Alloy 1.0 SP1 - or in IBM language Alloy 1.01 - is a service pack release which includes some major feedback of our Alloy Ramp-Up customers. Compliant with SAP standard release guidelines it mainly corrects issues but does not provide major new functionality.
In general you can categorize the changes that come with Alloy 1.0 SP1 in three categories:
- Supported platforms
- Maintenance and operations
- Functional corrections
Read more about the changes in detail in the following chapters.
Supported Platforms
Probably one of the most important changes with Alloy 1.0 SP1 is the now official! support for Lotus Notes/Domino 8.5/8.5.1. Okay, we knew before that it will run as also some Ramp-Up customers already used Alloy 1.0 SP0 with their Lotus Notes 8.5 clients, but now it has been officially tested and released for these current Notes releases.
Maintentance and Operations
In this category you can think of all the other non-functional changes that come with SP1 that mainly ease the administrator's life for operating an Alloy environment. The most important changes here are as follows:
- Data Consistency Check and Repair: The data consistency tool checks for and corrects inconsistencies between data in the user's mail file, and the data in the source SAP system. The tool tracks data inconsistencies at runtime. Running it in the scheduler in the SAP system corrects found data inconsistencies "automatically".
- Secure Socket Layer Encryption: In the Alloy Administration tool you can now also enable Secure Socket Layer (SSL) authentication between the SAP system and the SAP Add-On host. This ensures that every communication between the SAP system and the
SAP Add-On host is secure. - Fail-over support: Administrators can now configure the Alloy Domino Add-on to run in a clustered environment to support fail-over scenarios.
- Admin Tool Languages: The Alloy Administration tool and its editors are out-of-the-box available in all supported languages also supported by the Alloy runtime environment.
The following languages are supported by Alloy 1.0 SP1. In addition, the translation-enabling technique in Alloy allows customers to provide the
property files with content to be translated for the Alloy Administration tool, into the language of their choice. - Consistent Sender Name: The sender name in e-mails (notification, error, and all other e-mails) for all the Alloy applications has been made consistent. Alloy administrators can customize the sender name for all applications in the Alloy Administration tool user interface.
Functional Corrections
In addition to the changes listed above Alloy 1.0 SP1 also contains some small functional changes. Following a list of the "major" by application area:
Workflow Management
- Avoidance of mail template changes: Customers do not have to modify the mail template for every workflow that is running. The mail template will dynamically show the container information for every workflow configured.
- Related reports: Administrators can now define related reports also for customized decision workflows.
- Consistent results status text in views: The notification e-mails now contains a description of the results of the action taken on the workflow decision management items. The result status will be mentioned in the email
body. - Support for substitutions: Through the SAP system or SAP Enterprise Portal users can nominate one or several substitutes to take their tasks while on leave or while unable to take decisions for their Alloy workflow decisions.
- Context summary in subject field: The ‘Subject' field of the Workflow decision e-mails now contains a short description/context summary of the Workflow item. This description is one of the most important pieces of information for the approver.
Reports Management
- Related reports: Workflow decision management applications now support related reports.
- Multi level help text in report parameter dialog: The multi level F4 help or multi-column F4 help is now supported in Alloy, while setting
the parameter values in the report template.
- ‘Remove from Inbox' button: A new button, ‘Remove from Inbox' in the reports, now allows users to delete the report from their inbox, while maintaining the same in the ‘Delivered Reports' view.
- Report Title and Description fields: The Report description/subject field in the Report is now editable by the users.
- Refresh report catalog: ‘Refresh Catalog' button on the report catalog enables the user to get the latest updates on the report catalog on the client.
Leave Management
- Leave summary: The leave overview on the IBM Lotus Notes client now also provides the information of the respective deduction period.
Travel Management
- Support for special currencies: Users can now use currencies without decimal values (for xample, Yen) to create travel requests.
Do you want to learn more details about SP1? Or Alloy in general? Just call me or drop me an email to see and learn more about Alloy 1.0 and its SP1 release ...
Regards,
Ingo
