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Release Notes
Impact:ECS version 6.4
Impact:ECS version 6.4 offers a wide range of new features
to improve the overall user experience. Whether you work
with Impact:ECS as an administrator, model builder,
programmer or core user, you will find benefits to upgrading
to the latest release. We have intertwined the feedback from
customers with advances in technology to offer you a more
robust and flexible cost management solution.
New Features for Core Users
Application Start Page
Item Search
Improved Data Filtering
Export
Items to Excel
Improved Table Performance
Window Tabs Customization
New Features for
Model Builders
Excel Reports
Item
Hyperlinks
Named
Query Parameters
Form Designer Property Grid
Default
Item Views
New
Form Event Actions
New Features for Administrators
Additional Standard Item Identification Fields
Impact
Run As Utility
Support for Windows Vista, Oracle 10g, SQL Server 2005
New
Features for Programmers
External Script Debugging
Custom Item Type Actions
Improved Code Generation in the Data Publishing Wizard
Custom Color and Font Setting in the Code Editor
New Features for Core Users
Application Start Page: Users can now designate a
specific Form to function as the application's start page to
simplify the user interface for novice or infrequent users.
Power users, on the other hand, can use this feature to
completely customize their environment. Application start
pages typically include items such as reports, frequently
used items and common tasks or activities.
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Item Search:
Finding items has never been easier. Simply type a search
term into the new search text box, which is always available
from the standard toolbar. The most relevant search results
are immediately returned in a new search results window.
This window allows users to compare different search results
or further refine their search criteria by applying
additional data filters.
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Improved Data Filtering:
Impact:ECS's data filtering capabilities have been greatly
enhanced in the application's main window. Each field (or
column of data) now has a unique, custom filters dialogue
box that allows users to show or hide information based upon
specific search criteria. The search criteria can be defined
for each field based upon manually entered text or existing
field values. Users familiar with Microsoft Excel will
notice that this enhancement closely mimics Excel's ability
to "Auto Filter" tabular data.
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Export Items to Excel:
Impact:ECS greatly simplifies and enhances cost model data
analysis by allowing users to export items directly to
Excel. Users can export any item or item type by selecting
the items they wish to export in the main window and then
choose Export to Excel from the Tools menu. A brief dialogue
box allows them to specify export options (such as whether
or not to preserver existing formats, etc.). Once the export
options are selected, an Excel workbook will automatically
be created and opened in Excel. This provides the user with
an opportunity to perform additional data processing and
analysis. With this intended usage in mind, the exported
data is published in manner that lends itself to the easy
creation of pivot tables and pivot charts within Excel.
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Improved Table
Performance: Users can now open extremely
large tables in a fraction of the time that it used to
require. This performance improvement means that they can
greatly reduce the amount of time that it takes to perform
routine table maintenance.
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Window Tabs
Customization: Users now have the option to
display tool tips and icons on window tabs making it easier
for them determine exactly what items they have open at any
given moment.
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New Features for
Model Builders
Excel Reports:
A new Microsoft Excel Add-In for Impact:ECS allows model
builders to create custom cost report templates directly in
Excel. Users can call upon the report templates in
Impact:EDC and determine the items they wish to preview in
Excel. By design, Excel Reports behave like existing
Impact:CRD reports. In fact, they are stored in same
location and managed in the same fashion. The primary
differences between these two different reporting solutions
is their intended output and the ease in which the reports
themselves can be created. Excel Reports have been designed
to compliment the existing Impact:CRD Reports by creating a
simple alternative that is extremely easy to implement.
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Item Hyperlinks:
Model designers now have the ability to create hyperlinks
for specific Impact:ECS items. Such hyperlinks lend
themselves to a wide array of usage scenarios including
Forms, Reports and desktop shortcuts. Item hyperlinks are
created by combining the "impact://" text string with the
complete path of an item name. This path name must include
both the Impact server name and the Impact model name. The
following is an example of valid item hyperlink: "impact://myserver/hotlanta/calulations/labor".
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Named Query Parameters:
Impact:ECS now supports the use of named Query parameters
allowing model builders to design Query prompts (prompts
that are displayed when a user executes a Query) that ask
users to provide specifically named input values.
Additionally, named Query parameters also allow model
builders the ability to construct Calculations that
reference Query parameters by their name rather than their
sequential index to help improve the legibility of a
Calculation.
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Form Designer Property
Grid: The Impact:ECS Form designer has a new
property grid control that is a dock-able pane. Users can
specify its positioning on the desktop and control the
individual properties of each Form control in an editable
screen that is easy to access.
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Default Item Views:
Model designer can now determine how individual items are
viewed in Impact:EDC. The following views are supported:
Default View, Form View, Report View and Design View. Each
view is established when the user attempts to open an item.
If items are opened using either the Form View or the Report
View then an appropriate Form or Report must also be
specified. The actual settings that govern this behaviour
are two new folder properties called View Type and View
Name. The primary use of this feature is to allow infrequent
users the ability to run Impact in a slightly simplified or
restricted mode.
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New Form Event Actions:
Forms now support three new event actions: Search current
model, Search all models and Open URL.
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New Features for
Administrators
Additional Standard Item Identification Fields:
Administrators can now quickly determine the last user that
modified an item and when it took place. The newly added
item identification are automatically maintained for all
Impact:ECS items: DateCreated, CreatedBy, DateModified,
ModifiedBy. These fields are visible in both the main window
and the search results windows. By combining the new item
identification fields with the new search and data filtering
capabilities, administrators can easily ascertain every item
that that has recently been modified or created. Additional
search filters would allow them to quickly refine these
results to only show specific item types or time ranges.
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Impact Run As Utility:
In an effort to help test and trouble shoot Windows
authentication problems, Impact:ECS now provides a new Run
As utility. This utility essentially allows users to launch
individual Impact:ECS applications using a different
security context. This can be helpful in situations where
Windows users accounts can not be authenticated by a Windows
Domain or Active Directory.
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Support for Windows Vista, Oracle 10g, SQL Server 2005:
Impact:ECS now fully supports application installations on
the Windows Vista operating system. Additionally, Impact:ECS
also supports both Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and Oracle 10g
database servers for its data storage requirements.
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New Features for
Programmers
External Script Debugging: Script authors now
have to ability to debug their code. This feature requires
the installation of one of Microsoft's applications that
support script debugging including Visual Studio, SQL Server
2005, and even Microsoft Office.
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Custom Item Type
Actions: Custom item type actions allow
programmers to create Script Modules that show up in the
user's context menu. These scripts can programmatically
determine what items a users has selected when the custom
actions are called. This feature helps to integrate custom
functionality and make certain types of tasks easier to
perform. One examples of how this feature might be used is
to allow users the ability to select specific Cost Objects
that they want to export. Another example usage might allow
users to easily refresh or reload Tables from external data
sources. This feature also includes the flexibility to
define which custom actions are available for each item
type. This is supported by requiring custom action scripts
to be saved in specific directories within the Script
Modules folder. So for example, if a script author wanted to
create a custom action that only applied to Cost Objects, he
or she would save it in the following directory: "Script
Modules\Actions\Cost Objects".
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Improved Code Generation in the Data Publishing Wizard:
The code generated by Impact:ECS' Data Publishing Wizard has
been greatly simplified to help with situations where slight
code adjustments may be required.
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Custom Color and Font Setting in the Code Editor:
Script authors can now customize the appearance of the
Impact:EDC code editor by changing the application's default
fonts. These new font settings can be adjusted at any time
in the Impact Client Options dialogue box by selecting
Options from the Tools menu.
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