As today is the first day of fall, and with an m-Power Release Candidate released earlier this week, I thought it was a great time to post another customer newsletter.
This newsletter will, as usual, cover the notable enhancements included in the latest release as well as highlight a recent m-Power feature you may have missed.
Please keep in mind that the September 2016 m-Power update is a Release Candidate. As I mentioned in the last newsletter, release candidates have been extensively tested by our internal staff but have not yet been fully vetted by the m-Power user community. Users who wish to try the new features below can take the September 2016 release candidate. However, if you wish to wait for other m-Power community members to try the release first, the September 2016 will be relisted as a “Stable” release when our next m-Power release candidate update is published (currently scheduled for November 2016).
On September 29th, 2016, a webinar was conducted to cover the topics listed in this newsletter. If you’d like to see a replay of this webinar, please review the video below:
Notable Enhancements
Improved Application Properties Interface
The application properties dialog UI has been completely revamped. Not only does property configuration now feel more integrated into m-Power, there are several developer functionality advantages as well. Notably, better help and descriptions are now listed throughout the properties, including links to learn more information, where applicable. Further, new “helpers” have been created to assist developers as they use more advanced/complex properties. In addition, developers will no longer be asked if they want to overwrite the Application Properties. At compile time, m-power will now determine if any new properties need to be added to your application but will leave any properties you modified unchanged. 
This new template creates a retrieval/grid based application that allows end users to have a single search box that applies the search to all columns in the application. This template is constructed to utilize the Apache Solr engine. Another distinct advantage of using this model is that Solr requires the data be pre-loaded and pre-indexed. For you this means, the data will not be coming from the database, but instead will be pre-loaded from your m-Power server. While the data you are reviewing may not be in “real-time,” it should load significantly faster than a traditional application, especially for very large data-sets. Full Text Searches can be configured to reload data as frequently as you desire, via the Scheduled Task interface.
Click here to see a demo of this enhancement.
Two new features included in this update allow for dashboards to be saved, by default, and allowing developers to create a side selections panel (rather than the default modal option). While m-Power Dashboards previously allowed users to save their dashboard selections, this option will now be available by default with no additional configurations. The Selection Panel addition will allow users to filter their dashboard contents in an on-screen panel, similar to the one found within Interactive Reports.
Click here to see a demo of this enhancement.
Developers will now notice that they can change, assign, and create Data Dictionaries by clicking on the current Data Dictionary within the navigation bar. Existing security logic will be followed to ensure users not authorized to create or assign data dictionaries are disallowed from doing so. This change was made to more easily facilitate data dictionary management at the developer level.
Several customers asked us if we could add new minor features to two of our templates. We listened and made the following changes:
- Pivot Table — A new property allows developers to remove the grand totaling row and column within the pivot table.
- Merge to PDF — A new property has been added to flatten a PDF after data merge. In other words, once m-Power writes to the PDF, it will no longer be editable.
Great Feature You May Have Missed
Today, the Great Feature You May Have Missed is the m-Power Quick Navigation button. This button was designed to allow developers to more quickly move throughout the interface, especially when accessing screens within the Administration section.
This short video describes the feature:
Upcoming Schedule
m-Power Update Review Webinar
September 29th, 2016
Midmarket CIO Forum
San Antonio, TX October 23rd – 25th
m-Power Q4 Release Candidate Update
November 2016