General Enhancements and Changes

Summary

The following enhancements and changes have been made as part of the 2023.4 release. These are outlined below and described in the Details section that follows:

In addition, a number of enhancements have been included to ensure the ongoing security and supportability of the platform. Enhancements have also been made in the processes used to clean up old transactions to increase the efficiency of the In-Memory component.

For Cassandra database environments, to provide enhanced efficiency and improved performance, there have been improvements in event handling as well as reduced usage of Lock-free Schema Change (LFSC) background processes for small operations, such as extending the length of a text attribute.

Details

New Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Data Management solution

Stibo Systems introduces a ramp-up release of the new Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Data Management solution. As governments, consumers, and companies evaluate the impact commerce has on our environment, various ESG-minded organizations have built metrics and assessments against which those impacts can be measured. The ESG Data Management solution helps customers better manage and understand the 'footprint' their products, suppliers, employees, and locations make in the world based on these metrics. The ESG Data Management solution is an add-on configuration that enables customers to add and configure ESG assessments relevant to their business, and to evaluate their master data against the compliance criteria of those assessments. Designed to work with any data model, the ESG Data Management solution can assist customers in their aims to better manage how ESG requirements affect their business.

The ESG Data Management solution is available for implementation with the 2023.4 release. Refer to the License and Component Lifecycle topic for details regarding a typical software release lifecycle. Documentation outlining how the solution can be configured and deployed is in progress now and will be available for the 2024.1 release.

Cassandra database recycle bin improvements

Continuing with the Cassandra recycle bin improvements from release 2023.3, this release further optimizes the deletion functionality. Also, Cassandra database users can now revive deleted gateway integration endpoints (GIEPs) from the System Setup recycle bin and can search for objects in the Tree and System Setup recycle bins by object name as well as ID. For more information, refer to the Recycle Bin for the Tree Tab topic in the Getting Started documentation and the Recycle Bin for System Setup topic in the System Setup documentation.

Value generators improvement

Value generators in STEP have two new fields: value prefix and value postfix. These two new fields allow users to create more specified unique number sequences for products. Value prefix allows users to add a value before the generated sequence. Value postfix allows users to add a specific value at the end of a generated sequence.

These new pre and post values will eliminate the need for configuring additional business functions to create unique number sequences. These two new fields on the sequence value generator also eliminate the need for an algorithm value generator in cases where pre-prend or post-pend strings result from a sequence value generator.

For more information on value generators refer to the Sequence Value Generator topic in the System Setup documentation.

Display object and reference type ID in attribute Validity tab

The IDs of object and reference types are now displayed in parentheses beside their names when viewed in the Validity tab of an attribute in STEP. Previously, only the names of object and reference types were displayed. This change was made in order to help users differentiate between object and reference types that may share the same name.

Note that Version Types, Link Types, and E-Catalog Types do not display their IDs in this manner.

For more information, refer to the Validity on Specification Attributes and Validity on Description Attributes topics in the System Setup documentation.

Data Container object ID available via JavaScript API

The JavaScript API has been extended with a method to get the ID of a data container object to provide consistency among the APIs:

com.stibo.core.domain.datacontainer.DataContainerObject.getID()

Since the methods for creating data containers with ID are already public, this makes it easier to use the ID of data container objects when using business rules.

For more information on the JavaScript API functionality, refer to the Technical Documentation (STEP API Documentation prior to 2024.3), accessible at [system]/sdk or from the system Start Page, within the Extension API section from the Javadoc link.

Improved event publishing failure handling for DaaS

Event publishing in DaaS now includes the ability to roll-back transactions and informs the STEP application when delivery of a change notification event to a customer-hosted event queue fails. Previously, only a connectivity check was performed before processing a data change. Occasionally, this connectivity check can still lead to a scenario in which DaaS is updated while no change notification event can be delivered. However, the strengthened failure handling process further ensures that data in STEP remains synchronized with DaaS and downstream systems.

For more information, refer to the Data as a Service topic in the Data as a Service documentation.

SAP Re-certification for STEP 2023

Stibo Systems has successfully secured the SAP integration re-certification for Material Master Data (MATMAS), Creditor Master Data (CREMAS), and Debitor Master Data (DEBMAS) for the Multidomain MDM platform STEP 2023. This continues to enable our customers to exchange material master, customer master, and vendor master data between STEP and SAP S/4HANA® improving the new product introduction process and time to market.

The re-certification further reaffirms Stibo Systems’ commitment to excellence, ensuring that our integration capabilities remain cutting-edge, reliable, and ready to meet the dynamic demands of the digital landscape.