IFS OI Explorer version 4.21 adds the following enhancements:
Form selection for new cases in Action Button.
Comment category filtering in Trend.
Configurable error handling for data cache fetch.
Configurable confidence threshold for IP21 adaptor.
Note: Before upgrading, always make sure your Environment has met Explorer minimum hardware requirements. These are constantly evolving as additional capabilities are added.
Form Selection Added to Action Button for New Case
When configuring the Action Button in Explorer Studio, users were unable to select a specific case form type when creating a new case.
We updated the Link Action configuration for New Case, adding a 'Form' field which allows page designers to choose the specific case form that should be used when the user creates a new case. The form can be selected from a drop-down list or can be passed in using a variable.
This applies to all components that use Link Actions, including Action Button, Hotspot, Hyperlink, Status Tile, Images, and some Charts.
Comment Category Filtering in Trend
In this release, we added a comment category filter to the Comments layer in both the Trend and Embedded Trend. Users can now select which comment categories to display in the trend via the updated Layers control.
The selected filters are saved with the trend and will default to “All” if the trend is not saved. Visual improvements include smaller, grey icons in the Layers dropdown and a wider category filter box next to Comments.
Note: Filter selections are not saved for embedded trends, as they load a separate page configuration.
Configurable Error Handling for Data Cache Fetch in Scan Groups
In previous versions, the Data Cache would abort an entire fetch request if any tag in a scan group encountered an error. This resulted in no data being cached, even if other tags were valid. An option was needed to allow the system to continue processing and store the available data, even when some tags returned errors.
To address this, we added the “Allow Errors in Fetch” setting to scan groups for the InfluxDB Cache Adaptor. This allows administrators to choose whether the cache should abort the fetch and try again on the next scan (default behaviour) or to continue processing and write any available values even if some data items return an error.
Configurable Confidence Threshold for IP21 Adaptor
In IP21, data tagged with QLEVEL 1 is considered "Questionable" and was previously assigned a fixed confidence value of 50 by the IP21 Adaptor for Explorer. Since this value falls below Explorer’s default threshold of 80 for "good data," such data points were excluded from calculations and trends, even though some organisations considered them acceptable for use.
To address this, a new datasource parameter called “Suspect” Confidence has been introduced in the IP21 Adaptor. This allows administrators to configure which confidence value should be used for data points where IP21 reports the "Suspect" level (QLEVEL = 1) when retrieving data. The value is clamped between 0–100, with a default of 50.
System-seeded Named Lists Renamed with ‘sys.’ Prefix
System-named lists such as those from A-Plus, Merrick, and Comment Categories are occasionally required to be seeded into the application. To avoid conflicts with user-created named lists, it was important to assign them unique identifiers.
To achieve this, all system-seeded named lists were updated to include a ‘sys.’ prefix. This change required updating all references to these lists across Explorer and Server Management to reflect the new naming convention.
Additionally, a validation rule was introduced in Server Management to prevent users from creating named lists that begin with the reserved ‘sys.’ prefix.
Explorer Release 4.21
ON THIS PAGE:
Note: Before upgrading, always make sure your Environment has met Explorer minimum hardware requirements. These are constantly evolving as additional capabilities are added.
Form Selection Added to Action Button for New Case
When configuring the Action Button in Explorer Studio, users were unable to select a specific case form type when creating a new case.
We updated the Link Action configuration for New Case, adding a 'Form' field which allows page designers to choose the specific case form that should be used when the user creates a new case. The form can be selected from a drop-down list or can be passed in using a variable.
This applies to all components that use Link Actions, including Action Button, Hotspot, Hyperlink, Status Tile, Images, and some Charts.
Comment Category Filtering in Trend
In this release, we added a comment category filter to the Comments layer in both the Trend and Embedded Trend. Users can now select which comment categories to display in the trend via the updated Layers control.
The selected filters are saved with the trend and will default to “All” if the trend is not saved. Visual improvements include smaller, grey icons in the Layers dropdown and a wider category filter box next to Comments.
Note: Filter selections are not saved for embedded trends, as they load a separate page configuration.
Configurable Error Handling for Data Cache Fetch in Scan Groups
In previous versions, the Data Cache would abort an entire fetch request if any tag in a scan group encountered an error. This resulted in no data being cached, even if other tags were valid. An option was needed to allow the system to continue processing and store the available data, even when some tags returned errors.
To address this, we added the “Allow Errors in Fetch” setting to scan groups for the InfluxDB Cache Adaptor. This allows administrators to choose whether the cache should abort the fetch and try again on the next scan (default behaviour) or to continue processing and write any available values even if some data items return an error.
Read more: Data Cache
Configurable Confidence Threshold for IP21 Adaptor
In IP21, data tagged with QLEVEL 1 is considered "Questionable" and was previously assigned a fixed confidence value of 50 by the IP21 Adaptor for Explorer. Since this value falls below Explorer’s default threshold of 80 for "good data," such data points were excluded from calculations and trends, even though some organisations considered them acceptable for use.
To address this, a new datasource parameter called “Suspect” Confidence has been introduced in the IP21 Adaptor. This allows administrators to configure which confidence value should be used for data points where IP21 reports the "Suspect" level (QLEVEL = 1) when retrieving data. The value is clamped between 0–100, with a default of 50.
Read more: IP21 Adaptor
System-seeded Named Lists Renamed with ‘sys.’ Prefix
System-named lists such as those from A-Plus, Merrick, and Comment Categories are occasionally required to be seeded into the application. To avoid conflicts with user-created named lists, it was important to assign them unique identifiers.
To achieve this, all system-seeded named lists were updated to include a ‘sys.’ prefix. This change required updating all references to these lists across Explorer and Server Management to reflect the new naming convention.
Additionally, a validation rule was introduced in Server Management to prevent users from creating named lists that begin with the reserved ‘sys.’ prefix.