New features delivered in 24.08

The following features and enhancements are included in NexJ CRM version 24.08.

Reporting enhancements

A number of reporting enhancements are included in this release:

Added a feature that allows the user to control whether an attribute can be used in filtering, sorting and aggregate functions by setting appropriate flags during subject-area configuration (CRM-1578).
When you click on a field name in the Details tab on the Reporting workspace, you can choose to add the field as a grouping, calculation and filter, if these options are supported for that field (CRM-1010). This feature is supported for both calculated and persisted fields. In addition, if you click on the field name of a calculated field, you can choose to edit the field definition.
It is now possible to embed ad hoc report components (Details, Summary, and Visualization) as context-sensitive dashboards on NexJ CRM screens (CRM-924). While adding such a dashboard currently requires a minor development effort, the ad hoc report would be fully configurable by the CRM users.
Updated the behavior of the information icons displayed in various areas of the Reporting workspace (CRM-1011). Click these icons to display the tooltip text.
It is now possible to apply filters to calculated fields that include the RANK() function (CRM-1194).
When a dashboard configuration is updated, the user-applied filters will no longer be automatically reset when this is not necessary (CRM-1936).
A new defaultSort parameter was added to Reporting subject area configuration to specify the default sort order that should be used if no other sorting attributes are configured for a report (CRM-2137). For Contacts, Households, Leads, and Users subject areas, the default sort order is by Full Name (CRM-2599).
The wording of some of the notification messages produced by NexJ Reporting were updated to achieve greater consistency (CRM-2182).
When a report or a dashboard is shared by email, each recipient now gets an individual copy of the email, rather than a single email listing all the recipients (CRM-2301).
A user-configurable unique identifier field was added to the report configuration (CRM-2383). The identifiers can be used to access reports through a shared URL or to reference the report from a dashboard. When creating or editing a report, the Report Identifier field is located on the bottom of the report settings panel on the Details tab. The initial identifier is automatically generated from the title. The identifiers must be unique and follow these rules: alphanumeric characters and dashes are allowed, spaces and other symbols are disallowed, there is a 64 character limit.
A user-configurable unique identifier field was added to the dashboard configuration (CRM-2363). The identifiers can be used to access dashboards through a shared URL. When creating or editing a dashboard, the Dashboard Identifier field can be viewed in the Dashboard Configuration dialog accessed by clicking the Dashboard Configuration button . The initial identifier is automatically generated from the title. The identifiers must be unique and follow these rules: alphanumeric characters and dashes are allowed, spaces and other symbols are disallowed, there is a 64 character limit.
For association fields (for example, “Author”), the name attributes (for example, “Author > Full Name”) were removed from field selection dialogs in order to reduce redundant and possibly bad configurations (CRM-2310). Selecting the associated field includes the name attribute. The name attributes are still displayed in the Add Filters dialog. Additional tooltip information was added for clarification.
Non-administrative users can now use the "Set Owner" function on reports they own (CRM-2322). Any reporting user can be assigned the rpt:ReportSetOwner privilege to enable this ability, not just administrative users.
When adding a filter on an associated field where the value is an entity, you can now configure "Current User" as a special context-aware value (CRM-2381). For example, when defining the “Assign to” filter, you can set the Value Type field to Current User. Alternately, you can set the Value Type field to Specific Values and then specify the user names in the Values field.
When sharing a report by email, you can now select which attachments should be included in the email (CRM-2426). In the Settings tab, in the Export card, you can choose at least one of the following attachment types: Full Report (PDF), Details (CSV), Summary (Excel), Visualization (PNG).

Searching for records across the entire application

Prior to this release, the Global Search feature was only supported for Cloud-deployed environments. It is now available in all environments.

Prior to this release, you were only able to search for a specific type of record on the associated workspace. Starting with this release, you can now run a free text search across the entire application to find entities and activities (CRM-184).

Click the Search button on the application bar to open the Search workspace. In the Search field, enter the search keywords and press Enter. All matching items are displayed below. Click the question mark icon in the Search field to see supported syntax and examples (CRM-1255).

You can use the filter buttons to view only Contacts (including contacts, companies, and users) or only Activities (including tasks, schedule items, documents, notes, and emails). You can also use the Filter options button in the Search field to limit the record displayed based on either the last modified date or other dates associated with the record. By default, these dates for activities are start and end dates, and for entities this is the birth date.

You can also use the Related search word in the Refine search dialog accessed by the filter icon (CRM-1675). Use this operator to specify information related to the search term. By default, the only related information you can specify is for activities, specifically the names of contacts or users included as participants in the activity. For example, you can search for the term “email”. To limit the results that are displayed, you can then specify the value “jones” in the Related field in the Refine search dialog. This will display all the emails where either the For field or the Assign To field contain "jones".

To see summary information about a record without opening the detail view, click the record to open the Preview sidebar, containing the record preview. To see the full record, click the View Details button where it is available.

The number of results for each category is included in the category label (AFL-6823).

A new batch job has been added to the Admin Console to facilitate the initial load of the search server (CRM-1155). It may also be used for ad hoc loads caused by an exception condition or a configuration change. If the Global Search feature is enabled in your environment, the new GlobalSearchSyncBatchJob can be found in the Batch Broker on the Admin Console.

Users must be assigned the AFLShowGlobalSearch privilege to be able to see the Search icon and open the Search workspace (CRM-6825).

Global Search feature enhancements

This section is currently only applicable to NexJ CRM deployments in Cloud environments.

While these enhancements are included NexJ CRM deployments in all environments, only users in Cloud environments will be affected by the changes.

Added a new bookmark parameter to the Global Search synchronization job (CRM-2318). An OID bookmark may be used to specify a starting point for the data synchronization process. In addition, the OID of the first instance that failed to synchronize will now be added to the batch job log, making it possible to restart the synchronization process from the point of failure.

The error handling logic of the Global Search synchronization job was enhanced to log and then skip over individual records that failed to synchronize (CRM-2288). The maximum number of log entries is configured by the max_error_count parameter in the es.syncConfig JSON configuration.

Added a new configurable parameter relationalQueryTimeout to the es.syncConfig JSON configuration, which enables fine-tuning SQL timeout behavior specific to the Global Search synchronization processes (CRM-2786).

Added a new deleted parameter to the Global Search synchronization job (CRM-2349). When the parameter is set to false all soft-deleted records will be excluded from synchronization.

Usability enhancements

Starting with this release, contact profiles no longer display Opportunity badges for opportunities that are closed. They also do not display Campaign badges for campaigns that are closed or cancelled, or if the contact's participant status is “Not Interested” or “Do Not Contact” (CRM-599).

When the Do Not Contact option is selected for a contact or household, this information is now included in the Audit Trail tab for that contact or household (CRM-2527).

The ability to filter important dates both including and excluding the year has been introduced (CRM-2441). For Client Anniversary and Wedding Anniversary filters, you can specify the month and date, but not the year.

Activity Plan enhancements

When creating a step in a targeted Activity Plan, users can now specify the duration for the task or schedule item (CRM-2224). Users can choose from the following options in the Schedule Item Duration field: 15, 30, 45 or 90 minutes, 1, 2 or 3 hours. Previously, all steps were originally created with the default 30 minute duration.

A new Related Activity Plan column has been added to the data table on the Tasks workspace (CRM-2327). This allows users to identify activities that are part of an activity plan. Clicking the link in the Related Activity Plan column open the full details of the plan.

Hierarchy enhancements

The tree control used to display the Company and Household hierarchies on the Hierarchy tab on an entity’s detail view has been enhanced.

The control can now display more than 10 records and its appearance and behavior have been improved (CRM-1270).

Users can now view and navigate to the related entities from the hierarchy (CRM-1544). Click on a hierarchy member’s name to display the Preview sidebar for that entity.

System monitoring enhancements

It is now possible to mask the values of sensitive model attributes when they are printed to the system logs (CRM-2199). A new logMask parameter can be applied to a class attribute or an event argument to designate it as sensitive and to specify the mask value. In addition, system administrators can turn the feature on and off using the NexJ System Admin Console. On the Statistics page, navigate to <nexj.finance> > Administration and double-click the Enable sensitive attribute masking property.

Administration enhancements

Administrators can now use the NexJ Admin Console to update Keycloak users with a new password, using the new Change Password button on the Users page (CRM-2172).

Security, integration, and automation upgrades

Apache ActiveMQ has been upgraded to version 5.18.4 (released by the Apache Software Foundation on April 11, 2024) (CRM-1205).
Apache Ant has been upgraded to version 1.10.14 (released by the Apache Software Foundation on August 20, 2023) (CRM-2232).
Apache Avro has been upgraded to version 1.11.3 (released by the Apache Software Foundation on Friday, September 22, 2023) (CRM-2230).
Apache Kafka client has been upgraded to version 3.7.0 (released by the Apache Software Foundation on February 27, 2024 ) (CRM-800).
Apache Tomcat has been upgraded to version 9.0.89 (released by the Apache Software Foundation on May 7, 2024) (CRM-2233). Ensure that you follow the instructions in the https://nexj.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PUBDEV9x/pages/edit-v2/59970806#Additional-upgrade-notes-for-24.08 section when upgrading to avoid errors related to passwords and security.
Apache Xalan Serializer has been upgraded to version 2.7.3 (released by the Apache Software Foundation in April 2023) (CRM-856).
Apache Xerces has been upgraded to version 2.12.2 (released by the Apache Software Foundation on January 24, 2022) (CRM-857).
MySQL JDBC Connector has been upgraded to version 9.0.0 (released by Oracle on July 1, 2024) (CRM-925).
Netty has been upgraded to version 4.1.100 (released by the Netty project on October 10, 2023) (CRM-1278).
PostgreSQL JDBC Driver has been upgraded to version 42.7.3 (released by the PostgreSQL Global Development Group on March 13, 2024) (CRM-814).
Selenium has been upgraded to version 4.20.0 (released by the Software Freedom Conservancy on April 25, 2024) (CRM-2252).
The date.olson.db.js module has been upgraded to version 2024a (released by IANA on February 1, 2024) (CRM-2415).
The IANA top level domain list has been updated to version 2023082500 (CRM-861).

Security enhancements

PingFederate support

PingFederate is now supported as an OAuth provider for the purposes of enabling SSO configuration in NexJ CRM (CRM-1185).

NexJ Studio

The DITA Open Toolkit, which is used in the Generate NexJDoc tool in NexJ Studio, is no longer distributed with NexJ Studio (CRM-789). If you want to use the Generate NexJDoc tool, you must download and install DITA Open Toolkit (the supported version is 2.5.4-1) from DITA Open Toolkit (dita-ot.org).

When you run the Generate NexJDoc tool in NexJ Studio, you will be required to explicitly specify the filesystem location of the DITA Open Toolkit libraries.