before Live Formsfrevvo topic for the changes.

Hardware and Memory Requirements for your

frevvo Server

The minimum recommended hardware configuration for your Live Forms frevvo server is:

• 2 gigahertz (GHz) 64-bit (x64) processor with 4 cores
• 5 gigabyte (GB) of system memory
• 100 GB hard drive

However you must size your hardware platform to your specific form usage characteristics. As the number of concurrent users and forms/flows increases so must the system memory. Refer to the memory configuration topic for the details.

Insight Server Memory Requirements

It may be necessary to increase heap size for the Insight server, when reporting on/indexing a large number of submissions. Refer to the memory configuration topic for the details.

Batch User Uploads 

Uploading a CSV file to add or edit users normally runs quickly. However, if uploading a file in which the notifyIfNewUser property is TRUE for a large number of rows, this process may slow down on some email servers. Tenant Admins can configure Live Forms to configure frevvo to run CSV-file user uploads in batches to improve upload time if needed. To adjust batch load size, configure the following property in <frevvo-home>\tomcat\conf\frevvo-config.properties. 

frevvo.userloader.batchSize=25

frevvo.war file

As of the v9.0.11 patch upgrade, the frevvo.war file is now shipped unpacked in the <frevvo home>\tomcat\webapps\frevvo directory. If you are working with a pre-v9.0.11 version and need to perform customization in these files, you will need to unzip your frevvo.war file to make changes, and rezip/replace it to run frevvo with your customization. 

sameSiteCookies attribute

Recent browser versions (especially Chrome v80+), by default, allow cookies to be sent only with top-level navigation and GET request initiated by third party websites. When you need to expose cookies to a third party site, such as using the SAML security manager or embedding in an iframe, you need to use https (Chrome only) and explicitly set the samesite attribute of the cookie to "none". frevvo v9.0.10+ includes a tomcat upgrade that allows configuring the cookie processor with this attribute.

For third party access, you must use https and update the provided tomcat/conf/context.xml CookieProcessor element to add the sameSiteCookies attribute.

<CookieProcessor className="org.apache.tomcat.util.http.LegacyCookieProcessor" allowEqualsInValue="true" sameSiteCookies="none"/>

On premise customers who do not want to make these updates need to turn on the legacy behavior in the chrome browser. Please see this Chrome documentation for details.