In case you’re wondering, our original Tsitsikamma update didn’t play out as we hoped!
Shortly after announcing the update, our team was flooded with support requests from customers as they raced to finish their own projects before the Christmas break. The knock-on effect was that most of our developers had to help out with support, which in turn meant that Tsitsikamma development slowed considerably.
When given the choice of building new shiny things or supporting our customers, we choose customers!
The result of this unexpected rush of support meant that we needed to make some tough decisions.
Ultimately we decided to split the Tsitsikamma update into two parts and also postponed a couple of features.
Our original Tsitsikamma announcement post has been updated to reflect Part 1’s inclusions, while this post details what has shipped in Part 2 (Revenge of the Tsitsi!).
App-side changes for Tsitsikamma Part 2 are available on all customer apps. The new app version number (as seen in the bottom right of the app’s Settings screen) ends in 4.97 for Android & iOS and ends in 5.57 for Windows.
SQL Connectors
A new set of Premium connectors for direct connection to Microsoft SQL Server is now available 🙂
Using a similar approach to Appenate Sync, we’ve provided connectors to push data from Forms and Tasks to a SQL database, as well as a connector for pulling rows into Data Sources from a SQL table.
Our target is Azure SQL Database for this connector (as this way all data stays within Azure data centers), however, a direct connection to any SQL Server database (e.g. via Amazon RDS) will work. For on-premise cases, we believe Appenate Sync continues to be a more secure option, as Sync provides DMZ compatibility, ensuring your on-prem database is not exposed to the internet.
Tasking Upgrades
The ability to assign Task to groups of people, for “first in, best dressed” claiming or for all involved users to complete is coming soon.
The “first to claim” option is supported in the app preview already – we’ll be shipping the companion changes to the web portal first. The “all users” option will appear later, likely in late April.
Multiple Connections of the Same Type
This feature allows you to connect to multiple destinations on the same external service (e.g. multiple SharePoint instances). When you have multiple Connections of the same type, you’ll see a Connections dropdown when you configure connectors, allowing you to specify which Connection to use when that connector executes.
Additionally, you can now name your Connections and there’s also a helpful Clone option to quickly copy Connections.
Other Minor Improvements
- Added new “Open URL in App” interaction option to view web pages within the app (as opposed to launching out to the device’s web browser app)
- Added ability to attach files during create from Task Template creation flow
- Added “ALL INCOMPLETE” option to Task status filter in web portal
- Added Task Description property to Task Templates, allowing defaulting of new Tasks’ description to something other than the Template name during creation flow
- Column headers are now fixed on Data Source -> Rows page in web portal
- Adding support for formulae within Bucket Name option on Amazon S3 connector
- New “clickable image” option for PDF outputs, allowing you to click an embedded image in a generated PDF and view the full-size file in a web browser.
- Adding “URL Encoded” option to REST connectors, which allows sending data similarly to cURL based “application/x-www-form-urlencoded” requests.
- Completion of support for Fast vs Slow track option for branded App as a Service releases
Fixes and Compatibility Improvements
- Improved display of long description text lengths on icons in Icon Board screens
- Fixed app crash when Task fails to open
- Added ability to reference search words individually in search expressions on Choices fields
- Tweaked REST field type to not save binary (file) responses
- Fixed inline validation on Windows
- Fixed altitude display in Form fields
- Sort Task Templates filter lists alphabetically in web portal
- Prevent “Find Street” button from being clickable when no search text specified in web portal
- Include Draft status Tasks as an option for viewing Calendar and other Task pages on web portal
What Didn’t Make It
Data Source Driven Tables – Take #2
There was simply not enough developer time available to get this feature working the way it needs to.
We know this is an important request for many of you and it was painful for us to drop this from the release for a second time running.
Our team considered shipping this “as is”, even with its known issues. However, this probably would have left us and you in a worse position, with a buggy feature that helped nobody.
Once we finish the Tsitsikamma Part 2 release, this feature is top of our list for the next release.
Auto-numbering Generator for Forms
We still plan to add the ability to generate custom automatic number sequences for Form entries, with these being guaranteed to be unique across Form entries – e.g. INVOICE-0012 or INS-JOHN-20181101-002.
This is also top of our list for the next release which is currently in planning.