Release Notes version 5.8.1 Heisenberg

Projects

Resource permission check speed improvements

The Resource permission check framework was updated to provide a faster check in the worst cases.

Previously it could take up to 20 times longer to be the first one to visit a resource list, it should now only be about twice as long.

For people that have a search criteria that match many resources, but actually have little access to them, the resource list could also be very slow. This should now be fixed. It will still be slower, but the difference should be minimal.

As an added benifit of these changes, the side bar in "my activities" should also be much faster.

Improvements in speed for resource tree

A couple of changes were made to the resource tree, that brings vast performance improvements. Previously it could takes 1-2 minutes to browse down a couple of levels in the tree. This has now been reduced so that in most cases it feels instantanious.

To support this change, there is minor change in logic with regards to the sorting. When there is more than 1000 resources for a node, previously resources would be sorted by the first 1000 shown was also the last 1000 edited resources. It is now the last 1000 created resources.

Another minor change in logic is that the expansion boxes shown to expand the tree on a resource having children will now much more often be shown even though there aren't actually any visible children.

Communicator improvements

In this minor release, the Communicator module was the lucky recipient of most new features. One of these features were the Email blacklist. This feature was made in order to easily add a long list of government blacklisted emails, so we ensure that these are not used. For easy of use with this feature, a simplistic import was added. An additional and related feature is that the mail server now will filter out the sending of mails to any email that exists on the blacklisted email list. It is not yet possible to build groups or samples based on this information, nor get any statistics on how many was filtered due to blacklisting.

A minor change was also made on the CATI interviewer screen to support existing dialer systems, where phone numbers will now be shown with '00' in front of country code instead of '+'.

Further, an extension was made to the communicator's distribution rules, so that incoming SMS messages can be filtered.

And as a new feature for the communicator's distribution rules, it is now possible to execute a workflow based on the incoming message, something we feel will provide much value.

In the project VN2984COR - SMS - CGS functions for single SMS a new API was created which enables users to send SMS from CG Script, however the constant-naming did not follow our naming policy for constants used as enumerators. The project VN3074COR implemented new enumerators as status codes.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting the communicator were:

VN2980COR - Email blacklist - Import emails VN2982COR - SMS - Obey distribution rules VN2979COR - Email blacklist - Filter emails from being sent when they are blacklisted VN3057COR - Change formatting of phonenumber in cati window VN3074COR - SMS - Rename constants for the SMS CGS API

Group builder

The group builder, which received a major overhaul in version 5.8, has had a few more extensions made to the rebuild logic in regards to the hierarchical rule structure. Although warnings are already shown now, when percentage and absolute targets do not add up to that of a parent, we will now repeat those warnings in the rebuild dialog. If absolute targets add up to more than that set for a parent, rebuilding will simply be disallowed. If percentages do not add up to 100, then the user will be offered an autocorrection feature, which will automatically solve this problem.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting group builder were:

VN2992COR - GB Rebuild Warning

Resource management updates

A feature related to the management of resources is a new My Portal element. This element will show the latest 20 resources that the logged in user has opened in descending order.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting resource management were:

VN3041DAT - Allow edit options of single/multi property 'VN2862COR - Last opened resource

Export and Import extensions

Two projects were made for the Export feature -- both with the same purpose. For SPSS and Excel/CSV files you can now also have a column exported that identifies the Status of each Answer sheet.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting export and import modules were:

VN3043DAT - Export - One more column QAS.Status to SPSS exported file VN2991DAT - Export - One more column QAS.Status to excel/csv exported file

New CGScript functions

As always, a stack of new CGScript functions have been added. The full list of new ones are:

• EmailError_getInvalidEmails: Used for getting email errors' information which is based on last updated date of invalid emails and group id which limit to return invalid emails of users on the group.
• Sms_send: Used for sending SMS to a list of users.
• Sms_sendMailTemplate: Used for sending SMS based on a Mail Template to a list of users.
• QAS_getByUserResourceId: This function is used to get list of answer sheet objects which have been assigned to a specific user.
• Workflow_call: This function is used to run a workflow or a tabulation script.
• Workflow_getParameters: This function is used to get parameters passed to the current workflow or tabulation script.

Finally, we added an additional feature to the workflow engine that makes it possible for us to name the user used in a script context. Normally it is always the logged in user which is seen as user in context, but this new feature makes it possible for us to run the script with another user instead. This feature we call 'impersonation'.

Projects made in version 5.8 supporting CGScript were:

New CGS: QAS_getByUserResourceId New CGS: Workflow_call New CGS: Workflow_getParameters VN2981COR - Email Error - CGS functions VN2984COR - SMS - CGS functions for single SMS VN2820DAT - CGS - CGScript Impersonation in work flow

Cost management improvements

In order to make it easier to set a stack of invoices to paid at the same time, this has been made possible through the mass update feature on the invoice resource list.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting the cost and invoice modules were:

VN3044DAT - Add paid date to invoice mass update

Project resource updates

A new way to manage project codes was implemented that enables the system to handle the issue that will occur when numbers reach values where an additional digit needs to be added. This means that the system now can easily change digits from e.g. PN999 to PN1000.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting project resources were:

VN2993DAT - Project code validation should allow for sites to have more projects than the original code

Web shop improvements

Since we have a new client using the web shop, we were also informed of some usability issues. The issues that were fixed were:
If all products in the basket are non-physical then the steps “Delivery address” and “Delivery types” will be hidden when using the payment wizard.
If the web shop does not have credit card enabled, then the "Payment" step will be hidden in the payment wizard and there will not be a choice of currency in the shop.

Projects made in version 5.8 supporting the web shop were:

VN2957DAT - WebShop - Usability improvements

Questionnaire editor and viewer

Based on the level of resource access of a user to the questionnaire, there may now be differences in the error messages that he or she gets when there is something wrong with a questionnaire. This means that the system can now present much more detailed error messages to the administrators of a questionnaire, but avoid scaring mortal respondents with excessive error details. This will work the same way no matter whether the questionnaire is answered through a normal questionnaire viewer, through the previewer or from a test link.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting VoIP were:

VN2865QNR - Questionnaire viewer - Simple and detailed error messages

CATI updates

Some more statistics have been added to the status tab on the Fieldwork Manager. It is now possible to see the average time an interviewer spends on a successful call as well as being able to compare it to the average time spent by all interviewers on successful interviews.

Some improvements have further been made in regards to the speed of the system when moving between respondents.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting CATI were:

VN3008QNR - CATI statistic - Extension the statistic with the average length of successful interviews VN2870QNR - Bandwidth of Save&Next + speedup

Sample request module improvements

Some problems regarding the ability to handle more than one sample request for the same questionnaire has been handled. Another identified problem, that occurs when there are two background information with the same name, has also been fixed.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting sample request module were:

VN2886QNR - SRM - Background information - Support more than one request from a site

General report engine improvements

When instant cross charts are shown a second time around, then users will be offered to rebuild the data cache and axis set before it is shown. This follows a similar logic as already used for instant reports.

Another project implemented during the version ensures that tables will look nicer when displayed in the viewer, by aligning the column widths of tables in a common report.

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting the general reporting engine were:

VN3056REP - Same business logic as View Report for View Cross from PQ list VN2778REP - Make new engine usable with old engine

Style sheet module

A feature was added to the style sheet that makes it possible to interpret 0 (zero) values as non-existant (null) by the style sheet. Whenever this setting is activated and zero values occur, the chart will either exclude that data point (when non-table chart types) or show a blank cell (when tables).

Projects made in version 5.8.1 supporting the style sheet module were:

VN2798REP - Report style sheet - Setting to display or hide zero values in diagrams

Bugs fixed

TBD

Known Issues

Firefox 3.6

TBD

Resource access

When a user searches for some Users, but the list of Users that match the search criteria is very large, and at the same time the user does not have access to the found Users, then the list may end up showing no results even though there are in fact some that could be shown.

Doing this enables much faster searches, but it can be a little confusing at times. We do not plan on fixing this.

Breaking changes

TBD

New setup needed

New or changed navigation access

TBD