Table of Contents

Ometa Framework Release v6.2.0

Version 6.2.0 of the Ometa Framework has been released with the following new features.

Changed Functionality

Core Service: Disable Windows Authentication

Action Required for Existing Installations!

Windows Authentication should be disabled on the Core Service. When enabled, IIS may trigger unexpected Windows authentication pop-ups in the browser - especially when the service returns a 404 File Not Found response.

Additionally, Windows Authentication is not required on the Core Service because all authentication and identity validation are fully handled by the Authority Service. The Core Service never directly authenticates end users. It only receives already authenticated and authorized requests. Keeping Windows Authentication enabled therefore provides no security benefit and instead introduces unwanted behavior such as:

  • Browser-triggered Windows login prompts
  • Authentication fallback attempts when files or endpoints are missing
  • Inconsistent user experience depending on domain policies

Disabling Windows Authentication on the Core Service ensures a clean, predictable request flow and prevents unnecessary authentication interactions.

Windows Authentication

Improved Service Startup Time After Recycle

To ensure the Generic REST Service initializes immediately after an application pool recycle, we have implemented the applicationInitialization module in the web.config.

This is critical for the dependent OPC UA Service (powering gRPC communication) to be available without delay. Previously, the service would only start after the first user request, which could cause timeouts.

ACTION REQUIRED: This improvement relies on the "Application Initialization" feature (role) to be installed in IIS, as is already described in our minimum system specifications. Please verify this feature is enabled in your environment to guarantee the correct warm-up behavior.

Microsoft Provider: This Organization Only

To enhance security and prevent common sign-in issues, we've changed the default configuration for the Microsoft authentication provider.

What's Changing?

For all new installations, the Microsoft provider will now default to This organization only being enabled.

Organization only

Why We're Making This Change?

Our previous default (disabled) used Microsoft's generic "common" endpoint. This often caused sign-in failures for guest users from other business tenants, as their attempts would trigger a request for admin approval in their home tenant, which was frequently denied.

The new default ensures that authentication is handled directly through your tenant's specific endpoint, creating a more stable, secure, and predictable sign-in process for both your internal and guest users.

Action Required for Existing Installations!

We strongly recommend that all customers manually enable the This organization only setting for their existing Microsoft provider configurations, when they work with external guests accounts. This will prevent the authentication issues described above and align your setup with best practices.

Warning: You should only leave this setting disabled if you have an explicit need to support personal Microsoft accounts (e.g., from Skype, Xbox, etc.). Be aware that doing so may reintroduce the sign-in problems for business-to-business guest users.

We've documented the official way to completely eliminate the consent screen for external users in Microsoft Entra ID. Our previous guidance could cause confusion by requesting unnecessary permissions.

This new procedure uses cross-tenant trust for a smooth, professional onboarding experience. We strongly recommend reviewing the new guide to improve your user integration.

Read the new guide here: Configuring Cross-Tenant Trust for Consent-Free Sign-in

New Features

Tasks

  • The Ad-Hoc and PDCA task mechanism has been turned into a module, and will not be included anymore in the default installation of the Ometa Framework. This module has to be installed separately if these tasks are used.
  • Refer to the documentation for more information on how to install and use this module. The module will provide new objects, which will replace objects DCS.Tasks and DCS.Tasks.PDCA.
  • New functionality, provided via the module, includes:
    • Archiving of tasks.
    • Task relationships, allowing you to link tasks to each other.
    • Custom functional statuses for tasks
    • A dashboard to view all your tasks, independent of the task type and life cycle. This dashboard also has overviews for tasks linked to a soft-deleted person or role, and archived tasks, only manageable by administrators.

We've added support for Microsoft Entra ID multi-tenant admin consent, allowing external tenant administrators to pre-authorize Ometa applications for their users.

To enable this, provide the external administrator with an admin consent URL in the following format:

https://login.microsoftonline.com/{external_tenant}/v2.0/adminconsent?client_id={your_app_client_id}&scope=openid%20profile%20email&redirect_uri={your_authority_service_url}/signin-microsoft

Example:

For an Authority Service at https://myauthority.ometa.net with Application Client ID ab6ce897-e4de-400b-8fab-0a52713d72a3, granting consent for the contoso.onmicrosoft.com tenant:

https://login.microsoftonline.com/contoso.onmicrosoft.com/v2.0/adminconsent?client_id=ab6ce897-e4de-400b-8fab-0a52713d72a3&scope=openid%20profile%20email&redirect_uri=https://myauthority.ometa.net/signin-microsoft

The external administrator opens this URL, signs in, and grants consent for their organization.

Multi Record Expand Template

The multi record template feature allows you to expand table rows to display additional information using a customizable template. This is useful for showing extra data or longer descriptions without cluttering the main table view.

Expand detail

Refer to the article in the docs for more information

New CSL Functions

We have introduced new CSL functions which can be used in ADM:

  • CSL.contextManager.setContextCaseId(41);
  • CSL.contextManager.removeContextCaseId();
  • CSL.multiRecord.showColumn();
  • CSL.multiRecord.hideColumn();
  • CSL.component.reload() now has support for dialogs.
  • CSL.listItemFunction.setHeaderIconStylesCondition();
  • SSL.listItemFunction.setHeaderIconCondition();
  • CSL.listItemFunction.setRowIconCondition();
  • CSL.listItemFunction.setRowIconStylesCondition();

Multi Record Print Functionality

A print button can now be enabled for multi-record table views through the advanced tab in the view configuration. When activated, users can print the current table view with the following behavior:

  • Tables are automatically sliced into multiple pages if columns don't fit on a single A4 page (portrait orientation)

  • Page margins are set to 10mm with automatic page breaks between column slices

  • All application styles are preserved in the print output

    Multi record print

Limitations:

  • Only works with table-based multi-record views
  • Fixed to A4 portrait orientation (210mm × 297mm)
  • Column slicing is based on column width; very wide tables may require multiple pages

OData and REST Connector

The REST connector has been made OData-aware, enabling it to automatically interpret @odata.nextLink for server-side paging and support OData query options integration through placeholders in the interface script. This allows filtering, sorting, and paging from ADM views to be translated into OData statements and forwarded to the external service.

Available Placeholders:

  • {$@ometa.filter} - Translates ADM filters to OData $filter statements
  • {$@ometa.sort} - Translates column sorting to OData $orderby statements
  • {$@ometa.pageSize} - Maps view page size to OData $top parameter
  • {$@ometa.firstItem} - Maps page offset to OData $skip parameter

These placeholders can be used in the interface script path, for example:

/Products?$filter={$@ometa.filter}&$orderby={$@ometa.sort}&$top={$@ometa.pageSize}&$skip={$@ometa.firstItem}

Benefits:

  • Automatic server-side paging through @odata.nextLink interpretation
  • External services can optimize queries on their end
  • Reduced data transfer and local processing
  • Consistent query option translation across REST, OData, and ODBC interfaces

Requirements:

  • Set REST Standard to OData in the profile or interface script
  • For paging to be forwarded, both filtering and sorting must also be forwarded to ensure data integrity

Supports both OData v2/v3 and v4 with automatic query translation adjustments.

BCSP Circuit Breaker Pattern

The BCSP (Business Connector Service Process) now implements a circuit breaker pattern to prevent excessive logging and resource exhaustion when infrastructure errors occur (e.g., SQL Server downtime).

Behavior:

  • When more than half of processing errors are infrastructure-related and the data context reports unhealthy, the BCSP will pause processing for one minute
  • After the pause, the circuit breaker enters a "half-open" state, allowing one request through to test connectivity
  • If successful, normal processing resumes; if unsuccessful, the circuit breaker closes again and retries after another minute

Benefits:

  • Prevents disk space exhaustion from excessive error logging during infrastructure outages
  • Reduces unnecessary processing attempts when backend services are unavailable
  • Automatically recovers when infrastructure becomes healthy again

This safeguard helps maintain system stability during temporary infrastructure failures.

Cards Module Enhancements

The Cards module has received several new features to improve visualization and user experience:

Responsive Grid Layout:

  • Breakpoint configuration support for card grids with rendering mode "multiple"

  • Grid size can now be adjusted based on screen size (e.g., 1 card on mobile, 4-5 cards on desktop)

    Responsive grid layout

Progress Bar Element:

  • New draggable progress bar element for visualizing progress metrics

  • Useful for tracking production orders, completed pieces, financial flows, and other progress indicators

    Progress bar element

Context-Enabled Tooltips:

  • Tooltips can now be configured on Cards, Buttons, Text, and Icon elements

  • Provides additional contextual information when users hover over elements

    Context-enabled tooltips

Card Template Copy:

  • Copy button to duplicate card templates from one view to another

  • Simplifies reusing card configurations across multiple views

    Card template copy

Authorization Policies on Actions:

  • Buttons can now be disabled or hidden based on view function conditions
  • Icons can now be disabled or hidden based on view function conditions
  • Text elements can be disabled based on view function conditions

Other Improvements:

  • Unique fields are no longer required to render cards

Lifecycle Relations System Object

A new system object DCS.LifecycleRelations has been introduced for managing lifecycle relations between objects:

Available Methods:

  • Ensure Lifecycle Relation - Creates or updates a lifecycle relation between objects
  • Delete Lifecycle Relation - Removes an existing lifecycle relation
  • Get All Lifecycle Relations - Retrieves all configured lifecycle relations
  • Get Related Lifecycles - Gets related lifecycle objects

Media Control File Upload Improvements

The media control in ADM has been enhanced with better user experience during file uploads:

New Features:

  • Users can now immediately rename files after upload without waiting for the upload to complete
  • Error messages are displayed directly below the affected file for easier troubleshooting

Media control improvements

These improvements streamline the file upload workflow and provide clearer feedback when issues occur.

ODBC Profile Security Enhancement

The ODBC profile template has been enhanced to better protect sensitive connection information:

New Field:

  • Password field added to the ODBC template for securely storing sensitive information
  • Password values are hidden from view, preventing exposure of credentials

Usage:

  • Use the context token {$Profile.Password} in the ConnectionString field to reference the password
  • Connection strings continue to work as before, but sensitive information is no longer visible in plain text

Profile Testing:

  • The WpfGUI Test Profile action has been updated to allow users to provide token values when testing a profile
  • Enables proper testing of profiles that use the new password field

This enhancement improves security by preventing password exposure when viewing or editing ODBC profiles.

Responsive Forms Language Label Support

The Responsive Forms module now supports language labels in header elements:

New Feature:

  • Header elements can now use language labels for multilingual support
  • Enables dynamic header text that adapts to the user's language settings

This enhancement improves internationalization capabilities in responsive forms.

Timeline Chart Editing Capabilities

The Timeline chart component now supports interactive editing features:

New Features:

  • Drag and Drop Editing - Timeline blocks can be dragged to new positions, automatically opening a configured view for editing
  • Delete Functionality - Timeline blocks can be deleted directly from the chart
  • Create New Blocks - New timeline blocks can be created directly in the chart interface

These enhancements enable users to manage timeline data directly from the visualization, improving workflow efficiency.

Transfer Tool CLI and Version Control Support

The Transfer Tool has been enhanced with command-line interface support and version control capabilities, making it suitable for CI/CD pipelines:

Command-Line Interface (CLI):

  • New Ometa.Framework.Transfer.Shell.exe application for direct import/export without WPF GUI
  • Available commands: export, import, select, convert, and clear
  • Authentication via client ID and secret (configure in Business Connector under Security > Clients)
  • Full command documentation available via --help or -? arguments

Version Control Integration:

  • Export to folder structure format that can be checked into version control
  • Folder structure mirrors the export wizard summary organization
  • Removed unused and calculated properties that changed between exports (e.g., InputDefaultIsNow)
  • Archive format is convertible between .zip and folder structure using the convert command

Enhanced Filtering:

  • Search and filter objects by tags in the export wizard

Document ADM Move and Copy Enhancements

The Document ADM has been enhanced with improved move and copy functionality:

Enhanced Move and Copy Operations:

  • Within Current Case - Move documents within the current case to known locations managed by the case through the "Ensure List of Folders which are Managed by Case" concept

  • Between Cases - Move or copy documents between different cases by specifying the target case type, case, and case location

    Document ADM move and copy

Improved User Experience:

  • Clear selection options for destination locations
  • Streamlined workflow for document organization across case structures
  • Better integration with case-managed folder hierarchies

These enhancements provide more flexible and intuitive document management capabilities within the Document ADM.