Release notes for Finance Automation releases 9.2.11.0 through to 9.2.11.2

Before: Parameter values for the Review User Message job are not editable from the Certification Review UI.
After: Parameter values for the Review User Message job can be edited on the Certification Review UI if those parameters were configured as InOut on the job definition. If edited, the new values are set as the job parameter out value.

Before: text in various BSC tables wasnt selectable.

After: this text now is selectable.

Before: If a custom Line Item was edited and the Document Number prefix removed or replaced, the Line Item would be treated as though it were a conventional ERP sourced Line Item.

After: A custom Line Item can be edited, but the Document Number prefix can no longer be removed or replaced. The Line Item is correctly identified as a custom Line Item.

Before: If an “invalid line” was found when parsing a table within a spool file, parsing that table would be stopped and the line dropped.

After: If an “invalid line” was found when parsing a table within a spool file, it is tested to see whether it has TAB characters and, if so, these are removed and it is re-validated / parsed, else the line is recorded as a parse error, it is dropped from the output file and, in both cases, parsing of the spool file resumes at the next line.

After: In the LineItems table in BSC, when grouping:

• for the “amount” columns: subtotals for each group are displayed in the group header row in these columns.
• for the checkbox column: a checkbox is shown in the group header in that column that checks/unchecks all checkboxes in the group.

Before: Parameter BALANCE_OPENING of process definition FCA_SAP_Get_Balances was not filled with data.

After: Parameter BALANCE_OPENING of process definition FCA_SAP_Get_Balances is filled with data.

Before: A saved transform condition would display the wrong column value when switching between tabs (but retain the correct value)

After: A transform condition displays the current column value correctly when switching between tabs.

Before: It was not possible to save a Transformer Job that contained a data source with an empty description. Upgrades to 9.2.10 will fail due to Transformers on the system that have Data Sources with no description.

After: It is possible to set empty descriptions for DataSources in DT. Upgrades to 9.2.10 no longer fail due to Transformers that have data sources with no description.

Before: Due to serialisation, Transformer Jobs with DateTime Zone parameters fail when running on a platform agent.

After: Transformer Jobs with DateTime Zone parameters do not fail when running on a platform agent.

Before: Data Transformers created prior to 9.2.10.x that contained an export rule that exported to excel would fail when run on a 9.2.10.x or later environment. To work around the issue the export rule can be deleted and recreated.

After: Data Transformers containing export rules that export to excel that were created prior to 9.2.10.x will complete successfully on 9.2.10.x and later environments.

Before: The existing verification mechanism only allows a single transformer to be verified and the result is displayed either via the UI during design time or in the logs when executed.
After: Two Job Definitions have been introduced which will allow a user to invoke a verification process on a single transformer or all transformers on the system. Upon completion of these jobs, an HTML report is generated containing the results. An HTML Report is also generated now when running a transformer with verification enabled. A system-wide verification on all transformers will now be invoked after an upgrade to maintain integrity.

Before: Renaming rule sets could invalidate file expressions which would then require manual intervention

After: Renaming rule sets now correctly updates references to the updated rule set in file expressions

Before: The creation of some rules, including transform and adding a column types, failed.

Before: It is now possible to create all rule types

Before: When creating a burst rule via a column header the Excel Settings accordion would not expand to show the Excel Settings.

After: When creating a burst rule via a column header the Excel Settings accordion now displays the available Excel options.

Before: It was not possible to create a new transformer with the “Save” button.

After: It is possible to create a new transformer with the “Save” button.

Before: BusterJobFileReferences had their extensions duplicated when the “Short file names” option is selected in the UI.

Before: BusterJobFileReference no more contain duplicated extensions when the “Short file names” option is selected in the UI.

Before: The Application and Description on a Transformer get blanked out when saving a transformer

After: The Application and Description values on a Transformer are retained when saving a transformer.

Before: Data Transformer was not available for download and installation via the Catalog

After: Data Transformer is available for download and installation via the Catalog

Before: When a Data Transformer process is included as part of an incomplete chain at the time of import of FCA/Data Transformer, the import would fail even if the Data Transformer process was complete itself.

After: Data Transformer can be imported even if complete Data Transformers are included as part of an incomplete chain.

Before: If a value for default expression of a parameter with an out direction is provided and error is encountered when saving the Data Transformer.

After: Default expression values for parameters with an out direction are ignored when saving the Data Transformer

Before: Filter rule equality check between dates returned the incorrect results.

After: Filter rules now correctly performs equality checks between dates.

Before: Deleting failing rules from first ruleset makes other rulesets identical.

After: Deleting failed rules from first ruleset no longer impacts other rulesets.

Before: When a user enters a value for the 'add filter' option on a particular column that value then displays as the default value if they select 'add filter' on another column, even if that column already has a filter value assigned to it.

 After: When a user selects 'add filter' on a column the value already assigned to that column is displayed as the default value (or no value is displayed if none has been assigned)

Before: DataTransformer Job always shows rowCount 0 - when output format is PDF - however the number of rows is grater than 0

After: DataTransformer Job shows correct number of rows, when output format is PDF

Before: Transformer edit rules on large datasets resulted in performance degrading and high memory usage.

After: Transformer edit rules now have increased performance and use less memory.

Before: Data Transformers within a JobChain opened via the process monitor context menu failed to load input data from the job instance.

After: All Data Transformers opened via the process monitor context menu successfully load input data from the job instance.

Before: When submitting with “detect_types_from_values” for the setColumnTypes parameter in Convert_Excel_toRTX jobs, all Time, Date and DateTime columns were set as Date columns in the Output RTX file.

After: When submitting with “detect_types_from_values” for the setColumnTypes parameter, Convert_Excel_toRTX jobs now set the column types of the Output RTX file corresponding to the types of the input values.

Redwood_FCA library should now have jsoup_.jar and commons-lang3_.jar which are needed for mail-reactor.

Before: Submitting Redwood_Convert_Excel_toRTX failed with class loading error NoClassDefFoundError: com/lmax/disruptor/EventTranslatorVararg when using POI as processing engine.
After: Redwood_Convert_Excel_toRTX can use POI as processing engine without class loading errors.

Consistent behaviour of the parameters IN_DATA_HEADER (used only for new / imported mergerecords) and RULE_RESULT_HEADER.

The latter, if defined will force the redefinition of the field headers before the RTX is written.

Before: Parameter IN_RANGE was mandatory, the result RTX covered the range as specified.
After: Parameter IN_RANGE is now optional, if none is given, empty cells from the excel file are trimmed. If the given range is larger than the actual filled range, the empty cells are also trimmed.

Before: FCA_SAP_Generic_Loop only allowed usernames consisting of letters, numbers and whitespaces as participants (IN_WF_TO) and blocked all others on submit.
After: FCA_SAP_Generic_Loop now supports all participants the used user message definition (IN_WF_DEFINITION) does by only blocking empty participants (IN_WF_TO) on submit.

Before: Using a REL expression with System_Loop_Over_Table could result in an exception.

After: REL expressions are correctly evaluated when used with System_Loop_Over_Table

Before: a warning stating “ServerModelSessionStore - No HttpSession id found in attribute 'SessionId'“ was sometimes shown in the scheduler.log. This should have had no functional impact in the product as it currently is.

After: this warning is no longer shown and potential future problems in this area have pre-emptively been averted.

Before: Messages in Inbox would incorrectly not show or grey out the option to reply or delegate them, unless manually refreshed.
After: Messages in Inbox refresh automatically when being selected or their context menu is opened.

Before: Inbox waited for the count of UserMessages to return before fetching for the actual UserMessages.
After: Inbox directly starts loading UserMessages and only then will get the count of UserMessages. The counter at the bottom of the inbox will update a bit later, but UserMessages start to appear earlier. This will improve performance.

Before: Filters set on custom fields were not saved in filter profiles and unaffected by “Clear all filters” button.
After: Filters set on custom fields are now saved in filter profiles and get cleared by “Clear all filters” button.

Before: Inbox generated a wrong JobFile reference that is written to the OUT_UPLOADED_FILE parameter of the UserMessage job.
After: Inbox generates a correct JobFile reference that is written to the OUT_UPLOADED_FILE parameter of the UserMessage job.

Before: Filters on custom fields could not be saved in a filter profile, if they were mapped to a different display name.
After: Filters on custom fields with a display name can be saved in filter profiles. CUS_Inbox_FilterProfiles table contains the field with its actual name.

Before: Adding a field covered by a default filter or the same custom field twice to CUS_Inbox_BoardConfiguration shows the filter twice in inbox overview and hides the values of the columns.

After: Additional occurrences of a custom field in CUS_Inbox_BoardConfiguration are ignored, only one is added to the inbox overview.

Before: SAP User Details Synchronize process (FCA_SAP_UserDetails_Synchronize) failed because of the prefix “USER.” in the user name.

After: SAP User Details Synchronize process (FCA_SAP_UserDetails_Synchronize) now succeeds because the prefix “USER.” is removed from user names.

Before: Periods could be partly controlled with unfinished functionality referred to as Periodicity.

After: Periodicity has been removed from the UI. Instead there are now period groups.

• Period Groups are a named collections of numerical periods.
• Each Period Group should be unique in both its name and its periods.
• Each system has a set of default Period Groups defined.
  • These are stored in the Orchestrator_PeriodGroups scripting table.
  • This scripting table can be edited by clicking a button on the main/overview page of the orchestrator.
• Each task list can contain a collection of Period Groups.
  • Default Period Groups can be added to this collection by using the Pencil icon on the Period Groups tab on the edit page of the task list.
  • After adding, no link between the added Period Group and the default Period Group is maintained, so it can be changed at will.
• Each task in the task list can have Period Group property.
  • This property is visible if the containing task list has any Period Groups defined.
  • The editor for this property has a dropdown showing all Period Groups on the task list and any one of those can be set.
  • Setting a Period Group to a task is to be intepretted as “only run this task in the periods contained in the set Period Group”.

Before: Tasks in Orchestrator ended with status Completed although they were not submitted due to errors. These errors were only visible in the logs.

After: Tasks in Orchestrator now correctly end with status Error when there are errors.

Before: Resubmitting inside the Orchestrator would fail to set the Close Date parameter: "The value XXX is not a valid DateTimeZone".
After: This no longer happens, the Close Date parameter is properly filled.

Before: It was possible to edit Task lists in Orchestrator UI only.

After: Task lists can be exported as an excel file, it can be modified and uploaded back into Orchestrator. The import files can be used to edit and create new Task lists. Job Definition Redwood_Orchestrator_Excel_Export needs to be used to do the export.

Before: when the Orchestrator was opened on the edit page (skipping the overview page), the context menu entry “Add Process List” would be greyed out.

After: the context menu entry is now active and if you click it, the dropdown containing process-lists-to-add also correctly gets populated.

Before: Excel import and export for Orchestrator had to be done by running the appropriate job definitions.

After: Excel import and export for Orchestrator can now be done by using the context menu directly in the Orchestrator.

Before: Providing different process list name as parameter when importing process lists from excel files was not reflected when opening the process list after the import.

After: Process list name is used properly for both for the job definition name and for the name property when opening the process list in the Orchestrator.

Before: When upgrading from version 9.2.8.X to 9.2.9.X or higher, opening the Orchestrator resulted in losing the saved settings for e.g. Default Application, Last Used Values, etc. and a corresponding error message being displayed.

After: When upgrading from version 9.2.8.X to 9.2.9.X or higher, opening the Orchestrator does not result in losing the saved settings for e.g. Default Application, Last Used Values, etc. and no error message will be displayed anymore.

Before: Submitting process lists that were created in Orchestrator version >= 9.2.9.1 HF 439 and <= 9.2.10.0 the error message was shown Exception evaluating constraint LOV <parameter>: =Constraint.pairListConstraint('Periodicity,Description',$.Redwood_ProcessOrchestrator.getPeriodicityNameDescriptionIncludePairList())

After: The REL expression that caused the error to occur gets removed from the TASKLIST_PERIODICITY parameter in all process lists during the upgrade installation.

Before: When you make any change to the value of a parameter field in the Runner UI, it would immediately set that value to the parameter of the Process that is prepared on the server. This could be a performance burden depending on the process (parameter) definition.

After: We now no longer set the value to the parameter of the Process that is prepared on the server on any change in the UI, but only when defocussing the input field or when pressing enter.

Before: When Runner loads the overview and it contains a task that has a parameter that is both non-display and elligible to show up in an overview column (which means either part of key or configured in CUS_Runner_ColumnParameters), then Runner will show an error containing a NullPointerException.

After: The Runner now properly shows the overview if it contains a task that has a parameter that is both non-display and elligible to show up in an overview column.

Before: When loading the overview (list) of all tasks in the Runner, the process parameters corresponding to the tasks were loaded per task and would fire off one database query per task. If a lot of tasks were shown in the runner (max. 5000) and access to the database was slow, this would have a significant performance impact.
After: How the Runner queries for these parameters is now made configurable though the OverviewParameterFetchMode configuration in the Runner configuration group in the platform configuration framework, with the following options:

• PER_JOB (default): this the old method. Upside: simple, smooth streaming behavior. Downside: might need a lot of queries, slow if database access is slow.
• IN_BATCH: query for the parameters in batches of many tasks. Upside: less queries to get parameters, so a lot faster in at least some cases (where database access is slow). Downside: takes more memory, less smooth streaming behavior. The size of the batches is 256 by default but can be configured by a second new configuration: OverviewParameterFetchBatchSize which has a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 256. It is possible that different batch sizes have different effects on performance.
  NONE: don't load parameters at all when loading the task overview. This means we don't show columns for parameters in the overview table. That is, no key parameters and no separately configurable parameter columns through CUS_Runner_ColumnParameters. Upside: best performance. Downside: no access to parameters in the overview.

The two non-default options can be chosen if one runs into performance issues that are caused by the queries for parameters.

Before: Table editor takes a long time to open on a system with a large number of applications

After: Table editor can be opened faster on a system with a large number of applications

Before: The product shipped with guava 30.1.1, which was vulnerable to CVE-2020-8908 and CVE-2023-2976.

After: The guava library is updated to 32.0.0, which resolves these vulnerabilities.

NOTE: The product does not use the affected classes, and so is not vulnerable to either CVE, however we have decided to update the library out of an abundance of care.

It is now possible to use SAP HANA reports to retrieve line items

Before: The “Open Existing” button of Data Transformer would not be enabled in a system that contained Data Transformer definitions where the Data Transformer user interface had not been opened. Data Transformer would default to show recently used Data Transformers.

After: The “Open Existing” button of Data Transformer is enabled if there are any Data Transformer definitions present. Data Transformer will default to show all Data Transformers rather than recently used ones.

Before:

Rejected Line items were not marked as reviewed and prepare have to mark them them rejected explicitly.

After:

Rejected line items are now marked as reviewed automatically as soon as approver rejects it.

Before: Table cells in the Balancesheet Reconciliation Line Items view could not be edited.

After: Table columns in the Balancesheet Reconciliation Line Items view can be configured to allow editing of table cells.

New SAP AddOns have been created 100/05 (b20230418).

Abap Enhancements

• Added German language for Table Maintenance with transaction
• Implemented BADI exit for transaction VA01 and VA02
• Implemented Debug Information about BADI usage
• Extended Journal BADI with
  • Document Level substitution / validation
  • Withoulding Tax
  • Tax Account posting details not available with BAPI
• Enhanced Journal
  • Enhanced auto determination of Base Amount when posting on Tax Accounts
• Extended Table Read with Access Rule processing (SLDW)
• Extended Batch Input processing with Logging in Database (S/4)

Bugs Fixed

• ALV Layout upload can only be done in login language
• Call Transaction did not retrieve all spool files
• Implemented explicite commit for Table Change rfc functions (S/4)
• Fix issue in Application Lock check for WE21
• Exceptions while reading tables where not visible

QA Test

Beside testing the transactions impacted by the changed code, also the /JCS/PARM transaction needs to be checked in the German Language as this was added to the Addon

Before: Transformers automatically restart after an interruption.

After: Transformers do not automatically resume after an interruption.

Before: When working with Redwood_PA_Convert_Excel_toRTX or Redwood_Convert_Excel_toRTX, the process engine FastExcel did not set date, datetime and datetimezones as such in the output RTX file, and instead returned all numeric columns as Number columns.

After: The process engine Fastexcel in Redwood_PA_Convert_Excel_toRTX or Redwood_Convert_Excel_toRTX now sets the column types exactly as specified with the Set column Types parameter. In addition, a new column type was introduced, which allows to set ‘time’ column types. Convert_RTX_toExcel jobs can handle this column type now as well.

Before: Inbox and Workbench did not support uploading of multiple files at once.
After: Inbox and Workbench do now support uploading of multiple files at once.

Before: Orchestrator did not have the option to import a task list from excel file.

After: There is now a dedicated import from excel function in Orchestrator. This excel file format can be used to make edits to an existing task list or to create a new one. Job Definition Redwood_Orchestrator_Excel_Import needs to be used to do the import.

Before:

• There was no native way to assign period-based timing to tasks.

After:

• Periods can be created and assigned to groups. Those period groups or Periodicities can be selected for tasks. Then users can submit tasks in a TaskList from the Orchestrator for a given Period then only the Tasks with a corresponding Period Group assigned will be scheduled. Other Tasks that don't have a matching Period Group will be skipped.

Before: Dragging and dropping of rule sets to reorder their sequence was not possible.

After: Dragging and dropping of rule sets to reorder their sequence is possible.