Aptify 7.3 New Features

This document provides an overview of the new features released in Aptify version 7.3. The content of this document is divided into the following sections:

• Azure Enablement in Aptify
• Aptify Web 
• e-Business 7.3
• Security Enhancements

For details on resolved issues, visit: Aptify 7.3 Resolved Issues.

Azure Enablement in Aptify

Aptify WebJobs Enhancements

For Schedule Tasks

In Aptify release 7.3, significant enhancements have been implemented to the Schedule Task WebJobs. These improvements include:

1. Creation of Process Flow Run Record for Synchronous Tasks:

   Previously, the synchronous process flow initiated from a scheduled task did not create an entry in the PFRun record. With this enhancement, when a synchronous process flow runs from a scheduled task, an entry is created in the PFRun record table. The web job then picks up this process flow from the PFRun record table to execute it. If a synchronous process flow is triggered by an action performed within the application (whether in Aptify Web or Smart Client), it will execute directly from the application.

   With the new implementation, the web job does not execute the process flow directly. Instead, it first creates a PFRun record, allowing the synchronous process flow to function asynchronously. The process flow run record is then executed to complete the task.

2. Improvement of Schedule Tasks with frequencies set to Once or Daily: With this enhancement, the Scheduled Task with frequency set to Once or Daily can now be executed multiple times within a single day. In the previous versions, these Schedule tasks were limited to a single run per day.

For information on how to setup new webjobs and configure existing schedule tasks to run as Azure webJobs, refer to Deploying Azure WebJobs for Schedule Tasks. 

For Process Flow Runs

In Aptify release 7.3, significant enhancements have been done to the Process Flow Runs. These improvements include:

1. Enhancements to improve overall performance: Process Flow Runs WebJobs have been enhanced to improve the overall performance and to maintain up-to-date information about the execution of the Process Flows.
   • With this enhancement, the PFRUN WebJob now updates the ProcessFlow Run record by modifying the ProcessFlow Start time. This enables maintaining up-to-date information about the execution of the Process Flows. Example, ProcessFlowStartTime would now be set correctly after PF Web Job Run.
   • With this enhancement, the PFRun WebJobs (Handle Process Flow Run Record) now internally calls a new stored procedure, spGetPendingProcessFlowRunsForWebJob. This stored procedure ensures that a single PF Run record is executed only once, even when there are multiple WebJobs hosted on the portal. This functionality allows asynchronous execution, the other hosted WebJobs pick up additional records that are not locked. This enables multiple distinct records to be processed simultaneously, resulting in a significant improvement in overall performance.
   • As part of this enhancement, code changes have been made to ProcessFlowEngine so that the Webjobs are triggered based on Azure Storage Queue functionality. Earlier Webjobs were being called continuously to check PFrun entries from the database this affected the performance.
2. Inclusion of  WebJobs Name: This enhancement adds WebJob's name in the client machine field of PF Run record details.

For more information on how to setup new webjobs and configure existing process flow runs as Azure webJobs, refer to Deploying Azure WebJobs for Process Flow Runs. 

Generic Web Job Improvements

1. Configuration to assign Web Job name in Message Queue Run:
   Earlier in Web Jobs, messages were picked only from the queue named ‘testing’. This has been modified, with an attribute added in WebJobManualDeploy.exe.config and ProcessFlowRunWebJob.exe.config to enable users to customize the queue name below.
   
   • Attribute Name: <"Aptify.Services.Authentication.AzureAD.StorageQueueName">
2. Introduction of support for Managed Identity Users: Starting from this release, WebJobs can be run against Managed Identity Users, previously only SQL users were supported to run WebJobs.
   To run the WebJobs against a Managed Identity user, users need to create a new Managed identity. They cannot use the same Managed identity that is being used in the AptifyWeb SOA Endpoint. 
3. WebJobs logging enhancements: To improve the readability of WebJobs log file, WebJobs has been enhanced to log only the error messages and exceptions in the log file. Previously, warning messages and intermediate information details were logged in the WebJobs log file. 

Azure AD Authentication Performance Improvement

Multiple enhancements have been made to improve the performance of the Aptify Smart client and Aptify Web applications when using Azure AD Authentication.

Highlights of the improvements:

• Connection Pooling: Implemented connection pooling for Azure AD in both the Smart Client and Aptify Web application.
• Managed Identify: Improved retrieval of refresh tokens for managed identities. 
• Token Optimization: Optimized the code for retrieving Azure AD access token and refresh tokens.
• Log Cleanup: Removed redundant warnings and information logs related to Azure AD authentication.
• VDI Login Issue: Addressed Smart Client login failures from VDI environment for user AD accounts by increasing connection timeout during database connection.

Enabling e-Business SOA Endpoint Using Managed Identity

Enhancements have been made to the e-Business SOA endpoint connectivity. This enables the e-Business services to execute using managed identity to connect to database. This removes the need to mention the credentials in the web.config file.

Aptify Web

Aptify - CardPointe Integration Phase III

Aptify release 7.3 includes phase III implementation of CardPointe integration which consists of integrating Apple Pay into Aptify eBusiness 7.x. For more information on this topic refer to Apple Pay Implementation. 

Phase I implementation was released in Aptify release 7.1 which included CardPointe payment gateway integration with Aptify Web, Aptify Smart Client and Aptify e-Business applications. It implemented two modules namely, CardPointe Gateway and Hosted iFrame Tokenizer. For further details on this topic, refer to Integrating Cardpointe with Aptify. For information on how to set up and configure CardPointe, refer to Setting up Cardpointe with Aptify. 

Phase II implementation was released in Aptify release 7.2 and it included Automatic Clearinghouse (ACH) implementation in Aptify Smart Client, Aptify e-Business and Aptify Web applications. An ACH transaction corresponds to an electronic wire transfer from a customer's bank account to the organization's bank account. ACH transactions include electronic checks and wire transfers. Processing ACH transactions electronically requires an integration with the Cardpointe payment gateway. For further details on this topic, refer to ACH Implementation and Google Pay Implementation. 

Order Cancellation Wizard Improvements

In Aptify release 7.3, the Order Cancellation Wizard has gone through substantial improvements to enhance the user experience and increase the efficiency of the process. The improvements include:

• The ability to customize the Order Date as per the user's requirement.
• Display of only those Cancellation Fee products which are currently sold.
• Automatic display of a new Cancellation Fee product in the Web Cancellation Fee drop-down without running a process flow.
• Default selection of 'Create Credit Memo' checkbox when handling canceled order with balance.
• Disabling of Product and Fee fields when 'Include Cancellation Fee Product' Checkbox is not selected.

For detailed information on the above, refer to Using the Order Cancellation Wizard.

Order Performance Improvements

Enhancements have been done to the Order Entry application to address the Order performance issues in Aptify Web application. Below is the list of the functionalities where the improvements are seen:

• Clicking Order save button: Improvements have been done to the product price-related logic such that when the users click order save button, the order form record is saved without time lag. Testing has been performed against the single and the multiple product lines with different product types to capture the improvement. 

With these improvements, users will see better performance when saving orders in Order Entry application. Note that the improvement will depend upon the size of client database and process flows related customization present on Order form Save button click. 

Aptify Web List View Enhancement

In Aptify release 7.3, users now have the ability to select multiple records in a List view simultaneously for scenarios like adding several records to a list. This functionality is similar to the selection process found in the Windows OS, resembling the file selection process in Windows File Explorer. For information on how to use this feature, refer to Selecting Multiple Records in a List View. 

View Usability Enhancements to load view using Advanced SQL 

View usability enhancements to load views using Advanced SQL has been implemented in the Aptify 7.3 release. This enhancement skips all the custom logic on the views and allows the user to execute Advanced SQL directly. For details on how to configure different types of views to use this feature, refer to Aptify Release 7.3 Enhancement section of View Pagination and Usability Enhancements.

Company Preferred Billing Address Enhancement

Starting with the Aptify release 7.3, users are able to set the company default address as per the address set in Preferred Billing Address. This improvement is implemented for both Aptify Smart Client and Aptify Web application. To enable this functionality, an attribute - “SetPreferredBillingAddressAsDefaultAddress” is provided under Companies entity. Set the value of the attribute to 1 to enable preferred billing address as default address. 

Refer to Setting the Default Address as Preferred Billing Address for more details on this implementation.

Aptify Web UI Enhancement for Session Timeout / Network Disconnection

Enhancements have been implemented in the Aptify Web application to enhance user experience in the event of session timeout and network connection issues. With this release, pop-up messages have been introduced to notify the user around the below-mentioned events and direct them to the next course of action.

Below are the details of various scenarios that the user may encounter:

• Session Timeout: If a user session is timed out, the following pop-up message appears. Pressing the OK button redirects the user to the login page. 
  
• No Network Connection: If there is no network connection and the session timeout period has elapsed, the following pop-up message appears. Pressing the OK button redirects the user to the login page. 
  
• Network Connection Restored: If the network connection is lost and regained within a short period, and the session timeout has not occurred, pressing the OK button refreshes the page and the users can continue without being redirected to the login page.

Compact Mode Option Enhancement

Starting with the Aptify release 7.3, when the compact mode functionality is enabled by selecting  the “Compact Mode” option from setting, the “Compact Mode” option is displayed in bold text. This functionality enables users to efficiently view a larger quantity of records within their views. 

Additionally, selecting the "Compact Mode" option enables the subtype grid in all the entities to show a larger number of records. Previously, only two to three records were being displayed when users opened the subtype records. For example, purchase subtype grid in subscription record displays more purchase records in release 7.3.

For more information on Compact Mode, refer to Setting Compact Mode option for Views.

Support for Microsoft Windows 11 Operating System for Aptify Applications

With the release of Aptify 7.3, Aptify has conducted testing using Windows 2011 OS and no compatibility issues have been identified. Please contact the Support team if you encounter any problems or have questions about using Aptify with this version of Windows.

e-Business 7.3

Endpoints for Payment without Login

Aptify release 7.3 introduces a new feature that allows members to make payments without logging into the e-Business application. Since the e-Business 6.0 release, we have a feature of paying off the unpaid orders which required the users to be logged in to the application and make multiple clicks to reach the page that handles this payment. In addition to this feature, we have introduced a new implementation that reduces the number of clicks and saves users time by eliminating the need to log into the application. The users can use this feature only to pay off the entire outstanding amount for an order, partial payment of the amount is not allowed.

This release consists of only back-end implementation, including seventeen new services. To know more about the services, refer to the API documentation here. 

As part of this implementation, below user messages have been introduced for certain scenarios and unsupported functionality:

Scenario	Message
In case the Order ID does not belong to the Person ID.	The Customer ID # does not match with the Order #
Cannot pay order with $0 balance	The Order # entered has already been paid
Cannot pay order where Status is Cancelled	The Order ID # has been cancelled
Cannot pay order where Order Date is more than 1 year old	This order is not eligible for payment. Please contact customer support for further assistance.

To know more about how these services can be used in your UI implementation, refer to How to use Make Payment Without Login Services with UI.

Security Enhancements

Aptify CastHighlight Scan- Medium: JQuery version-Security Fix

As part of CastHightlight scan findings, code review was conducted on Aptify source code to assess vulnerabilities related to jQuery.  As part of this exercise, the jQuery Version 1.11.1 has been upgraded to jQuery 3.7.1 latest version to remove the concerned vulnerabilities.

Aptify CastHighlight Scan-Critical- Log4Net Dll Reference

As part of CastHightlight scan findings, code review was conducted on Aptify source code to assess the dependency on log4net DLL reference. As part of this exercise, all references of log4net were removed from the repository for Aptify.Framework.Log and LoggerSampleApplication projects.

Aptify CastHighlight Scan-Medium- ServiceStack.txt

As part of CastHightlight scan findings, code review was conducted on Aptify source code to assess the dependency on DataTableSerializationTest project. Since the project was not being used in working source code, the project was removed from the project repository.

Aptify eBiz Security Vulnerabilities

As part of a Blind SQL Injection run on e-Business application, a security issue was found with /SOA/services/UserInformation endpoint related to ‘AptifySession’ cookie. To address this vulnerability, code changes have been done to Aptify Security Provider assembly. These changes enhance the security of the e-Business application.