2016.1 Expere Engine and Tools Changelog Entries

New Features

Enhancements

Defect Corrections

New Total First, then Round Method
  • Type: Enhancement
  • Reference: PBI 351029
  • Compliance Impacts: A New Total First, then Round Method is being added to support a future compliance-related content change (targeted for the 2016.2.2 May Content Release)..
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Summary: The Expere Engine has been enhanced to add new elements and attributes to support the new rounding method. The new element and method will allow for the ability to total the items first, and then round the sum of them. The Expere Engine Stylesheet has been modified to add logic to utilize new elements/attributes and implement the new rounding method to calculate aggregated totals that then need to be rounded.
Note: The 2016.1.0 Expere Engine release which includes this feature will be required to support a future planned content change.
Implementation Notes: This content change will not be backwards-compatible with prior versions of the Expere Engine/Tools. You are encouraged to install this Engine release as soon as possible so it is in place prior to receving the content update targeted for the May content release.
First page only barcode feature added
  • Type: New Feature
  • Reference: PBI PBI 292273 / 364317
  • Compliance Impacts: This item is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: Using First Page Only Barcodes
Summary: Users can now apply a barcode to the first or only page of a document.
Implementation Notes: This feature is available in the Expere Engine 2016.1 release.
Rounding Enhancement
  • Type: Enhancement
  • Reference: PBI 351029
  • Compliance Impacts: This item is a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Summary: The Expere engine uses the round "To Even" method (a/k/a the bankers rounding rule). The effect of this method was that 50 cents, being the midpoint, would round to the nearest even whole number (e.g., 0, 2 ,4, ...). If an actual amount was $3.50, the rounded value would round up to the nearest even whole number which would be $4. In contrast, if the actual amount was $2.50, the rounded value would round down to the nearest even whole number which would be $2.

The Expere engine was enhanced with the Total First Rounding method to handle rounding in a different manner. The Expere engine utilizes the round “Away From Zero” method which will consistently round up at the mid-point. No content change is needed to utilized this enhancement.
Technical Notes:
Table 1. Negative/Positive Rounding using MidpointRounding Values
Original number AwayFromZero ToEven
3.50 4 4
2.80 3 3
2.50 3 2
2.10 2 2
-2.10 -2 -2
-2.50 -3 -2
-2.80 -3 -3
-3.5 -4 -4
Implementation Notes: The enhancement is included with the Expere 2016.1.0 engine release.
Enhancement to PDFs with E-signatures
  • Type: Enhancement
  • Reference: PBI 374576
  • Compliance Impacts: This item is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Summary: An issue had been identified with certain PDF viewers and e-signatures. Specifically, documents with e-signatures turned on but not captured, would display, and sometimes print a box around the signature field.

This has been enhanced; e-signature capable documents, where an e-signature has not been captured, will no longer display or print a box around the signature field.

Note: This was not a common issue and would only occur with specific PDF viewers. Adobe did not produce this issue.
Implementation Notes: This enhancement is available in the Expere Engine 2016.1 release.
Expere Engine updated to latest version of Apache Commons-Collections
  • Type: Enhancement
  • Reference: PBI 372328
  • Compliance Impacts: This item is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Summary: The Apache Commons-Collections used with the Expere Engine has been upgraded to version 4.1. For detailed information on JDK classes, consult the Commons-Collections User Guide.
Implementation Notes: This enhancement is available in the Expere Engine 2016.1 release.
Expere OPPSA package behavior enhanced
  • Type: Defect
  • Reference: PBI 195492
  • Compliance Impacts: This defect correction is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Issue: Previously, when a document was removed from base content, OPPSA stopped printing when it encountered the missing document. In some instances, the system stopped printing any remaining documents depending on where the document was located.
Solution: This behavior has been enhanced; when an OPPSA package includes a document that has been removed, an error appears stating which document must be removed from the specified package in the OPPSA product.
Implementation Notes: This defect correction is available in the Expere Engine 2016.1 release.
Expere supported to use to Oracle 12
Summary: Expere has been validated for use with Oracle 12.
Implementation Notes: For more information, and for a comprehensive list of supported requirements, see the System Requirements guidesee Windows Environment Software Requirements and Java Environment Software Requirements.
Expere upgraded to Java 8 and Saxon
Summary: Embedded versions of Expere .NET and Requirements Editor now utilize Java 8 and Saxon.
Implementation Notes: For more information, see the following Expere System Requirements Sections:
Java and .NET Implementation Guide consolidated
  • Type: Enhancement
  • Reference: PBI 372968
  • Compliance Impacts: This item is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: Expere Implementation Guide
Summary: We have recently consolidated the .NET and Java installation procedures to now reside in one webhelp implementation, available here: Expere Implementation Guide.
Implementation Notes: This enhancement is available in the Expere Engine 2016.1 release.
Expere logging enhancements
  • Type: Enhancement
  • Reference: PBI 360148
  • Compliance Impacts: This item is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Summary: The ExpereService.log file has been enhanced to include the Request ID from the SOAP message. If no Request IDis contained in the SOAP message, the string “null” is logged.
Implementation Notes: This enhancement is available in the Expere Engine 2016.1 release.
Expere Engine: Caching enhanced in ehcache
Summary: Expere has upgraded to Ehcache 2.10.0 to utilize enhanced caching capability; the following enhancements have been implemented for ehcache.xml:
  • Enhancement #1: Previously there was only one level of cache on objects. Changes have been made to include two cache levels and to add images to the updated cache configuration.
  • Enhancement #2: Cache memory allocation has changed in ehcache.xml. Previously, users could change the maxElementsInMemory value in the global cache (ExpereCache) or any of its smaller caches.

Now, users can adjust the maxBytesLocalHeap and maxBytesLocaldisk values in ExpereCache and its smaller caches. maxBytesLocalHeap is the percentage of allocated Java Virtual Machine (JVM) heap size while maxBytesLocalDisk allocates a specified amount of memory of the local disk for overflow caching.
Implementation Notes: This feature requires an Expere Engine update. For detailed information on how to change the memory allocations in the configuration file, see the Expere Implementation Guide: Caching notes
Barcode spacing issue resolved
  • Type: Defect
  • Reference: PBI 355603
  • Compliance Impacts: This defect is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Issue: Previously, the Expere Engine reserved space for ancillary barcodes on dynamic documents even though the barcode element was not included in the .REQ file.
Solution: This issue has been resolved; when generating a dynamic document and selecting an ancillary barcode option, the document will no longer reserve space for the barcode if the .REQ file does not contain a barcode element.
Implementation Notes: This feature requires an Expere Engine update.
Missing SaveInResponse element resolved
  • Type: Defect
  • Reference: PBI Number
  • Compliance Impacts: This defect is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Issue: Previously, the SaveInResponse element was missing from the SelectResponse.xsd file but was still being returned in the response. This issue impacted the Select API.
Solution: This issue has been resolved; the SaveInDatabase element is now an optional element in the SelectResponse.xsd file.
Implementation Notes: This defect correction is available in the Expere Engine 2016.1 release.
Expere Engine: Smart quotes special characters in transaction issue resolved
  • Type: Defect
  • Reference: PBI 257585
  • Compliance Impacts: This defect correction is not a compliance or regulatory issue.
  • Documentation Impacts: No documentation impact
Issue: It was reported that special characters 0145, 0146, 0147, and 0148 resulted in errors on static documents.
Solution: Quotation marks are now converted appropriately (from smart quotes to regular quotes); as a result, static and dynamic documents do not produce an error when generating a .PDF document if smart quotes are present.
Implementation Notes: This defect correction requires an Expere Engine update.