General

In WEBCON BPS 2020, two new standard reports – Anomalies and Suggested are available in the “Insights” section, which allow you to quickly find important information in your processes. The Suggested report shows instances that can be the most important for the user. These instances are designated based on the date of the last modification and the modifying person. In the report we find all instances which have been assigned to the user and have been modified by the user. he shorter time since the last modification on a given instance, the higher it will appear in the report. The Suggested report is automatically created and does not require any additional configuration.

WEBCON BPS Designer Studio allows to create documentation for each created process. Complete documentation consists of two files in DOCX format which includes text description of the process and of an XLSX file with form field matrix. Access to the documentation generation is granted via context menu of the process (right-click on a process in the Studio) by Ctrl + D shortcut or by the tools taskbar in the Studio. Described functionality is a huge help in post-implementation reality. Knowing that processes evolve and fit the changes happening within the company, also “Description” section needs to be updated. Even short information will suffice – the person who initiates the change and its number.

Substitutions are described in great detail in the following article http://howto.webcon.com/substitutions-in-webcon-bps/. The issues it raises are still valid and this article only describes an additional functionality which was introduced in WEBCON BPS Designer Studio 2019. The biggest innovation is the method of defining substitutions – through Portal and not by using WebPart as it was in previous system versions. Managing substitutions is available on the Portal without the need to configure an additional website element.

Form field, path, and task tooltips are a massive help for users to easily understand the concept of WEBCON BPS applications. Consistently providing tooltips and task details across all your processes and workflows will teach users to rely on these elements to learn about their intended task. This help immensely when introducing new users to your WEBCON BPS applications, creating new applications for veteran users, or when asking users to guest in applications they don’t normally use. It is very important to use tooltips which are displayed when the user hovers the mouse pointer over a chosen form field. To add a description of the field, go to its configuration and choose the “Description” field.

WEBCON BPS 2019 Portal introduces a brand new method of searching for instances in the database. Search is based on SOLR engine which allows for a quick search even in very large data collections. By using SOLR technology, user can influence on how the engine searches indexed data and as a result – what the results are. Using appropriate parameters in the query allows for more precise results. Data entered to the system by the users is indexed in real time which means that it can be searched for almost immediately after it appears in the system. However a few seconds may pass between entering values to the system by the user (form field save) and creation of a new index for a modified instance in SOLR base.

Regular expressions are very useful tools to validate correctness of entered data. UseREGEX editor to find an adequate phrase to check, place appropriately and define an information for the user. The end-user is provided with a simple tool to check correctness of the data such as e-mail, bank account number, TAX ID or Personal ID number. It’s worth mentioning that this system is very intuitive and allows for an instantaneous data verification in the form. It doesn’t require writing validation actions and that’s how the user is sure that entered data is correct. Validation is not required results in the document not returning for additional corrections.

One of the many novelties introduced in WEBCON BPS 2019 is a refreshed look and an alternative form display mode – Modern mode. Form display method can be set independently for each process. It makes migration of processes implemented in previous WEBCON BPS versions much easier and helps to manage which content should be presented in the new way. WEBCON BPS 2019 provides a refined (but familiar!) experience in visual, ergonomic, and performance departments. Forms that were implemented in previous versions of WEBCON BPS can be presented in the ‘Classic’ SharePoint mode, as well as embedded in WEBCON BPS Portal in Modern mode.

The BPS user list in the System settings is where the system stores all information about users. The AD cache was replaced with the BPS user list, but the AD and AAD are still the preferred methods for managing user data. The BPS users list will now combine users synchronized from the AD or AAD with those from external authentication providers, into one universal cache of all users of the system. The BPS user list serves as the base for granting privileges to view and access the system. The BPS user list also contains data of the company structure.

WEBCON BPS is a great tool to create and use constant values. There are two types of constants: Global and Process. This article presents configuration and practical use of both of them.

Global constant – this constant is visible across the whole system. It is frequently used when the value is present in many processes and its change happens in all these places into the same values. It allows to adjust the value returned by the type of the used environment (DEV/TEST/PROD) and its configuration happens in “System settings” tab.

SharePoint server allows authenticating users based on Claims add-on. It also allows authenticating users based on different authentication providers which you trust but are managed externally.

This article describes external provider configuration which will be Azure Active Directory from SharePoint Server 2019 (it is an analogous configuration for SharePoint Server 2016).