<< New features in openCRX v1.7 >>

The main topics of openCRX v1.7 are extensions in the product realm, a real-time booking engine, and report/output generation (all extensions are sponsored by a major insurance company):

• Mantis Adapter
• Product Extension to support OMG's "Reusable Asset Specification"
• Depot Management and Booking Engine
• Templates
• Asynchronous Workflows
• Preview Report Generation with BIRT (HTML, PDF)
• Model Migration to IBM's RSM (Rational Software Modeler)
• Advanced Document Management
• Usability Enhancement: Editable Grids
• Usability Enhancement: Object Path
• Usability Enhancement: Filter Menu

Mantis Adapter

openCRX v1.7 will include a Mantis Adapter providing support for easy migration from Mantis to openCRX. Mantis is a web-based bugtracking system (written in the PHP scripting language, requires the MySQL database and a webserver). More information about Mantis is available at http://www.mantisbt.org/.

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Product Extension to support "Reusable Asset Specification"

Swiss Life*, a major Swiss insurance company, is committed to using openCRX as a repository to manage software assets, asset providers and consumers and related activities. openCRX will be extended by a MOF-compliant repository and the "Reusable Asset Specification" [RAS] by OMG. More information about RAS is available from OMG's website:

• OMG's RAS document (final adopted specification)
• OMG's MOF Specification
• Catalog of OMG Modeling and Metadata Specifications

*

Swiss Life Group is one of Europe's leading providers of pension and life insurance products

Included in our implemenation of RAS is a MOF-compliant repository (MOF = Meta-Object Facility):

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Depot Management and Booking Engine

At the heart of this feature is a sophisticated real-time booking engine that enables openCRX to keep track of depot entities, depot contracts, depots, depot positions, as well as compound bookings and bookings.

Building on our extensive know how from the financial industry we will deliver a major new building block for openCRX, a state-of-the-art booking engine that allows you to "keep a tab" on just about anything you could imagine:

• financial instruments (no limits on complexity, i.e from simple cash to custom-tailored OTC derivates like snow options, CatEPut, Cat Bonds, etc.)
• products (e.g. to manage your inventory pipeline(s) for complex production processes)
• services (e.g. to keep track of your customers subscriptions)
• compensation and reporting (e.g. sales force commissioning)
• ...

Check out the current UML model at http://www.opencrx.org/opencrx/1.7/uml/index.html (navigate to LogicalView/org/opencrx/kernel/depot1/Main to get started):

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Templates

With templates you take the pain out of repetitive work. Templates enable you to define a "blueprint" for single objects or even whole groups of objects (e.g. a sales order with positions or an activity tracker with hundreds of predefined activities). Any object that is template enabled can easily be converted into a template.

UML Model:

Use Case "Activity Tracker Templates"
Various business aspects have repetitive activities.Those activities or milestones could be identified in advance and created as templates with all the required parameters (duration, time lag, etc). With a template at hand you can create new instances of such an Activity Tracker by the click of a button. The following example shows a template for rolling out a new Tuxedo services. The newly created Activity Tracker consists of several dozen predefined activities, already properly assigned to the responsible people:

Use Case "Quote Templates"
Preparing quotes for complex product bundles (e.g. industrial machinery, structured financial transactions) can be streamlined dramatically with the use of templates. Create quote templates for standard configurations containing all the relevant quote positions and then create a draft quote with a single click. In combination with the new feature Editable Grids you can then easily adjust individual quote positions without opening each individual quote position in edit mode.

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Asynchronous Workflows

Previous versions of openCRX could handle synchronous workflows only. Starting with openCRX v1.7.0 you can mark any registered workflow as asynchronous if required. When triggered, such an asynchronous workflow is not executed in a synchronous fashion, but rather openCRX creates a new ProcessInstance. We also provide an external execution client (WfExecutionClient) which executes asynchronous workflows. This new feature has the following advantages:

• long running workflow processes do no longer block openCRX
• you can use alternative workflow engines (instead of relying on WfExecutionClient) to execute openCRX workflows

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Preview Report Generation with BIRT (HTML, PDF)

With the first release of BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) on 6-June-2005 we got the opportunity to build on this fine reporting tool. It is our intentention to add advanced reporting features to openCRX and openCRX v1.7.0 features a (trivial) preview. If you want to familiarize yourself with BIRT you should have a look at http://www.eclipse.org/birt/

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Model Migration to IBM's RSM (Rational Software Modeler)

           
Rational Software Modeler (RSM) is built on top of Eclipse, already our tool of choice when it comes to Java development. Starting with openCRX v1.7 all openCRX models will be comply with the XMI 2.0 Standard.

Have a look at the Rose to RSM migration guide published at www.openmdx.org if you want to use your models developed in Rational Rose in IBM's Rational Software Modeler.

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Advanced Document Management

All the advanced document management features provided by openMDX will be made available to openCRX. While you can continue to use openCRX as a front-end for your existing Document Management System (DMS) you will have the additional option of managing all your documents directly in openCRX.

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Usability Enhancement: Editable Grids

To facilitate quick entry of objects openCRX supports editable grids. Switching a grid to edit mode enables you to

• change values of existing objects
• clone existing objects
• create new objects

For example, let us assume that you want to change some positions of an existing sales order and add a few more positions to it. First you navigate to the respective sales order (the Inspector is on top and shows various details of the sales order being inspected, the grid at the bottom of the page contains 2 existing positions):

By clicking on the button [Edit Grid] you can switch the grid to edit mode. This switch takes place instantaneously in your browser, there is no server roundtrip!. The editable grid looks as follows:

You can edit all fields except derived/calculated fields (grey background). In addition to the Lookup Inspector you can also paste object references directly into the appropriate fields, thereby saving quite a few clicks. Once you are done with your changes/additions you can click on the button [Save] to commit all positions.

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Usability Enhancement: Object Path

The object path of the currently loaded object is always visible in the Inspector. All levels are clickable allowing you to quickly navigate to the appropriate level:

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Usability Enhancement: Filter Menu

With the newly introduced Filter Menu there is no more filter button clutter. Filters are neatly grouped and easily accessible:

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