Executive Summary

The Efecte Service Management Tool (ESM) 2023.2.0 major release introduced an early access beta version of the new user interface (UI). Admins can opt-in to the early access beta version by turning it on in the application's platform settings. In addition to the new beta UI, the release included one new feature and three bug fixes. 

The release also introduced features, improvements and fixes related Efecte Provisioning Engine (EPE) and Efecte Secure Access (ESA). A beta version of the Efecte Chat reports dashboard was included in the release.

Since 2022 Q4 release, the release notes for ESM are provided via docs.efecte.com. If a .pdf version of the release notes is needed, it can be printed using the “Print to PDF” button. Previous release items can be found Efecte community.

How to access and enable the early access beta UI

The early access beta UI is available for cloud and private cloud environments. The beta UI is not available for on-premise installations running on Windows or Linux servers.

The early access beta UI can be accessed by adding /beta after the environment's URL. 

Example: https://environment.efectecloud.com/itsm/beta

The early access beta UI can be made accessible through the user interface by enabling the following platform setting. The setting is enabled by assigning the value true in it. The setting default to false. The platform settings can be accessed by navigating to the Admin UI -> Maintenance -> System settings -> Edit platform settings.

new.ui.switch.enabled = true | false

Enabling this setting will introduce a new button to the right-hand side of the header bar. The button is used for navigating between the classic (current) UI and the early access beta UI. The button text indicates which UI the user is currently using. CLASSIC means the current UI, while BETA means the early access beta UI.  

The user is in the current UI:

The user is in the early access beta UI: 

The early access beta UI can always be accessed through the URL 

Please note that the early access beta UI can be accessed through the URL regardless of the platform settings' value. 

Making the new UI default for users

The following platform setting can be used for making the early access beta UI the default option for users when they login to the application. The setting defaults to False. Since the new UI is an early access beta version in ESM 2023.2.0, enabling the following setting is not recommended while using ESM 2023.2.0.  

new.ui.as.default = true | false

Later, once the new UI covers more of the necessary functionalities used on a daily basis by most of the users, it is recommended to turn the setting on.

Features

• SUMA-39449: New 'Execute early' handler metadata for Expression handler
  • The new 'Execute early' metadata allows expression to run earlier during the save operation. By default, the expression handler is run after default values are set to attributes and conditional attributes are applied ("Enable if" functionality). When 'Execute early' is enabled, the expression handler is run before default values are set to attributes and before conditional attributes are applied ("Enable if" functionality). 
  • The 'Execute early' metadata allows the use case of enabling attributes with an expression based on imported data while also allowing to import of data to the enabled attributes during the same save operation. More specifically, admins can create a configuration in which Efecte Self-service (ESS) imports data over WebAPI to attributes that are enabled by an expression and the conditional attributes functionality ("Enable if" functionality) based on the imported data. 
  • Information about the new metadata is available in the Expression handler's handler guide. 

Bug fixes

• CP-7166: EventTask fails if the email body is empty
  • Fixed. EventTasks can now run with an empty body.  
• CP-7212: BCC field does not work without a recipient in the receiver field or cc field in Mail events
  • Fixed. Mail events can now be sent with only BCC receivers. 
• SUMA-39600: Incident cannot be moved to different status after creation
  • Fixed. 
• CP-7405: Issue with multitemplate search with certain conditions
  • Fixes with multi-template search made some existing saved views behave differently. Now the wanted function is reverted.

Early access beta version of new UI

The early access beta UI is a new and redesigned user interface application that relies on the existing Efecte Service Management Tool. The user interface is redesigned and built based on the latest technology – it is far more than a facelift! 

The beta UI is released as an early access version to allow users to use it to ensure it can be iteratively developed based on user feedback. The teams at Efecte work tirelessly to develop, extend, and improve the new UI in the upcoming releases to provide users with the best possible user experience.

The early access beta UI supports the following languages: English, German, Finnish, Swedish, and Spanish. Other languages are to be added in future releases. Please note that changes to presentation texts in the Admin UI are not reflected in the early access beta UI in ESM 2023.2.0. Support for modifying presentation texts will also be added in future releases.  

New list view (SUMA-33574)

• The new list view includes several new capabilities, such as fixed headers, fixed columns, adjustable column width, and a new manage panel that allows opening datacards in edit mode and in a new tab. The new list view also has a new context menu, which can be opened with right-click on a row. It includes the following options: "Open", "Edit", "Open in new tab", and "Edit in new tab". In addition to bringing several new capabilities, the list view has been redesigned in terms of appearance.
• Other features in the new list view
  • SUMA-37130: Filtering items in list view
    • This implementation allows users to filter items in the new list view. All datatypes, except date and date/time are supported. Multilanguage values are supported. 
  • SUMA-38436: Support for various datatypes in the new list view
    • This implementation allows string, text, date, date/time, decimal number, number, reference, back-reference, and external reference values to be presented in the list view. 
  • SUMA-39776: Saving column width 'on the fly'
    • This implementation allows users to adjust the column width. In the case of saved role and personal views, the adjusted width is saved automatically. The widths are role-specific for role views and person-specific for personal views. 
• The beta version of the new list view does not include the following capabilities
  • Capabilities related to editing list views and saving changes to the view itself (e.g. order of columns, sorting). The list views presented in the early access beta UI are based on list views in the classic UI. 
  • View settings and view conditions
  • Datacard edit capabilities (e.g. multi-edit, export to Excel, delete)  

New datacard view (SUMA-33632)

• The new data brings several usability improvements and a new, more user-friendly design. For example, the attributes now extend to the right-hand side of the class, which makes it easier for users to read long values. Help texts can be pinned in both view and edit modes, which allows users to e.g. copy values or links from help texts.  
• Related features
  • SUMA-38469: Support for various datatypes in the new datacard view
  • SUMA-38478: Sending and receiving emails from/to new datacard view (EntityStateMail)
  • SUMA-38601: Rich text editor in new datacard view
    • The rich text editor (RTE) includes the following capabilities: Bold, Italics, Underline, Strikethrough, Font size, Font color, Font background color, Font style, Text alignment, Number format list, Bullet format list, and Inline images. 
    • Please note that the various heading, code, and quote font styles require the following values in the html.allowed.tags platform setting: pre, blockquote, h1, h2, h3, h4
  • SUMA-38904: Folder selection for new datacard view
    • This implementation allows users to select the folder to which the datacard is saved. The dropdown is now located in the top bar of the datacard view.  
    • Please note that the dropdown is shown only if the datacard can be saved into two or more folders, as in the classic UI. 

Other UI features

• SUMA-37970: Template selection for global search
  • Users can now select the template from which they want to search data. For example, users can select to search datacards only from the Incident template. This helps to reduce results that are not relevant to the users. 
  • Users can also define favorite templates. The favorites are shown at the top of the template selection dropdown.  

• SUMA-37865: New User Settings Panel
  • The user profile settings panel, which can be opened in the top-right-hand side corner (button with user initials), is renewed in terms of visual appearance and user experience. 

Enabler features for the early access beta UI

• SUMA-36240: Authentication/authorization for the new beta UI
  • This implementation allows users to log in to the early access beta UI. 
• SUMA-36256: Left-hand side navigation to the new beta UI
  • The implementation brings the navigation panel to the new beta UI. The "Create dashboard" and "Trashcan" buttons are excluded from the navigation panel in the new beta UI.  
• SUMA-36264: 'Organize' menu for views in new UI
  • This implementation brings the 'organize' menu for views into the new UI. 
• SUMA-36522: New success/info/warning/error messages for new UI 
  • This implementation allows users to see notifications, such as application warnings and error messages, in the new UI. 
• SUMA-39059: Log out and local ESM log in to/from the new UI app  
  • The implementation allows users to log in to the new beta UI and log out from it. It also allows users to terminate the 
• SUMA-39296: Routing between the classic and early access beta UI
  • This implementation allows users to shift between the classic and early access beta UI by clicking a button in the application's header bar. The following platform setting enables or disables the button.

new.ui.switch.enabled = true | false

• Please note that the early access beta UI can be accessed through the URL regardless of the platform settings' value.  

Fixes and improvements related to Efecte Provisioning Engine (EPE) and Efecte Secure Access (ESA)

• IGA-4845: Event-based Support for Custom Script Task 
• IGA-5054: EPE support for Efecte ESM connector
• IGA-5042: EPE's epe-master certificate fetching.

Fixes and improvements related to Efecte chat

• IEI-3663: Beta version of the Efecte Chat Reports 
• IEI-3664: Chat reports view accessed through ESM header bar
• IEI-3894: Date range and format selectors
• IEI-3667: IW data service for fetching chat data to reports 
• IEI-4041: Separate tabs for Live chat and Agent reports
• IEI-3705: User permissions and license check for chat reports