It’s been a busy few months for the growing Sharedo product team with release 6.27 bringing us a raft of new features.
Modeller
Developer IDE – as part of modeller there is now an integrated IDE for the development of custom portal widgets and other extensions.
Data Composer – data composer continues to be enhanced with additional data scopes and extensibility improvements including connections, easier support for time zones, property details, incident details, multi-currency and support for data composer in title generators.
Core Case
Enhanced time zone support enabling better management of geographically distributed teams and SLA timings.
ODS Information Walls enabling groups of people, orgs or teams to be placed in “walls”; users are then restricted in their searches of these walls.
Document Assembly
Simplification of the document template configuration model
Finance
Introduction of more configurable time list views
As part of the Finance 2.0 programme a new highly configurable budget framework has been released
Enhanced support for units of measure and unit of measure types
Integrations
We have depreciated our Land Registry integration in favour of a more generic InfoTrack integration
These features are described briefly in the following sections. As always for more details please see the relevant help materials or contact customer success.
Modeller – Developer IDE
The developer IDE aims to bridge the gap between Sharedo “no code” configurability and true extensibility. Available to both SaaS and on-premise clients we will over time be depreciating the custom plugin model completely.
Instead of custom plugins you can now use the Developer IDE to implement extensions are fully integrated into the Sharedo modeller environment.
Just like VisualStudio you can create a number of different customisations. These customisations are supported by scaffolding
For the initial release the IDE is focused on extensions for
Portal Widgets – if Sharedo doesn’t have the relevant widget you can now create your own widget in javascript
Blades – with the ability to override blade behaviour or look and feel
The IDE will be gradually expanded with different customisation options over time to assist in the migration away from custom plugins. To assist with this process
Custom plugins are now side-loaded into the main application and hence do not have to be part of your CI process
All customisations implemented using the Sharedo IDE form part of the your solution packages and are imported and exported
You can view the “old” style custom extension points from the “Custom Extension Points” global feature; these can then be replaced with “no code” extensions overtime
[Modeller] Support of data composer in title generators
When configuring a title or reference generator for a work type you can now choose to load data composer fields. This will allow you to browse the dictionary for a work item and select the required fields or expressions that you require for your titles. The fields that are selected are then made available in the generation mask help.
[Globalisation] Time zones
Sharedo is increasingly being used by global organisations who perform functions across one or more time zones. Even organisations limited to a single country may face the challenges associated with multiple time zones.
To assist with these processing scenarios we have introduced
A new global feature that enables you to turn on time zone support – if you are operating in only a single time zone then leaving this disabled will not add any additional functionality to your solution.
Once enabled you will then have additional time zone capture available for user profiles
The intended “working time zone” is then captured against work items; a common example being the capture of appointments
Support for viewing these dates in both the work item and a user’s time zone is then provided via Public APIs, Data Composer, Forms, Document Assembly, chronology and calendar sync
[Security] ODS Walls
Within the ODS Area of Sharedo we maintain a master list of users, people, organisations and teams.
These master lists can be subdivided in a number of ways including the
Configuration of different searches
ODS Types
However there are various circumstances where we wish to create specific sets of ODS Entities to restrict the available entities that are available for different users. We describe these restrictions as ODS Information Walls
Examples of the use of walls include
Restricting the list of users such that a client user can only see the users who are working on their account
Restricting the list of organisations such that a client user can only see the organisations that they have as counter parties
Restricting the list of users available for task allocation to only those that are in your business unit. For example the real estate team would only see real estate users
Like the majority of Sharedo feature enhancements ODS Walls are optional and are controlled by the feature framework via the “ODS Information Walls” feature.
Within this feature you specify 2 elements
The default wall that will be applied to all ODS Entities that are created; access to this wall will typically be given to system administrators
The work types that should be used to default “walls” for specific processing scenarios; this is typically statements of work.
Once enabled with the Admin area you will then be able to maintain walls.
With a wall contains a variety of different ODS entities with permissions to read or update these entities being granted to security teams.
Walls can be assigned in several ways
Users can ODS Entities manually; either singularly or as a bulk action
When a new ODS Entity is created it can be assigned a Wall by virtue of
The default system walls – these are defined in the global feature
By any default walls that are defined in the work item hierarchy
Information Walls restrict users actions in the following ways
When a user searches ODS Entities the list of results returned is restricted by the users membership of Walls and the Read permission
When a user attempts to update an ODS Entity their ability is restricted by the users membership of Walls and the Update permission.
[Document Assembly] Simplification of the template configuration model
The first step on our Document 2.0 programme of enhancements is the introduction of a number of new document assembly related features
Documents are now administered via their own dedicated Admin portal; this can be accessed via the global launch pad
When a template is created a variety of its settings are now based on the template type in order to make the experience of authoring templates considerably easier. Templates types are configured under the document assembly global feature
When configuring a document template we now separate the “data context” from the display context enabling you to write about an appointment from a case
The display of templates can also be further refined using matching rules
In addition as part of the migration to the new document admin portal there have been a significant number of additional usability enhancements including
Better management of pack contents
Simplification of DMS Output settings
Simplification of Display Rules
UX Enhancements to document actions
The introduction of this feature has required a number of structural changes to the way templates are managed to assist with the migration of your templates within the new document admin portal there is a V7 Template Upgrade page
Within this page you can
Initiate an upgrade of your templates; your templates will be upgraded to the new model in a matter of seconds
Review the results of the upgrade; since we have introduced different data and display contexts to documents the upgrade process will attempt to assign these correctly, however where this is ambiguous warnings will be issued
[Finance] Time Recording Enhancements
Time recording list views have now been moved to the standard list view framework which in turn enables you to configure more flexible time views. Within modeller you will find a new list view provider for Time Entries which provides you with additional configuration options that are relevant to time management.
These include the ability to
Filter time by users or teams in the list view definition
Filter time by state e.g. submitted or unsubmitted
Filter time be period
In addition on the time list views there are now additional actions for bulk reversing or submitting time.
[Finance] Enhanced budget configuration
As part of the Finance 2.0 programme of work we have introduced enhanced configurability into budgets. From the feature framework you can now access a budgets configurator.
From within this modeller you can then define your budget structures
Including
The segment of the chart of accounts that they are based upon
What account codes are included
What columns are displayed
The new budget functionality is also supported by a configurable set of widgets including
Budget Transaction log
Budget Radars
[Finance] Units of Measure
In this release we have introduced a configurable set of units of measures and types. Units of measure are then referenced in
Goods and Services items
Form definitions
Units of Measure are designed to enable you to invoice (sell) or purchase (buy) specific quantities of items; with the typical example being time.
Units of measure types are defined within the Global Feature and then specific codes maintained within the Admin portal
Relevant units of measure are then specified in Goods and Service definitions
[Integrations] InfoTrack – Property Search Integration
In this release we have now depreciated our land registry integration in favour of infotrack integration which provides not only land registry searches but significantly more.
Within the feature framework you can turn on Info Track integration specifying your connection settings, processing style and availability for work types.
Major Bug Fixes and minor enhancements
89935 – Ability for users to initiate a refresh of a Power BI report manually and have information on when the report was last refreshed
90392 – Enhancement of MoJ integration to support better injury and participant mapping
92225 – [Admin] Data load – Trying to create a new active run or opening an existing one throws a ‘404 content not found’ error
91281 – [Participants] Advanced ODS search – Searched for a postcode but the search results did not contain the postcode
91682 – [Participants] Advanced ODS Search (Add user to a team) – Refine search by team membership and a specific postcode returns unexpected results
92682 – [Modeller] Title Generator – Data Composer – Fails if a an ’empty’ field is included
82402 – [Case Management] Bulk Approval – Team Approvals – issue with approving own items in new bulk approval handler
92601 – [Document Templates] Document Template List View – system name should be visible
86402 – [Audit] Missing entries for participant removal
89091 – [Case Management] – Notifications list view not showing dismissed date
92283 – [Case Management] [Action Plans] – Emails accessed through action plan do not filter participants
90319 – [Modeller] [Option Sets] Duplicate names should be allowed
91949 – [Integrations] [iManage] Cannot save a matter title with a & in
89562 – [Case Management] [Striping] Option Set Striping: Court Type list on Proceedings does not honour jurisdiction matching rules for striping
91638 – [Modeller] Work Type Execution Engine Triggers doesn’t show triggers that are applicable via a path
89287 – [Modeller] Liability Feature: Not respecting role inheritance and forcing user to enter in role configuration at every level
91769 – [Document Assembly] Document Generation: issue with openXml generation with business rules in repeating tables
91768 – [Document Assembly] Address Formatter – AUS address format not working
90484 – [Document Assembly] – [Document Templates] – Fixed issue on document tags refresh not refreshing all tags in document templates
90642 – [Finance] – [Fee Templates] – Move VAT tax references to config
91577 – [Modeller] – [Global Feature: Litigation] – Matter Type Configuration throws an error
88449 – [Modeller] – [Global Feature: Liability]: Feature does not honour role inheritance
87552 – [Document Assembly] – [Multiparty Email]: Multiple Email Deliveries on MultiParty Documents not able to Complete task
91572 – [Case Management] – [Duplicate Search]: Dispute Matters(New instruction / matter spawn) – The duplicate search errors
91683 – [Modeller] [Finance: Goods and services] – A non-stop progress wheel is thrown when trying to open/edit an item
90366 – [Modeller] – [Aspects] – Duplicate aspects appearing in Add new aspect
90793 – [Case Management] [Search] Search for participants should not be case sensitive
91021 – Matching rules – new matching rule to ensure documents associated with work item at phase transition
90999 – Case Management – [Comments Widget] – Regarding link should be clickable
90999 – Case Management – [Comments Widget] – User interface update
91005 – Case Management – [Wiki Widget] – Support Default Config and Tables
91006 – Case Management -[Info Message Widget] – Support rich text and
91154 – Case Management – [List View Aspect] – Widget configurability
91177 – Case Management – [Phase Guards] – e-signature phase guard should support rich text
91549 – [Documents] Related Documents Widget UX Enhancements
91264 – [Finance] [Offers] Rationale should be a rich text component
92709 – Ability to conflict check on the intersection of two roles
92805 – [Autoclose Descendants] Move to feature framework