Pre-release Announcement: AODocs V52

Dear AODocs Users,

We’re pleased to announce that AODocs version 52 is planned to be released soon (March 2020).

Please find the list of changes and features that will impact the end-user and administrator experience.

This post is a preliminary, non-exhaustive list of the features launching with AODocs version 52. The actual features and updates in the final release may differ from the ones listed below. Subscribe to our Announcement List to receive our Release Notes.

Introduction

AODocs V52 articulates around three functional objectives:

• library administrators can create and configure action reminders in workflows
• library administrators can enjoy additional settings in revamped screens - especially the document class configuration
• end-users can appreciate a visually revamped document history and new shortcuts in the document creation flow

We have also made efforts to improve the flow and performance of the application - especially in some edge cases.

Changes for end-users: document page

Revamped document history 

We have visually revamped the document history tab.

Our goals are to:

• present events in a clearer way - especially the pagination
• make events more understandable - especially workflow events

Note: We're continuing to work on enriching the information displayed about the events - especially property changes after an update.

Reorganized actions

We have reorganized the actions available on the document page.

Having analyzed your usage, we pushed forward your most commonly used actions. Actions like Edit permissions and Move are now available in the More actions menu.

Improved properties layout

We have improved the display of custom properties in sections. Our goals are to enhance:

• the display of properties
• your user experience when editing properties

Note: Property sections are configured by library administrators.

On each property section, you can now view document properties organized in up to 4 columns.

Notes: The rules to display or hide properties remain the same:
– if a property is empty, it's not displayed to readers
– if a property is empty and read-only, it’s not displayed to contributors.

Feel free to follow-up on the Community if you have use cases to leverage a different behaviour.

Changes for administrators

Customize property sections with columns

In V51 we introduced the ability to organize properties into sections. In this release we have enhanced this feature.

You can now choose to display properties in up to 4 columns in each section.

Note: By default sections display 2 columns.

We’re hoping to push this feature even further and make the “form” more dynamic in the future. We’ll keep you posted along the way!

Improvements to the document class configuration

We continued work on enhancing your user experience on the document class configuration (revamped in AODocs V51).

In this release, you can enjoy:

• An enhanced display and organization of the document class configuration page - there are now 5 tabs instead of 3
• New features - mainly on the property rendering

Action reminders for workflows

Last but not least, we’re introducing a built-in solution for action reminders in the workflow configuration. This new feature will resolve the need to implement a workaround to achieve a similar business logic.

Workflow participants can receive up to one action reminder a day for each document with a pending workflow action.

As a library administrator you can configure the content of the emails, how often they are sent, and when to start (and stop) sending them.

Note: You can choose to send action reminders to all participants in the transition or only to participants who have not yet performed their workflow action.

Coming next

More new features are brewing!

Among them:

• a revamp of the views configuration screen - the aim is to expose more settings and a more granular way to filter documents in the views.
• a dedicated engine to calculate property values.
• administration privileges for more granular permissions between library administrators and contributors i.e. give a contributor the ability to edit a read-only property or finalize an ongoing parallel transition.
• improved configuration possibilities of property layout on the document page
• new settings in the document class user interface (for advanced use cases) - to be described more extensively in future communications.