Dear AODocs users,
We’re happy to announce the release of version 52, a foundational release for AODocs, the leading content services platform. The release increases vertical market support and lays the foundations for stronger AI-based content services in future releases.
Please find below a list of the major new features and improvements in this release.
Launch details
Rollout pace: From 16 to 18 March 2020
Impact: All end users
Video: AODocs R52 highlights
Check out the video highlighting the major changes we made for AODocs R52.
Changes for end users
Document page
We’ve visually revamped the document history tab. Learn more: View the document history.
This tab displays events more clearly, notably with improved pagination. The events are easier to understand, with precise details about workflow events, for example.
Note: We’re continuing to work on enriching the information displayed about events, especially property changes after an update.
To make collaboration easier, we introduced a simple Copy to clipboard button next to Person properties on the document page. This allows you to copy the email addresses of the users and groups defined for the property, so you can easily start an email conversation (for example).
Note: In the future we want to enable copy-paste in the opposite direction: you’ll be able to paste email addresses into your Person properties that you copied from elsewhere, to avoid having to add email addresses one by one.
Advanced file viewer
To support advanced, industry-specific use cases, you can now preview additional file types in AODocs with a new advanced viewer:
- Computer Aided Design (CAD) files for engineers and designers
- Dicom files for the healthcare industry
- Visio files
- Email files
Changes for contributors
Document page
After digging into the usage data of AODocs, we decided to reorganize the action bar slightly to provide easy access to the most important and commonly-used actions.
Based on customer feedback, we also made some small adjustments to the information about folders on the document page:
- When you hover over the folder name, an Open in new tab button appears. Press this button to open the parent folder of your document in an AODocs view – your current document is listed, along with any other documents and sub-folders.
- After moving a document (from the document page only), a message opens to confirm the action was successful. The message contains a button to open the folder into which you moved the document.
In Document Management libraries, performance has been improved when replacing attachments in documents with five or more attachments.
Based on customer feedback, we made small, yet important, changes to the user experience when selecting values for categories with multiple levels:
- The picker now adapts to the width of the values available in the drop-down list. This is especially useful in landscape layout mode with lengthy category values.
- Users can click in the category field or on the tree icon to enter a value.
Finally, we’ve continued to improve the document creation flow following the initial revamp in release 51.
When you create new related items from the document page, the same document creation flow is now available if you use:
- the Create related button next to the New button
- the Add button, available in each relation panel
In both cases, after creating a new related item you remain in the current document (unless there are mandatory properties, in which case the new document opens).
We also added a shortcut in another document creation flow in Team Folders and Secured Folders. When you create a document from a template with an attachment (and if there are no mandatory properties), a pop-up opens requesting a title, which can be different from the template’s attachment name. Previously, the document creation page opened.
Changes for library administrators
Library administration page
Workflow configuration
AODocs workflow notifications have been extended to include action reminder emails!
Learn more: Configure workflow emails – Action reminders.
This new feature provides the flexibility you need to send action reminders according to your specific business requirements.
Workflow participants can receive up to one action reminder a day for each document with a pending workflow action. The audience of the action reminder email is determined by the selected transition for a given workflow state.
As a library administrator, you can configure the content of the emails and:
- when to trigger the first reminder
- whether to keep sending repeat reminders – select a frequency in number of days
- when to stop sending reminders
The conditions to start and stop sending reminders are based on:
- a specific date
- a date property (of the document) with an optional offset before or after the date, in number of days
- a defined duration spent in the workflow state
To support this new feature, we introduced a third type of email template: Action reminder email. It’s similar to action email templates, but contains specific placeholders, such as the number of reminders already sent.
Workflow emails
Since release 51, it has been possible to configure sections to organize properties on the document page. The standard placeholder ${documentProperties} now lists properties organized in sections (if sections are configured in your document).
Learn more: Placeholders to customize workflow emails.
We also removed the folder information from the ${documentProperties} placeholder, as folders are considered to be system properties.
Note: It remains possible to display the document’s folder in workflow emails by using the generic placeholder ${document:fieldName} with the folder property name that’s defined in the library administration. Learn more: Configure folders in your document class.
Finally, storage accounts, which are considered as administrators (owners) of libraries, no longer receive emails triggered by the workflow.
Document class configuration: display in multiple columns
For each property section, you can now customize the number of columns in which properties appear on the document page. This is the first step toward a more customizable display on the document page.
Learn more: Organize custom properties in sections.
For end users:
For administrators:
Document class configuration: small enhancements
After fully revamping the document class configuration screen in release 51, we made some visual adjustments and small functional enhancements:
- In the document class configuration screen, we introduced additional tabs to improve organization.
- Property sections are displayed in separate blocks for better readability.
- Sections and their properties can be deleted in a single action.
- Warnings appear when there are potential inconsistencies between property validation rules and values already set in document templates.
- We enhanced the custom action creation and edition flow.
Custom script configuration
For advanced users, the custom script configuration now lets you:
- make parameters mandatory at the script level, which forces the custom action configuration to fill out a value for these parameters
- add a description (plain text and limited) to clarify the purpose of the parameter – in the next release, this description should also be shown at the custom action configuration level (only for Update and Viewer actions, which are available in the revamped Document class configuration screen)
Bug fixes
- We removed from the AODocs header the shortcut to switch to the library administration page of a different library. Instead, you can quickly access the AODocs homepage of the domain to navigate to another library.
- In the custom scripts configuration page, we fixed the reordering by last update date and by type.
Administrator actions in end user pages
When administrators export documents to another document class in the same library, the folder - if any - is now preserved: the document will “move” from one class to another but will be located in the same folder.
This is especially relevant following another improvement we made in release 52. In views configured to display all classes and with Browse by folder activated, when you access your subfolders, you can now view documents from all classes. Previously, you could view only documents in the default class defined for the view (although you could view documents from all classes at the root level of the library using the checkbox Include documents from subfolders).
On the document page, we moved the administrator actions in workflows to the More actions menu. These are:
- view the status of an ongoing parallel transition
- change the workflow state (finalize an ongoing parallel transition or choose a different workflow state)
Changes for super administrators
Domain administration: licensed users
As an AODocs super administrator, you can now search for a part of email addresses in the list of licensed users. This allows easier management of the licenses on your domain.
We’ve made it easier for you to identify when you’ve exceeded the limit of your AODocs licences, with specific messaging for super administrators in the domain administration. Overconsumption is due to users on your domain who access files stored in AODocs only through Google Drive. Don’t hesitate to contact your sales representative for more information.
And so much more brewing…
More new features are brewing!
We’re making significant progress on:
- the revamp of the view configuration screen, with more settings and a more granular way to filter documents in the views
- a dedicated engine to automatically calculate property values
- more granular permissions between library administrators and contributors, for example, contributors will be able to edit read-only properties and finalize ongoing parallel transitions
Moreover, we’ve initiated work on a wide range of topics, including:
- built-in support for additional file storage capabilities (on top of Google Drive), especially Google Cloud Storage
- conditional renderings of properties and sections on the document page based on the values of other properties – for example, if a user selects USA in the Country property, a USA-specific property or section is displayed
- improved configuration possibilities and layout of properties on the document page
- a revamp of the library homepage, with improved user experience and design