Releases/Fall 2023

The Fall 2023 release (16.1), originally communicated as "Summer release", was released on September 30, 2023.

• The Fall Update is here... Blog

Resco mobile platform (Microsoft, Salesforce, Resco Cloud)

Reports saved in file columns

It is now possible to configure Run Report command to store the generated document in file columns belonging to the source report entity. The columns can be selected in the Save report to entity field.

Prerequisites

• Both the File Column and its Filename fields must be enabled in Woodford.
• The parent entity form must contain file column.

Notes

• Saving the document in the report dialog will only store it in a file column field of the parent form. The report is saved with the parent form. This applies even when Immediate Action is set to "SaveAndClose".

Limitations

• Digital signature flow (DocuSign) via eSignature command is not supported with File Columns.
• Only applicable for Run Report Command on entity forms. Storing reports from on Views and Questionnaires is not supported.

SyncStats analyzer

SyncStats analyzer is a tool that analyzes multiple sync logs and extracts 30+ different indicators to identify the most frequent problems and characterize average sync performance.

Dataverse/Dynamics: Better file columns support

File columns on Dataverse are a type of table column that can hold binary data.

• In Woodford, you can enable file columns to make them available in the app project.
• In Resco mobile apps, users can now create, modify, or delete the contents of file columns on entity forms. Synchronization is also supported, guaranteed both online and offline experience.

See file column for more information.

Dataverse/Dynamics: Create, update, delete virtual table records

Virtual tables on Dataverse are custom tables that reside in external systems. With this release, users of Resco mobile apps can perform create, update, and delete operations for these tables. Virtual tables can benefit from a faster incremental sync strategy and standard conflict resolution behavior. See virtual table for more information.

Salesforce: Filter options using rules

You can now use rules to control which options from a picklist are available for the users to choose from. Use the rule Form.Picklist.ComboItems SetItems Option1,Option2,Option3.

Resco Mobile CRM: end of life for older iOS versions

Resco Mobile CRM now requires iOS 12 or later. As a result, iPhones 5 and 5c are no longer supported. (Before this release, Resco mobile apps used to support iOS 10+)

Style editor reorganized in Woodford

The style parameters in Woodford have been arranged in multiple tabs. Related settings are now together.

While it is still possible to define generic styles for all component types (text fields, dropdowns, buttons, etc.), we are introducing a possibility to define dedicated styles for particular component types. In this case, all style properties that do not apply to the target component type are not displayed. This makes the styling of specific components much less confusing.

When selecting an item's style, you will only see styles compatible with the item (dedicated or generic). From now on, Resco recommends minimizing the usage of generic styles and creating dedicated styles for individual components.

Also, it is now easier to take advantage of style hierarchies. There is an icon indicating which property is different from the parent. You can revert the change with a single click. Just look for this icon:

Style editor tweaks continued

• We added tooltips to the style editor parameters.
• We redesigned how the image query is defined.

Supporting text and placeholder on forms

You can now make Resco forms more intuitive by providing users with additional information using supporting text and placeholder text for all types of detail items. If the supporting text is defined, the field-specific error message will automatically appear in its place when needed.

You can define supporting and placeholder text in all languages directly from the form editor: click Change Localization and select the string.

We are also introducing new style parameters for supporting text.

Vertical segmented buttons

Resco mobile apps can now render option sets as vertical segmented buttons. You can enable this option in the style editor.

New form layout selector

The Woodford setting for form layout is now clearer with a visual indicator of how the columns are arranged.

Trigonometric functions in rules

Trigonometric functions (Cos, Sin, Tan, ArcCos, ArcSin, ArcTan) and the CalculateDistance function have been available as operations in rules for some time now, but the actual support in mobile apps was limited. The operations now function as expected on all platforms of Resco mobile apps (Windows, iOS, Android, web app).

Execute form commands from rules

It is now possible to execute predefined form commands from rules. It means that commands or custom commands defined in the On Execute rule can be invoked from other rules.

This feature can be very useful as it makes it possible to execute command logic as a reaction to form load (On Load), field change (On Change) or button click. It is even possible to hide commands from the hamburger menu by disabling On Can Execute, preventing users from executing commands explicitly and only executing them from rules.

Tagged image (floor plan) support on Dataverse

Tagged images are a feature of Resco mobile apps. You can attach tags to images. Possible usage scenarios include floor plans (maps of factory floors with annotated locations), machinery photos with defects highlighted, and many more. This feature is now available on the Dataverse backend.

The custom "tag" table that contains a reference to the background image and the coordinates of the tag functions slightly differently on Dataverse than on Resco Cloud. Dataverse does not allow defining a lookup targeting the annotation table. Instead, the tag table must include the columns "imagename" (name of the image) and "targetid" (the record to which the annotation record is related).

Use React with JSBridge

JSBridge is compatible with third-party JavaScript libraries. To make it easier for you to get started, we have prepared a new detailed use case React with JSBridge, including a sample React project and steps needed for building and integrating React content in Resco mobile apps.

Dark theme

The theme editor in Woodford was updated. The traditional way of fine-tuning the colors of various UI elements remains available. However, there's now a simpler option. First, define a brand color. Woodford will automatically generate the color palette for both the light theme and the dark themes. Users can switch between light and dark using Setup/Settings.

One-click setup of custom color themes

This release, we're introducing a new way to colorize the app. In the theme editor, select the main brand color. Woodford uses an algorithm by Material Design to automatically generate a color palette for light and dark themes built around the brand color. The algorithm ensures that the generated colors offer sufficient contrast and meet accessibility requirements.

The generated colors are saved as tokens. You can then use tokens rather than hardcoded color values in various parts of the app design. This becomes important in scenarios when you need to modify colors. You only need to modify colors in one place; all occurrences also change.

Tokens are currently available in the following Woodford components:

• Theme editor
• View designer
• Form designer
• Charts designer

New image editor in the mobile app

Resco mobile apps now include a new option for editing images. We have integrated a modern third-party library by Painterro. Its features include:

• free-hand drawing, as well as shapes (straight lines, rectangles, circles ...)
• pinch to zoom
• two-step cropping: first, select the area, then press crop
• text inputs have increased visibility with text stroke & shadow – no need to draw rectangles for text boxes

Woodford administrators can enable the legacy editor as a fallback in the Project Configuration: Use Legacy Image Editor.

Resco modules for Power Platform and Dataverse (Microsoft)

New accelerators for Power Platform

If you're looking for testing or showcasing Resco products for the Power Platform, check out the new accelerators:

• Resco Docs+ - reports and document generation
• Resco Forms+ - digital forms/questionnaires
• Resco Steps+ - workforce knowledge management software

Inspections in Power Pages

Originally, Resco questionnaires were designed to be displayed and answered in Resco mobile apps. Later, we introduced the option to place a "Questionnaire Player" to a form of your Dynamics/Dataverse table, allowing you to display/answer questionnaires on Dynamics/Dataverse web. With this release, you can place the Questionnaire Player on a Power Page. See Inspections on Power Platform.

Use native dialogs for notifications

When the Questionnaire Player on Power Pages wants to display a popup window, it will now use a Windows native window rather than Resco window.

Guides in Power Apps

Guides are now fully supported on Dataverse/Dynamics without Woodford, even offline. See Guides on Power Platform. Instead of Resco mobile apps, you can display guides in Power Apps. The guides solution package comes with default views and a form for the Guide table. For example, you can add a list of related guides to your assets.

In the example below, guides were added to the Idea table. The guide form displays the content of the guide.

Guides in Power Pages

Guides can also be displayed on the website designed and hosted by Microsoft Power Pages. See Guides on Power Platform for a procedure that guides you through sample integration.

Inspections and questionnaires (Microsoft, Salesforce, Resco Cloud)

Rename [Clear] option in option set

It is now possible to rename the null option ([Clear]) in option set questions. To use this feature:

• The Questionnaire Designer and the mobile app must be updated to 16.1 or later.
• Edit a questionnaire template, select the top-level element of the questionnaire, and set Feature Version to "2".
• The label of the "not answered" option in the option set becomes editable.

Feature versions in questionnaires

As we keep adding features to questionnaires, every now and then, we might introduce breaking changes. To make sure that Resco mobile apps can gracefully handle this formatting change, we are using Feature Version (property of the questionnaire template). Whenever a breaking change is introduced, the required feature version increases. If you attempt to open a questionnaire with unsupported features in an older app, an error message is displayed and the user is urged to update their app.

Alternatively, you can edit the questionnaire template in the Questionnaire Designer and lower the feature version to ensure that the questionnaire stays compatible with older app versions. However, some newer questionnaire features will be unavailable. If you're familiar with Woodford projects, this is similar to publishing app projects with older Publish Version.

Label position BorderTop is now supported in questionnaires

The style parameter Label position now accepts the value "BorderTop" also in questionnaires.

Flexible group header size

The group header text now wraps if it's too long to display in one line. This change is automatic, no configuration change is necessary.

Restrict buttons in repeatable groups

When editing a questionnaire template in the designer, you can hide buttons that add or delete instances of a repeatable group. For such questionnaires, inspectors cannot modify the number of group instances using the buttons in the group header. If the questionnaire includes other methods for adding or deleting group instances (custom buttons, JavaScript, ...), the methods continue to function.

Questionnaire settings in toolbar

There's a new Settings button in the toolbar of the questionnaire editor. Some of the most prominent questionnaire properties are now grouped in this window.

Editing toolbar in the Questionnaire Designer

A smaller toolbar is available directly in the central designer pane of the Questionnaire Designer with the commands that apply to the content of the template. Its commands mostly allow you to work with the selected component in the template (move items up or down, clone, delete, etc.). See Editing toolbar for more information.

Use supporting text for descriptions

If you select feature version = 2 in the Questionnaire Designer, the descriptions of questions are rendered differently: using supporting text. In the style editor, you can set up the style: font, font color, font size, alignment, and position related to the input.

JSON: Serialize default answers

Select Serialize fields even if their value equals default value to include more detail in the JSON string. The JSON will include even fields (such as question labels) that have not changed compared to the default value defined in the template.

Note that the resulting JSON string can potentially take up much more space. We recommend not including defaults in the JSON string. If you want to display the default value in a report, combine answers with data from the template. For large deployments with heavy use of questionnaires, redundant data can overwhelm your database.

Resco Guides (Microsoft, Resco Cloud)

Let the AI guide you

We're experimenting with OpenAI API to make writing and translating guides much faster. AI-assisted functions are now available in the Guides library.

• Create a guide for you by describing it.
• Create a guide from an uploaded PDF document.
• Translate a guide.
• Generate tags.

These functions use the GPT-3.5 model and require a valid OpenAI API key. See AI tools for more information.

Contact your business development manager or technical support at Resco.

Full-text search

Users can now perform full-text searches within guides.

Localization

Guide text can now be translated into other languages.

1. Edit a guide.
2. Go to Properties > Localizations. Select the primary language and one or more secondary languages.
3. Click Localize and select the translation that you want to edit.
4. Translate the texts.
5. When done, click Exit Localization mode and save all changes.

In the Guide player, users can select their preferred language of the guide.

See Localizing guides for more information.

Resco Cloud platform

Azure Table for storing server audit data

Resco Cloud server audit data can now be stored in Azure Table.

Blob storage deletion

Currently, when a user deletes a record on Resco Cloud, the blob is also deleted in external storage. With this release, the behavior is configurable.

• Remove (Recycle Bin): After deletion, the record is moved to a recycle bin [trackingdelete] entity. Admin will be able to restore these blobs.
• Delete: Same as the current behavior. The record is deleted from the external storage. It is not moved to the trackingdelete entity.
• Ignore: Blob will not be deleted on external storage.

(Also, we have upgraded the API services for SharePoint from v1 to v2.)

Data size in Admin Console

In the Admin Console, select Data > Manage Data to display how much database storage space is needed for each entity.

Calculated fields

Resco is traditionally strong with client-side business logic: no-code rules and JavaScript support help you fine-tune the behavior of your mobile app. However, in many scenarios, server-side logic is preferable. Calculated fields help to fill that niche. These fields derive their value from other fields.

• Use the Admin Console to define the fields. Set up the formula for calculating the value.
• Server automatically updates the fields when the fields used in the formula change.
• Calculated fields can be displayed in Resco mobile apps, but they should be read-only.

Rise of the clones

When using connected environments to create a clone organization, you can now enter a custom name of the new organization. Perhaps more importantly, you can optionally include what cloud environment to use. For example, you can clone your production organization to the preview/beta cloud.

https://{custom org name}.app.resco.net     - production
https://beta.rescocrm.com/{custom org name} - preview/beta channel

Label position BorderTop is now supported in web app

Resco web app (i.e., Resco Mobile CRM running in a web browser) now supports label position set to BorderTop.

Set users for executing processes

If you are using Server processes, server-side business logic in Resco Cloud, you now have the option to select the user account that executes the process. In the process properties, use Run As and select the user. This function is available for workflows and real-time workflows.

Stability improvements

In this release, we have done several internal changes and improvements that increase the stability of Resco Cloud:

• Improvements of the user's administration and easy change of security role.
• Resco Cloud Client NuGet package was updated to support .NET 6 and 7.

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