rapidvalue bpm suite 7.0 - microsoft azure · rapidvalue bpm suite 7.0.1601 release notes 18 august...

Petur Snaeland, Vivek Singh

RapidValue BPM Suite 7.0.1601

Release Notes

18 August 2016, © To-increase 1


Table of contents

1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 5

1.1 Purpose ..................................................................................................................................... 5

1.2 Audience ................................................................................................................................... 5

1.3 Deliverables............................................................................................................................... 5

2. What’s new ............................................................................................................................... 6

2.1 Fully redesigned user experience for more productivity and insight ........................................ 7

2.1.1 Workspaces ................................................................................................................ 7

2.1.2 Charts with drill-down capability ................................................................................ 7

2.1.3 Viewer forms to browse content ................................................................................ 8

2.1.4 Updated license code structure .................................................................................. 8

2.2 Improved business process modeling experience .................................................................... 9

2.2.1 Business process modeling workspace ....................................................................... 9

2.2.2 Working with the business process hierarchy ............................................................ 9

2.2.3 Integrated web-based designer eliminates the need for Microsoft Visio ................. 10

2.3 Tighter LCS and task recorder integration .............................................................................. 11

2.3.1 Record activity steps using the task recorder ........................................................... 11

2.3.2 Play activity steps as a task guide ............................................................................. 11

2.3.3 Import business processes from a BPM library in LCS .............................................. 12

2.3.4 Import activities from a BPM library in LCS .............................................................. 12

2.3.5 Export activity to a BPM library in LCS ...................................................................... 13

2.4 Improved implementation support ......................................................................................... 14

2.4.1 Business process implementation workspace ........................................................... 14

2.4.2 Requirement-level fit/gap and WRICEF categorization ............................................ 14

2.5 More powerful test management ........................................................................................... 15

2.5.1 Business process testing workspace ......................................................................... 15

2.5.2 My test runs workspace ............................................................................................ 15

2.5.3 Improved visual test suite designer .......................................................................... 15

2.5.4 Record test cases and replay them as task guides .................................................... 16

2.5.5 Publish test specifications to Microsoft Test Manager ............................................. 17


2.6 Translating content into multiple languages ........................................................................... 18

2.6.1 Business process translation workspace ................................................................... 18

2.6.2 Improved translation editor ...................................................................................... 18

2.6.3 External translation using Microsoft Excel ................................................................ 19

2.6.4 Translations now require a separate license key ...................................................... 19

2.7 Streamlined end-user training and guidance .......................................................................... 20

2.7.1 Training and guidance workspace ............................................................................ 20

2.7.2 My business processes guidance workspace............................................................. 20

2.7.3 Form guide in context sensitive help pane ............................................................... 21

2.7.4 Getting started guide in default dashboard .............................................................. 21

2.8 Managing and sharing BPM content ....................................................................................... 22

2.8.1 Business process management workspace ............................................................... 22

2.8.2 Business process file share workspace for documents and files ............................... 22

2.8.3 Compressed data file format .................................................................................... 23

3. Changed or deprecated features ............................................................................................. 24

4. Known issues ........................................................................................................................... 25


Document information

Title RapidValue BPM Suite 7.0.1601

Subtitle (Subject) Release Notes

Solution/Suite RapidValue

Author Petur Snaeland, Vivek Singh

Published Date 8/18/2016

Status Draft

© Copyright To-Increase B.V. All rights reserved. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without the express written permission of To-Increase B.V. To-Increase B.V. assumes no liability for any damages incurred, directly or indirectly, from any errors, omissions, or discrepancies between the software and the information contained in this document.


1. Introduction

1.1 Purpose This document highlights new features and enhancements that ship in the new RapidValue BPM Suite 7.0.1601 release from To-Increase. This release is compatible with the most recent version of Microsoft Dynamics AX, sometimes still referred to as AX7 (Update 2).

1.2 Audience This document is intended for new or current RapidValue partners and customers. Some knowledge of the new Microsoft Dynamics AX and prior versions of RapidValue for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is assumed.

1.3 Deliverables

Deliverable Description

Solution package The RapidValue BPM Suite is delivered as a Microsoft Dynamics Lifecycle Services (LCS) solution package.

Release notes This document is provided with the RapidValue BPM Suite product deliverables.

Implementation methodology The solution package contains a RapidValue implementation methodology that provides detailed step-by-step instructions on how to install, learn, and implement RapidValue.

Getting started BPM library The solution package includes a Getting started with the RapidValue BPM Suite BPM library. This library contains a number of task guides that showcase some of the key capabilities of RapidValue.

Documentation BPM library The solution package includes a RapidValue BPM Suite documentation BPM library. This library contains a comprehensive set of task guides that document how to use RapidValue for your BPM activities. This documentation is provided in U.S. English only.

Process data packages The solution package provides a simple RapidValue demo process data package that can help you get started from LCS.

Marketing assets A To-Increase security certificate is provided to allow trusted installation of the provided model files and ISV license files.


2. What’s new

To help our clients enable BPM to support Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementations, we are excited to announce the availability of the RapidValue BPM Suite for Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The new RapidValue is not just an upgraded solution. It is a whole new approach that takes full advantage of the latest innovations from Microsoft Dynamics. It focuses on ease-of-use and simplicity, so our partners and customers can map their business strategy and process details to their business applications and empower employees everywhere.

This release of the RapidValue BPM Suite brings exciting new content management capabilities. These new features make RapidValue the perfect tool for customers to achieve and maintain compliance with ISO or similar quality management standards, and allow both customers and implementation partners to optimize and maintain their business process models more efficiently and reliably than ever before.

Highlights of RapidValue BPM Suite 7.0.1601 include:

New user experience

Simplified business process modeling

Improved implementation support

Tight LCS and task recorder integration

More powerful test management

Simplified end-user training and guidance

Improved translation experience

Integrated file sharing


2.1 Fully redesigned user experience for more productivity and insight

The RapidValue BPM Suite user interface offers a new way to expose application functionality to the business users: workspaces. At a high level, workspaces have many similarities with the role centers: Tiles are much like cues, and tabbed lists are similar to enterprise portal-enabled list pages.

2.1.1 Workspaces These nine workspaces define the RapidValue BPM Suite in our current release:

Business process file share

Business process management

Business process modeling

Business process testing

Business process translation

My business processes

My test runs

Process-driven implementation

Training and guidance

2.1.2 Charts with drill-down capability Charts provide actionable BI in workspaces with drill-down features. All workspaces come with predefined charts and graphs.

They provide tremendous aid in visualizing BPM or implementation projects and enhance the overall user experience.


2.1.3 Viewer forms to browse content Browsing content in the RapidValue BPM Suite is a totally new experience in this release. You can seamlessly move across workspaces and also dive deep into a solution’s business process hierarchies, down to step-by-step procedures, by using the new navigation pane.

You can also switch to full-screen mode for presentations and workshop discussions.

2.1.4 Updated license code structure To better serve the full variety of customer and partner situations, the RapidValue BPM Suite ships with a new licensing structure.

The RapidValue viewer lets you import content, browse it, and use it in conjunction with your security role setup to produce end-user guidance. You can generate basic documents but no editing is supported. This enables simple yet powerful deployment of process guidance.

The RapidValue BPM Suite gives you full access to all features of RapidValue.

In addition, translations now require a separate license, which means that by default the extensive translation features in RapidValue won’t get in your way. However, if you need to translate content, you can easily get the additional license key. We made this change to simplify the out-of-the-box experience as much as possible.


2.2 Improved business process modeling experience

2.2.1 Business process modeling workspace The process modeling workspace is the cornerstone of the new RapidValue. This is where you and your team collaborate on building and maintaining business processes in a single workspace that provides easy access to all the modeling data and functionality you need. It includes charts that provide insight and the ability to drill down to various parts of your process modeling content.

You can jump directly from the Dynamics AX dashboard into this modeling workspace. It takes you right back to the model that you were working on before. You can also use the buttons in the toolbar to navigate to other workspaces that provide specific support for implementation, testing, translations, and more.

2.2.2 Working with the business process hierarchy This release contains a new business process hierarchy designer which has been simplified and improved in many ways. We made it easier to create a new process hierarchy, even importing business processes from a LCS BPM library. You can view and manage the associated activities directly from the designer.


A new Switch to button makes it very easy to move between the designer and other forms that are used to manage aspects of the business process hierarchy such as scoping, process verification, gap analysis, and testing. All these forms have a Switch to button so you can focus on the selected process but look at it from different angles, and work in the appropriate form without losing context or precious time.

2.2.3 Integrated web-based designer eliminates the need for Microsoft Visio One of the highlights of this release is the completely new, integrated flow designer that works out-of-the-box without any need for a separate Microsoft Visio license. This change reduces your cost of ownership and enables a number of new and exciting scenarios. For example, customers can manage their BPM content in their production environment just like any other information.

The new designer has similar capabilities and usability features as the familiar Visio designer, but provides performance improvements especially when you work with large and complex flows.


2.3 Tighter LCS and task recorder integration The RapidValue BPM Suite and LCS are two important tools to run Dynamics AX implementations when quality and standardizing processes are critical. We previously aligned RapidValue and LCS so they would work in concert. Now, we are taking this to the next level.

2.3.1 Record activity steps using the task recorder The task recorder is a Microsoft Dynamics AX tool that you can use to record actions that you take in the product user interface (UI). When you use the task recorder, all events that you perform in the UI that are executed against the server—including adding values, changing settings, and removing data—are captured.

You can invoke the task recorder from the Activities List page, the Activity Details form, or from the standard Dynamics AX task recorder menu.

2.3.2 Play activity steps as a task guide A task guide is a recorded, guided, interactive experience through the steps of a business process. The user is instructed to complete each step by way of a pop-up prompt (or “bubble”), which will animate across the UI and point to the UI element that the user should interact with. The “bubble” also provides information about how to interact with the element, such as “Click here” or “In this field, enter a value.” A task guide runs with the user’s current data set and the data that is entered is saved in the user’s environment. You can create and save task guides for each activity for better clarity and help.

Task recordings can be played as task guides in the RapidValue BPM Suite. Task guides are an integral piece of the RapidValue user experience. Anywhere you have activities listed or shown in a preview you can directly play those activities as task guides.


2.3.3 Import business processes from a BPM library in LCS You can now import business processes from any LCS BPM library attached to the LCS projects your account has access to.

This will be very useful when you use the RapidValue BPM Suite to develop template industry content for standard Dynamics AX processes.

2.3.4 Import activities from a BPM library in LCS Similarly, you can now import activities from any LCS BPM library attached to the LCS projects your account has access to.


The RapidValue BPM Suite ensures proper validations before activities are created, skipped, or overwritten.

2.3.5 Export activity to a BPM library in LCS You can export activity task guides from a RapidValue solution to an LCS BPM library. Simply pick a RapidValue activity which has a task guide associated with it and click a button to save it to the desired location in one of the BPM libraries that you have access to.


2.4 Improved implementation support

2.4.1 Business process implementation workspace The implementation workspace now supports scoping, fit/gap analysis, and requirements gathering activities for a given project. These capabilities provide predefined implementation charts and graphs with drill-down capability, which provides consultants and managers with important insight into ongoing work.

2.4.2 Requirement-level fit/gap and WRICEF categorization In addition to business process-level gap categorization, you can now categorize individual requirements as fit or gap and down to the level of workflows, reports, interfaces, conversions, enhancements, and forms (WRICEF) gap classification. This often-requested capability provides better control, visibility, and estimation capability for development work during an implementation.


2.5 More powerful test management

2.5.1 Business process testing workspace You now have a new workspace to manage all your solution assurance needs for an implementation project.

2.5.2 My test runs workspace This workspace provides a complete list of all tests with accompanying statuses. This is useful for both the test manager and the actual tester.

2.5.3 Improved visual test suite designer A new and improved test suite designer makes it easier to create new process-driven test suites or modify the design of existing ones. You can preview your work and design your test with new or reused test cases.


2.5.4 Record test cases and replay them as task guides You can now record activities in test cases and replay them as task guides. This is another example of how RapidValue integrates the task recorder and task guide tool into the user experience. This facility makes manual testing easier and more consistent.

If an activity has a task guide associated with it, you can choose whether to run the activity task guide or a task guide that is specific to the current test case. Being able to play activity task guides directly from the test run form enhances the value of task guides and makes your testing more productive and reliable without any additional effort beyond the original business process modeling and recording work.


2.5.5 Publish test specifications to Microsoft Test Manager Now you can publish RapidValue test specifications and use a third-party tool to import the data into Microsoft Test Manager (MTM). The business process hierarchy, test suites, and test cases—complete with step-by-step instructions—are exported to an Excel file that can be imported into MTM.


2.6 Translating content into multiple languages

2.6.1 Business process translation workspace A new translation workspace is a leap forward from the single translations list page in AX 2012. This workspace provides translators with an at-a-glance overview of translation status for a given solution. It gives them easy access to the built-in translation editor or actions to exchange translations in Excel.

2.6.2 Improved translation editor The translation editor has been simplified and improved in this release. The editable web page view for AX 2012 has been replaced with a list-based editor experience that gives a better overview of the translations and original texts for a given content element, as shown below.


2.6.3 External translation using Microsoft Excel Now you can export a translation file in an easy-to-use Excel format and reimport it after translation.

The generated translation files are stored in the Business process file share workspace (RapidValue file store). They can be downloaded from there and shared with third-party translation service providers. Translators can easily insert the newly translated texts and track the progress of their work. You can then upload the updated workbook back into RapidValue with a simple upload command.

2.6.4 Translations now require a separate license key Over the years we observed that while multi-language capabilities are extremely important in many customer situations, other RapidValue projects start in a single-language environment and may not require translations of the process guidelines for years.

To simplify the out-of-the-box user experience for new RapidValue users, we decided to hide translation features by default and only enable them if you specifically request the new translation license.


2.7 Streamlined end-user training and guidance

2.7.1 Training and guidance workspace End-user guidance can now be produced directly from security role assignments. The new Training and guidance workspace allows you to configure which guidelines to use where. For example, you could show different procedures in various company accounts, or for individual users.

Note that you can now specify whether your role setup for users comes from the organization model in RapidValue or the role-based security model in Dynamics AX. Customers and partners have often asked us for the latter option to simplify end-user guidance. You now can provide valuable process guidance to your users without any additional setup of user role assignments.

2.7.2 My business processes guidance workspace This new workspace, which is easy to access from the Dynamics AX dashboard, provides AX users with clear, relevant process guidance. Depending on your role assignments, RapidValue can determine which processes and activities are your responsibility and where you may require guidance.


The process views are interactive, so you can click activities to see step-by-step instructions, click application icons to open the associated forms, and play task guides directly from a flow diagram.

2.7.3 Form guide in context sensitive help pane The AX7 help pane has a new process guide tab which shows any flows or activity guidelines that relate to the current form. For example, the process guide for a sales order list page could look like this:

The new process guide in the standard Dynamics AX help pane replaces the form guides in RapidValue for AX 2012.

2.7.4 Getting started guide in default dashboard A shortcut to My business processes is shown in the bottom left of the default dashboard. This simple placeholder will in future be used for getting started guides and other end-user training purposes.


2.8 Managing and sharing BPM content

2.8.1 Business process management workspace This workspace provides you with a complete overview of all your environment-level parameters as well as process and data management tasks.

You can view import history, operations history, and change history. Also, setup parameters related to Document publishing and Translations are defined here.

You can export a solution to the file store where it’s stored for future reuse. Here, you can also import or copy a new solution.

2.8.2 Business process file share workspace for documents and files This new workspace provides users with full management capabilities for all files that are used or published from the RapidValue BPM Suite.

All published documents are also stored here. They can be downloaded any number of times by different users. The following file types are stored here: documents, images, data files, translation files, task recordings, and RapidValue INTERACT data files.


2.8.3 Compressed data file format The RapidValue BPM Suite supports exports and imports of compressed data files. When you export from RapidValue, the resulting files are stored in the Business process file share workspace for immediate download or future use. These new capabilities can save data transmission time and cost.


3. Changed or deprecated features

Feature Notes

Business and customer solutions now appear in one global list

RapidValue for AX 2012 had separate list pages for business solutions and customer solutions. The different types are still supported, but managed in one set of forms.

Rarely used tables removed to simplify data model

Application providers, application platforms, industries, and a few other setup tables have been deprecated. Content from AX 2012 can be imported, but these tables are ignored.

Security analysis and license estimation

Security and license analysis features have been removed, but will be replaced by an optional, more full-featured integration into the new Dynamic Security Management tool from To-Increase.

Publishing in AX 2012 and compiled HTML help (CHM)

Microsoft has not yet provided the wiki equivalent of a help server for AX7 that partners or customers can use, so this feature is temporarily disabled but likely to be reactivated in a future release.

Publish to website The Publish to website feature in AX 2012 is not available in AX7. Similar content can be shared directly from the browser-based RapidValue user experience.

Publish to LCS This release supports saving task guides to LCS.

Microsoft Excel import template replaced by Open in Excel tool

The custom Excel import template used with AX 2012 versions of RapidValue is obsolete. Instead, you can use the new Open in Excel feature in AX7 or the extensive set of data entities provided.

Custom HTML editor replaced by standard AX editor control

RapidValue forms now use an HTML editor control that ships with standard AX. Overall this is a much better and more robust design, but a few advanced features are missing compared to AX 2012, such as Paste from Word, Paste image, and others.

File type for generated documents not configurable

Documents are now only created in the .docx format, whereas in AX 2012 you could save documents in a variety of formats.

Copy and save visualizations Web browser content can be saved, printed, and copied instead.

Role-based favorites

Generation of favorites based on user activities is not supported.

Analyze AX application This feature is not supported in this release.


4. Known issues

ID Description

14659 Connectors are seen overlapping in some shapes.

16723 Zoom in increases text size but does not enlarge flow previews.

18470 Charts do not render correctly in some workspaces when using Google Chrome browser.

18474 Tiles in My business processes workspace don't filter detail forms to correct set of records.

19349 Horizontal scroll bar in Views (Goal maps etc.) missing.

19647 Configure copy solution is taking lot of time.

22912 Export of a solution with images fails due to exception while adding a record to file store.

23153 Trying to import a solution file is consuming lot of time while analyzing.

23165 Click on the New window in the Flow designer is not showing the designer area.

23784 Organizations tile is not showing the record count in the Modeling workspace.

24217 Data entities support viewing but not always editing in Excel

24221 Import or export of data files over 2GB require server file access which is restricted to Microsoft on a production environment.

24222 Exporting data files over 2GB may result in error but file is created in C:\Windows\Temp folder and can be used from there.