May 2021

New top navigation bar

Put all your most frequently visited tables at your fingertips with the new top nav bar, which places all your navigation items in a convenient toolbar across the top of the screen. With the nav bar, you can organize related tables and navigation items into groupings together, so they're all available on the toolbar while you're working in one part of the system. For example, Contract Managers can configure a Contract Management grouping that has everything they usually need, without cluttering the screen with items they only need occasionally.

You can use the menu icon to switch between groupings or search for specific tables you want to open right away. 

Converting the Left Pane to the Top Nav Bar

Setup for the top nav bar is very similar to the left pane, so you can convert your left pane configuration directly to the top nav bar, or at least use it as a foundation.

1. Click the Setup gear in the top-right corner and go to Look and Feel > Navigation Menu Setup.
2. Edit a navigation menu. For ease of testing, you might start by editing the navigation menu assigned to your primary team. If you need to check your primary team, go to User Menu > My Profile and look for the Primary Team field.
3. At the bottom of the General tab, set Navigation Menu Location to Top.
4. Go to the Apply tab and apply the changes to your team.

The system interprets your old settings according to these rules:

• Any items that aren't inside a top-level grouping are shown together in a new default grouping titled General, which usually includes items like Chart Collections, My Assigned, and Messaging. This is the first grouping that opens when you log in, if you have any items that aren't inside a top-level grouping.
• Top-level groupings control what appears in the list under the menu icon. For example, if the first grouping in your navigation menu is People and Companies, the first grouping in the nav bar list is People and Companies, which contains all the same tables and items that showed when you expanded the People and Companies grouping in the left pane.
• Lower level groupings are shown as items on the nav bar. For example, if you have a System grouping with an Import grouping underneath it, the System bar shows an item called Import that can be expanded to show its contents.

Using the New Nav Bar

Once you've applied the new nav bar, try it out.

• Click the menu icon to see the list of groupings.
• Switch to another grouping and watch the first item open automatically.
• Click the drop-down arrow next to a table to see the options. For most tables, the options include a shortcut to create a new record, any saved searches assigned to the navigation menu, the table's charts and reports, and Setup [Table] for administrators.
• Click the menu icon, scroll to the bottom, and click View All to see everything you have access to.
• Use the menu search to find a table that isn't on the current grouping. Click the table name to open it, and notice it appear as a temporary tab on your current grouping.

Next Steps

Set up your users for success by following these recommendations:

• Train users on the new UI before you turn it on for their team. When you do move a team to the new UI, turn on the top nav bar and the new table view at the same time. The new table view is covered in the "New Quick Search pane and table view" release note.
• Review each navigation menu when you switch it to the top nav bar. Try to keep each grouping focused, so that all the items are relevant to a user role or workflow. Click grouping titles and system items to review any additional options that might apply.
• Put the most relevant item or table at the top of the grouping. This is what opens automatically when you switch to the module. For example, in the Contracts grouping, you would likely place the Contracts table at the top of the list, or add Home and configure it with a contract-related dashboard. For each grouping, you can select whether to automatically open the first system item, or the first table. You can place system items in multiple groupings, and for the Home item, you can set different dashboards for different Home tabs.
• Remind users that they can tweak their navigation menu by going to User Menu > Preferences > Navigation Menu Setup. However, only administrators can switch users from the left pane to the top nav bar.

New Quick Search pane and table view

Quick Search has moved to its own pane, where you can easily see and control the search filters being applied, and you can add or remove individual filters without needing to start over. Table views are now more responsive and flexible, allowing you to drag and drop columns in your preferred order, and saved searches are now featured right under the table name, where you can click to switch to another search. You can also click and drag to resize columns. To maximize screen space, action bars can now be right-aligned in line with other text instead of taking up a horizontal row at the top of the table.

Enabling the New Features

To use the new table view and Quick Search, you need to enable both the new top nav bar and the new table view.

• To enable the top nav bar, click the Setup gear icon in the top right-hand corner, go to Look and Feel > Navigation Menu Setup, edit your current navigation menu, and set Navigation Menu Location to Top.
• To enable the new UI, go to Setup > Look and Feel > Power User Interface, edit your current scheme, and set Use New GUI to Yes.

When you turn on the new UI, action bars are automatically right-aligned. Users whose teams are not yet on the new UI continue to see left-aligned action bars, since the new alignment requires the new UI.

Using the New Quick Search

The Quick Search pane includes a text search box and up to four default filters. Default filters are configurable in the View, but when you upgrade your system, the system automatically selects the first four display fields in the View to use as default filters. ID, Text, and Attached File fields are not automatically selected for Quick Search. For personal views, no default filters are applied.

Try out these features in the new Quick Search pane:

• Open the Quick Search pane. The first four display fields in the view are automatically added as default filters, for every view except for the Personal View.
• Enter a search term and notice the search results refresh automatically.
• Click the plus icon in the Add Filters section to easily apply custom filters. These work much like adding an advanced filter in a saved search, but you can do it right from the Quick Search pane and apply it to the search results immediately.
• After you add a few filters, remove one by clearing Clear in a default filter or clicking the X in an advanced filter.
• Click Clear All Filters at the top of the pane to easily show all the records again.
• If you have configured an Active Records search in the past, select the Active Only checkbox to apply it.

Using the New Table View

When you go to a table, notice that columns are now automatically sized to use the whole width of the screen, and avoid horizontal scrolling whenever possible.

Try out these features in the new table view:

• Click a column header and drag it left or right to reorder the columns in the view.
• Click the border between two column headers and drag to resize the columns.
• Select Views > Reset View to reset your changes to the columns.
• Click over the drop-down arrow next to the saved search name to select a different search.
• Click Search to open the new Quick Search pane.

Configuration Options

To reflect these new features, there are several new configuration options:

• In the View wizard, you can select the new Quick Search checkbox to add a field as a default filter in the Quick Search pane. In the example image above, the view has Contract Title and Contract End Date configured to appear as default Quick Search filters. In general, it's best to include only a few key fields as default filters to prevent cluttering the pane. Users can also add as many custom filters as they like using the Add Filters section. When you upgrade your system, the first four display fields in each View are automatically selected for Quick Search, to save you from having to configure each View individually. This way, you can use the automatic selections as a starting point, and make adjustments to individual Views as people use Quick Search.
• In the View wizard, Column Width now has three options, Auto, Auto - min width, and Fixed, which work with the new Column Width Size setting to determine the appearance and behavior of the columns. Use Auto - min width to prevent columns from becoming too small to read on small screens, or use Fixed to prevent the system from changing the column width on larger or smaller screens. These settings determine how the system automatically allocates screen space, but users are still able to change column width and order on the fly by dragging and dropping.
• In the Action Bar wizard, you can set the alignment to right or left at the bottom of the Design tab. With the new UI, it's best to set action bars to align on the right side, which leaves more space for records. However, you don't need to do this for every action bar upon upgrade; instead, when you turn on the new UI, your action bars are automatically right-aligned.
• If you want to show a Saved Search icon in the Action Bar, set new global variable "Include 'Saved Search' button in default action bar" to Yes. The icon is configurable in the Look and Feel scheme on the Icons tab.

Next Steps

Help your users get the most out of the new features by following these recommendations:

• Train users on the new UI before you turn it on for their team.
• When you do move a team to the new UI, turn on the top nav bar and the new table view at the same time.
• If time allows, review and test system-level Views in your main process tables before making the new UI available to everyone. Remove unnecessary columns to avoid cluttering the screen, and select the most useful fields to include as default filters in Quick Search.
• When you're satisfied with the Views and Quick Search filters, make sure to enable the new nav bar and table view for all users in your system.

Global Search Improvements

Global search has gotten much more powerful and flexible, with a new drop-down option to search a specific table, collated results by table when you search the whole KB, and the new Quick Search pane to further filter the records found by the search.

Using the New Global Search

Try out the new global search for yourself:

• Use the drop-down to select All and search the entire KB. Once you enter and submit a search term, search results for each table are listed as they were in prior versions, but a new Search Results pane summarizes what was found so you can more easily navigate all the records.
• From a search of all tables, click one of the tables in the Search Results pane to load just results from that table. This also opens the Quick Search filter options in the pane, while preserving the Top Results and Expand List navigation options that allow you to return to the full list of results, or jump to results in another table.
• You can also use the global search bar as a shortcut to search a specific table. Use the drop-down to select a table from the list, then enter a search term and press Enter. This opens the table view for the table you selected, with the Quick Search pane showing your search term in the text search box. From here, you can use the Quick Search filters to narrow down the results, or simply open the record you want to work on.

Recommendations

Train users on the new features and how to navigate between Top Results and the results in specific tables.

Extend Quick Search results with synonym dictionaries

New synonym dictionary support makes it easier for users to find all the records they're looking for, even when the records use different terms or phrases. For example, you could add "GDPR" as a synonym of "General Data Protection Regulation" to make sure all relevant contracts show up in search results for the acronym GDPR, or link "indemnification" with "limits of liability" so that users find all related records when they look for either term.

Synonyms are organized into three dictionaries, so admins can categorize terms and users can select only the dictionaries they want to use for a given search. To use synonyms with your KB, you'll need to add terms to the dictionaries, and teach users to select the Synonym checkbox if they want to include synonyms in a Quick Search. 

For more details on setting up and using synonyms in your system, see Synonym Dictionaries.

Updated record forms

As part of the updates to the navigation menu, table view, and Quick Search, ESM Contract Management record forms have also been freshened up with a new look. There are only a few functional changes:

• Additional options like Print and New Email are now placed together under a shared ellipses button next to Save and Cancel.
• The buttons, table name, and summary field value now float when you scroll down the record. The floating bar also includes the record tabs, once you scroll past them.     
• Record tabs now appear below the common area, since the content in the common area stays the same across all tabs.

The updated forms also empower you to easily create an interactive graphical display for record status. To add one, simply go to Setup [Table], open the Layout tab, and click Graphical Status Display. In the wizard that opens, select the appropriate field for the table. The system uses the field values to automatically generate an interactive status bar that lists each value on its own tile. For more information, refer to Status Bars.

The Look and Feel wizard has also been updated with corresponding options for these updates, including Graphical Status Displays.

Roll out the new UI one team at a time

When you upgrade to Release 22, none of the new UI changes are applied automatically. Instead, you can manage the rollout of the UI changes to your users by enabling the updates for individual teams.

To enable the new UI for a specific team:

1. Go to the Setup gear icon in the top-right corner > Look and Feel > Power User Interface, edit the scheme for the team, and set Use New GUI to Yes at the bottom of the General tab. However, even if you change this setting, users don't see any changes unless their navigation menu is also switched from the left pane to the top nav bar.
2. Go to Setup > Look and Feel > Navigation Menu Setup, edit the navigation menu for the team, and set the Navigation Menu Location to Top at the bottom of the General tab. 

Overriding Personalized Navigation Menus

When you update a navigation menu to the top nav bar, the "Push to users" setting on the Apply tab determines whether the change is applied to users with personalized navigation menus.

• To unilaterally apply the updated configuration to all the users in the selected team, choose "Force changes upon users." This brings all affected users back into alignment with the team's default navigation menu. However, it also overrides any customizations users might have made to their navigation menus.
• To prompt users to update their menus, without removing existing customizations, you can choose "Notify users about optional change." However, if you do this, you need to communicate the plan to users so they know to go update their menu to the top nav bar. To do so, they will need to go to User Menu > Preferences > Navigation Menu Setup and click the option to update their navigation menu position. This updates their navigation menu to the same position as their team's menu, without affecting their customized modules. Users will also see a red notification badge that directs them to the Preferences menu.
• If you want to migrate users to the new top nav bar, you should not select "Do not push changes to users."

Recommendations

Because the new UI requires turning on both the top navigation menu in Navigation Menu Setup and the new table view in Power User Interface schemes, edit all your active schemes first and turn on the new table view. Then, when you set a navigation menu configuration to the top nav bar, the new UI appears for teams assigned to that configuration menu.

If you use only a few navigation menus that are shared by all your users, consider making a copy for yourself so you can test the new UI before rolling it out, or making a copy and gradually transitioning each team from the old one to the new one. This way, you can test the UI and adjust the nav bar modules and table views if necessary, and you can train each team before you apply the changes to them.

If necessary, you can also apply the new nav bar without applying the rest of the UI changes. To do so, set the Navigation Menu Location to Top for the team, but don't set Use New GUI to Yes in the team's Look and Feel.

Added "overlap" search filters for Multi-choice fields

Quick Search filters on Multi-choice fields now include overlap conditions to offer more intuitive filtering. Select "overlaps with items in" or "does not overlap with items in" to use the new filters. If you select "overlaps with items in," the criterion finds records where the field contains at least one of the values listed; if you select "does not overlap with items in," the criterion finds records where the field does not contain any of the values listed.

Easily maximize modal windows

All modal dialog windows now include a button to maximize or restore them. Click the maximize button to easily expand the modal to fill the available space, or click restore on a maximized modal to shrink it to its default size.

Modals also now support resizing from all four corners.

Internet Explorer 11 support

Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) is still supported, but isn't compatible with some of the new UI elements introduced in this release. Notably, IE11 is not supported for the new Quick Search pane, or the updated table view that offers drag-and-drop columns adjustment.

If you need to use IE11, you can disable these new UI features until you can move to another browser. To do so, go to the Setup gear icon in the top-right corner > Look and Feel > Power User Interface, edit the current scheme, and set Use New GUI to No on the Global tab.

Modify signing order, attached documents, and more in Adobe Sign previews

This idea came from you!

Easily and clearly control your Adobe Sign agreements using new preview options, directly from your ESM Contract Management system. Preview now lets you review and edit the current recipient list, message contents, and ordered file list before sending. You can even add password protection, adjust the reminder schedule, and select a language for the recipients. These options now appear when you click Preview/Sign from an Adobe Sign agreement.

First, review the Recipients section to see exactly how your ESM Contract Management signing order translates in Adobe Sign. For example, if you dynamically set the signing order in ESM Contract Management, the system automatically cleans up the list so that Adobe Sign receives only the recipients who are actually assigned to this envelope. You can drag the items in the list into a different order, or click the number or email address to adjust as needed.

Then, review the message and attached files, and set any additional options. You can even rearrange the order of the attached files to control how they are presented to recipients, and add more files if necessary. If you add files here, they aren't pushed back to ESM Contract Management with the original attachments, but they are included in the final signed combination file.

Finally, click Next to preview the envelope and send it, as you did before.

This release includes several other improvements to Adobe Sign integration:

• Documents are automatically listed in the order you select them in the Documents to Sign field, with the first selected document appearing first during the signing workflow unless you change it in the preview.
• Progress tracking now includes delegators who have successfully passed the agreement on to a delegate for completion, so you can follow the agreement through to completion for each recipient.
• The Role drop-down in the recipient's record has also been updated with new signer roles added by Adobe Sign.

For more information about working with Adobe Sign agreements, see Manage Documents with Adobe Sign.

Re-enable Adobe Sign connections after upgrade

This release includes optimizations for Adobe Sign that require any existing integrations to be re-enabled after the upgrade. If you have Adobe Sign integrated with your system, perform these steps after the upgrade to re-enable it:

1. Click the Setup gear in the top-right corner and go to Integration.
2. Under Adobe Sign, click Configure.
3. At the bottom, click Revoke Access to Adobe Sign Connect. Do not click Deactivate Account.
4. Make sure the Access granted field is now set to No. You might need to save the configuration and click Configure again.
5. Then, click Grant Access to Adobe Sign Connect and provide your Adobe Sign credentials.

Assign default DocuSign permission profile to new DocuSign users

You can now set up new DocuSign users more efficiently by selecting a default DocuSign permission profile in your DocuSign configuration settings. The new Default DocuSign Group field pulls your permission profiles from DocuSign, and once you select one, that profile is automatically applied to any new DocuSign users you create.

To set a default permission profile, go to Setup > Integration > DocuSign Extension and select a profile from the Default DocuSign Group drop-down list.

Setting a permission profile for DocuSign does not apply any ESM Contract Management permissions.

For more information about integration with DocuSign, see DocuSign Integration.

Updated list of DocuSign servers

DocuSign integration now includes the DocuSign CA and NA4 servers. The server is tied to your enterprise license account, so unless you are moving DocuSign servers, you should not need to make changes in your system.

To select a different server or view the list of available servers, go to the Setup gear icon > Integration > DocuSign Extension and click Change Server. Select the new server, click Set Server, and click Save to complete the setup.

Introducing the ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant for Outlook

The ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant (ACA) for Microsoft Outlook integrates ESM Contract Management's capabilities with Microsoft Outlook. When installed, the ACA appears in Outlook on the far right-hand side of the Home ribbon as a large A icon. The ACA for Outlook can be used to:

• Attach an email about a contract to that Contract record as a Communication record
• Ensure any replies to an email about a Contract record are added to it as Communication records
• Create a new support ticket from an email
• Add attachments from ESM Contract Management into a drafted email

For more information about the functionality of the ACA, visit Using the ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant for Outlook.

At the top of the ACA, the "Search In" field holds a drop-down list. This drop-down includes all the tables that were configured to work with the ACA during setup. With a table selected, records appear in the ACA list below. You can use the search bar to run a simple text search for specific records. The fields used for searching are configured during setup.


Select one of the records from the results to see details about that record, and access options dependent on the email status. For example, you might see the option to add the email to the selected Contract record.

To start using the ACA, you need to configure it for your KB and then install it in Outlook. For details, see Configuring the ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant for Outlook and Installing the ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant for Outlook. 

Updates to the ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant for Microsoft Word

Continued improvements to the ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant make it easier to use, including faster login using SAML and OAuth and clearer phrasing with less technical jargon. The ACA also now offers an option to populate the Clause Library in ESM Contract Management directly from a contract document, which can speed up the initial implementation process.

• You can still log in with your username and password, as before, but the login page now includes options to Login via SAML or Login via OAuth. If you use the ACA with multiple KBs on the same server, you can also use the new "Connect to a different KB" to easily switch between them.
•  
• More technical jargon has been replaced with simpler terminology, most notably changing the Annotations feature to Contract Data. Throughout the ACA, Metadata is now Key Terms, Annotations is now Contract Data, and Bindings and Document Bindings are now Tags and Document Tags. To match these changes, the Metadata Tags table is now the Key Terms table.
• The ACA now offers the Populate Clause Library feature on the main ACA pane. This feature is used to extract clauses from the contract document in Word and adds them to the Clause Library table. This feature is usually only used during implementation, when it can quickly fill out the Clause Library table with vetted Clause records, but it can also be useful to add lots of new clauses to the Clause Library at once.
•  

For more information, refer to the ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant for Microsoft Word articles.

New Document Quality Evaluation algorithm for OCR actions

Use OCR actions to easily evaluate document quality before attempting to extract their content. This algorithm is designed to flag documents that are good candidates for AI, but it can also be used to flag documents that might need to be re-scanned or otherwise processed to make them readable. This evaluation is an option in the OCR action wizard. You then map the evaluation result to specific fields in the KB.

After the evaluation is complete, it stores a summary result, usually "Check Passed" or one of several errors; the detected language of the document; and a text summary of the evaluation results.

To use this feature:

1. First create a Choice field in the table to hold the output from the evaluation. Name the field Evaluation Result, or similar, and add these choices:
• No Language Detected
• Grammar Check Failed
• Multilanguage Document
• OCR Needed
• Unsupported Language
• Bad Document
• Check Passed
2. Create a Multi-choice field that contains an option for each of the ISO-639-1 language abbreviations.
3. Create a Text field to store the full evaluation.
4. Then, edit or create an OCR action in the same table, go to the Options tab, and select the options for Document Quality Evaluation. It is common to select all three options. This enables three field selections to appear below.
5. Select fields for the Evaluation Result, Language, and Evaluation Output.

For more information about OCR actions, see OCR Action.

New Question Answering AI model

A new Artificial Intelligence model has been added to ESM Contract Management that supports querying a contract with a natural language question. The new AI model is called QUESTION-ANSWERING-AS. This AI model can extract data from a contract document depending on a question entered as an input to the model. The Question Answering model processes both binary and extractive questions. Binary refers to questions that require a yes or no answer, whereas extractive refers to questions that require contextual information. When asked a question, the model outputs an answer, confidence score, an answer type, and additionally relevant text information from the contract document. The following image is an example of a basic output you may get from asking the model "When does the agreement become effective?"

When you configure a Machine Learning action and choose the Question Answering model on the Models tab, different options appear on the Field Mapping tab. These options provide specialized ways to map the answer outputs generated by the QA model.

A tab called Question Answering is also added. This new tab is used to add questions that you would like to be automatically answered whenever the action runs. You can also use this tab to map the answers to these questions to specific fields.

Updated SEMANTIC-TEXTUAL-SIMILARITY model with multiple language capabilities

The SEMANTIC-TEXTUAL-SIMILARITY-AS model has been upgraded for use with multiple different languages. The new model is based on XLM-RoBERTa, which is compatible with 100 languages.

Run batch Machine Learning actions within Linked Record actions

When you create a Linked Record action in ESM Contract Management, and you include a Machine Learning action on the Actions tab, you can now select a new option called "Run action on multiple records at once (batch mode) when possible." This option is useful for analyzing or vetting extracted data on a large scale. 

By default, the system processes 25 records per batch. If you'd like to change this in order to process more records, visit the Parameters tab in the Machine Learning action. For example, if you want to run clause similarity measurements on batches of 50 clauses at a time instead of 25, select the checkbox in the Linked Record action, and edit the nested Machine Learning action.

Once you've opened the Machine Learning action, navigate to the Parameters tab and update the Custom Parameters field.

Added token-based and entity-based totals for training metrics

Training metrics for NER now include token-based and entity-based metrics in score.txt. The metrics are now as follows:

• Total_Precision=0.703951928284821
• Total_Recall=0.7179190751445087
• Total_F1=0.7079499843653299
• Total_Support=865
• TotalTokens_Precision=0.6961883408071748
• TotalTokens_Recall=0.7179190751445087
• TotalTokens_F1=0.7068867387592487

Create, edit, and store clauses in Microsoft Word .docx format

Clauses can now be stored in Microsoft Word format as well as in HTML format. It is easier to create and edit the text, apply consistent and clean formatting, and pull clauses into print templates using .docx documents. By storing clauses in .docx format, you can make sure any bullets, numbering, or other formatting styles look right in Microsoft Word before you generate the print template, without worrying that the template will alter your work. 

This also supports automatically tagging field variables and clauses with the ESM Contract Management Contract Assistant (ACA), and makes it easier for the ACA to create Contract Clause records for new clauses.

Control Clause Formatting in Print Templates

Style preferences, previously controlled only by the "Style preference for paragraphs in Printed Document" and "Use AltChunk while running a Print Action" global variables, can now be set for individual print templates. In the Word/PDF Print Template wizard, go to the style selection at the bottom and select an option from the drop-down list:

• Use Global Settings: follows the settings in the global variables to determine how to format the contents of the selected field.
• Print Template: applies the print template styles to the contents of the selected field. If a clause contains a bulleted or numbered list, that list is converted to the styles in the print template.
• Field: uses Microsoft Word's AltChunk paradigm to embed the field's contents with the field's original styles applied.

If you need even more granular control, you can apply AltChunk to individual clauses when you insert them in the print template, using the new "customaltchunk" parameter. When you insert a clause Word file using the new syntax, $field_from_other_table(clause,161,clause_ms_word_file), you can add the AltChunk parameter at the end to use AltChunk only for this specific clause: $field_from_other_table(clause,161,clause_ms_word_file, customaltchunk=true)

This syntax uses AltChunk for the specified clause, even if the template is set to Print Template. Note that this syntax cannot be used to set a single clause not to use AltChunk.

Start Using Word-format Clause Files

To start using this new feature:

1. Create a File with Versioning field in your Clause table to store the Microsoft Word files.
2. For each clause, move or copy the HTML text into Microsoft Word, format the content as needed, and save the file to the new File with Versioning field.
3. Modify existing print templates to control their style preference and point to the Microsoft Word file instead of the HTML text field. If necessary, set individual clauses to use AltChunk.
4. Test your print templates to make sure the formatting works as expected.

This feature is also discussed in Embedding Tables and Fields from Tables and Troubleshooting Print Templates.

Installer improvements

This version includes several improvements to the installer:

• When the upgrade is not run in "force" mode, the installer can now automatically troubleshoot problems and apply the proper fixes. If the upgrade still fails, the system now prompts the user for input before rolling back the changes, and all the logs are copied to <ESM Contract Management-Home>\logs\ to be used in investigating the problem.
• Upgrade logic has been improved, so the upgrade no longer fails if there are problems with optional software like ClamAV, Nginx, or Python.
• Custom Python modules are restored automatically after upgrade.
• The Sample KB configuration page and the Web Server page have been redesigned to be clearer and easier to use.
• Time stamps were added for each task by adding echoTS to the installer.
• Prompts for third-party software information now include the version and file name you need to look for.

Sync records in related tables in specified tables only

Improve performance for external sync by limiting the inclusion of records in related tables. Now, if you select the "Include records in related tables" checkbox in a sync configuration, you can then edit individual table mappings and choose whether to sync records in related tables. By default, existing mappings are set to exclude records in related table to maximize performance.

To review or change these settings for a sync configuration:

1. Click the Setup gear in the top-right corner and go to Sync.
2. Create or edit an External Sync configuration.
3. On the General tab, select or clear the "Include records in related tables" checkbox. If you want to include any records in related tables in any of the tables you will sync, you must select this checkbox.
4. Go to the Field Mapping tab.
5. For each table mapping, click Edit Mapping and select or clear the "Search for related records" checkbox. If you did not select "Include records in related tables" in step 3, this setting does not appear.

For more general information about sync, see Synchronization.

New function to convert numerals to words

Use the new "num2words" function in fields, formulas, print templates, and more to convert numerals into words. For example, you can use the function to render "12" as "twelve," "twelfth,","12th," or you can format it as currency. If you want to output words in another language, you can specify an alternate language code as the last parameter. The currency option requires you to specify a language to in order for the system to identify the appropriate currency.

For more information about formulas and their usage, see Formulas.

Option to ignore formatting changes in Document Comparison actions

Customize how you track changes with a new option for Document Comparison actions. This new feature allows you to ignore differences in text and paragraph formatting when comparing documents. This produces less unnecessary markup, and makes it easier to identify the important differences between two documents.

To use this new option, create or edit a Document Comparison action, go to the Data Source tab, and select the new checkbox.

For more information about comparing documents, see Document Comparison Action.

Automatically execute actions after successful external syncs

External sync now offers an easy way to automate actions after sync completes successfully. To add a post-sync action, create or edit a sync configuration, go to the Field Mapping tab, and select an action from the Post Action drop-down list. The action runs automatically at the end of each successful sync, with the context of the records changed by the sync.

Direct File Edit now shows current editor

When you attempt to directly edit a file that is currently being edited by another user, and concurrent editing isn't enabled, you now see the name of the other user in the message that appears. This way, you can tell that your permissions are correctly configured, and another user is the reason editing is blocked. Previously, it wasn't clear from the message why the "Edit and Checkout" button didn't appear, which made it more difficult to troubleshoot editing permissions.

For more information about direct editing, see Direct File Edit.

EUI Look and Feel editor now includes radio buttons and checkboxes

The End User Interface Look and Feel editor now includes controls for the appearance of radio buttons and checkboxes. To set a custom display for these, edit an End User Interface Look and Feel schema, go to the Forms tab, and select Custom Display in the Checkboxes and Radio Buttons section.

Floating licenses now released upon closing ESM Contract Management

This idea came from you!

Floating licenses are now released automatically when a user closes their last ESM Contract Management browser window or tab. The system now treats this as if the user had manually logged out, which prevents licenses from being taken up needlessly. The system also releases locks on any records the user had open before closing the last ESM Contract Management browser window or tab.

JS Exceptions security variable moved to Security wizard

The security_setup_js_exceptions global variable has been relocated to the General tab of the Security wizard (Setup gear icon > System > Security) for ease of access, and to continue to concentrate security-related system settings in one location. This variable is used to control security against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks.

Easily monitor slow SQL queries with a new admin console function

A new monitoring tool in the admin console makes it easy to monitor SQL queries. To use it, go to Debugging > Debugging and click Show database statistics. This tool shows the 100 slowest-running queries, where the average time is more than 10 milliseconds. Use this list to identify potential areas to optimize, such as inefficient searches or missing indexes. 

You can show database statistics for all KBs on the server, or run it on a selected KB.

For more debugging tools, see Debugging in the Admin Console.

Untrusted URLs now shown in gray

URLs that are outside your system's trusted domains are now disabled and shown in gray, instead of shown as an active blue hyperlink with strikethrough formatting. With this formatting, the URL is easier to read, and users are less likely to mistake it for a hyperlink or try to open it.

For information about setting the trusted zones for your system, see Security.

Improved queueing for asynchronous rules

When rules run in the background, they now wait a specified amount of time for a free slot in a thread pool before they return to the queue. This optimizes rules for mass operations on records. By default, the specified wait period is 500 milliseconds, controlled by new global variable Timeout: Wait to Run Rule in Background.

For more information, see Global Variables List.

New variable limits recursive rule automation

New global variable "Maximum allowed recursion depth for rules" now asserts a limit on how many recursive changes can be made based on a single trigger point, to prevent automations from repeating too many times or getting stuck in a loop. For example, if a user edits a record, and that triggers a rule, and the rule runs a record update that triggers another rule, this variable controls how many subsequent triggers are followed before the system stops processing. 

By default, this variable is set to 10, which allows most automation to proceed as intended, while stopping unintentional recursive actions at a reasonable point.

For more information, see Global Variables List.

MySQL is upgraded to version 8.0

MySQL has been upgraded to version 8.0.23. It improves overall system performance, especially in cases where many KBs are hosted on one ESM Contract Management instance, and provides significantly faster processing for column operations.

Wildfly upgraded

Wildfly has been upgraded to version 19.1.0.

Ngnix updates help prevent service failures

Updates to Nginx now prevent the service from failing when it stops and starts in Windows. Nginx is now represented as EwNginx by the nssm.exe file.

JVM parameters optimization for installer

The ESM Contract Management server application now uses a better tuned JVM stack size. This prevents exceptions caused in rare cases of asynchronous rules initiated from nested linked actions.