v3.1 iChannel April 2021

Portal

• The Portal is fully redesigned with modern UI and enhanced functionality, facilitating an improved client experience.

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• New filters are been introduced for the “Submit Files“ page and the “Files Requested Form you“ page, allowing users to filter the records easily based on the status of each file.

• User Guides for Portal can be obtained from here: https://support.conarc.com/hc/en-us/sections/360005877714-iChannel-Portal-Guides

• Video 1 - short

• Video 2 - long

Workflow

• Workflow Rollover Tool allows users to search for workflows from the previous year and to define how new workflows will be created in the following year(s), using a combination of data from the previous year workflow and the workflow templates. This feature removes the burden of re-creating same workflow over every-year and allows to rollover all/any previous workflows within seconds.

iFetch

• Introducing iFetch a tool designed to manage files directly. It’s a lighter version of iCD (iChannel Desk). For now, it’s compatible with Window 10 64bit only.

iCD

• A button “Reload Configuration” has been added to iCD Support tab, in order to reread and update the configuration settings from the webserver.

• iChannelDesk application for Terminal Services and Single users is renamed as follows, in order to eliminate the confusion, which can be caused when installing the application in different environments.

  • iChannel Desk for Terminal Services → iChannel Desk Multiuser

  • iChannel Desk Cickonce -> iChannel Desk Singleuser

iCD/iFetch

• With upgrading to iChannel v3.1 installation, an organization has to pick if they would like to exclusively use iFetch or iCD for all their users TO OPEN FILES IN DIRECT MODE or use a combination (some users use iCD while others use iFetch - both can’t be run simultaneous by a user TO OPEN FILES IN DIRECT MODE ). If the organization opt for Both, then when a user opens a file in iChannel direct mode in a file area for the first time, user is prompted to select to open the file via either iFetch or iCD. The respective selection is persisted in advanced settings, which will be automatically picked, when direct mode is used next time.

  • The selection can be changed whenever required, through Subscriber details page by changing the respective advanced setting.

Portal/Internal Sites

• All the Passwords are secured with Passwords Hashing on Portal and Internal sites, enforcing an additional layer of security.

File Area

• Now emails can be drag and drop from Microsoft Outlook to iChannel website, users are not required to run iCD or iFetch to perform the action. When emails are dragged and dropped into Channel upload boxes, the function would move a copy of the respective email to iChannel from the mailbox.

• All incoming documents are validated and corrected at all points of ingress, in order to identify invalid characters and strip them away from the file name before stored in Ichannel.

• New customizable Email Templates are incorporated for the following File Actions;

  • Add

  • Move

  • Copy

  • Rename Title

  • Accept

• New option is available to export File Search Results on the Files search tab into CSV (Excel). This features allows users to use file search results more fruitfully.

• Shows a warning message when sending Files as Zip attachments, informing users to communicate the respective password with clients via a secured channel.

• The Document Options page on file area is updated with below options;

  • Add File to be Scanned (Generate routing slip)

  • Request Files… (Copy to Clipboard)

  • Copy Permanent Request Files Link to Clipboard

  • Add Hyperlink(s) (To any URL or other File Areas)

  • Generate & View Thumbnails of any Images (JPG’s)

• The functionality of accepting Files, which are received via request link sent in an Email is enhanced to apply and display respective tags, which are assigned once at the point of accepting the files.

• Introduced a new feature in File Area to search files by added file tags. File tags are displayed as a search parameter in the Files search section. All the added tags are displayed in a dropdown list, which can be multi-selected for the users to search files. The files that are tagged with the selected tag(s) are filtered and displayed as the search results.

• New button 'Clean-up File Area' is introduced to the File Options, which cleans-up File Area by removing files and linked/published records that are pointing to non-existing files on the file server and remove duplicate filerecords pointing to the same file on the file server.

   

• Caseware File Rollover feature is introduced that, when a caseware file is rolled over via a File area 'Rollover' option, all the files inside that Caseware Folder gets rolled over.

DocuSign

New DocuSign History Report is added to the ‘My Recent Files’ Dashboard widget via a report icon. The report shows the history of documents sent through the DocuSign integration.

Note: The report is visible only if the new DocuSign is Enabled. If interested in using Ichannel’s Integration with DocuSign please contact Lacy Magby VP of Sales at: Sale@Conarc.com.

Dashboard

• My Tasks widget on the dashboard is updated with Modified Date as an automatic secondary sort.

• My Workflows widget on the dashboard is updated with Due Date as an automatic secondary sort.

• Multiple users are allowed to be selected to filter records in My Tasks widget and My Workflows widget.

Routing/DPP Server

• New features are incorporated into the Scanned sheets routing process through DPP service. Now the iChannel is capable of correctly auto-routing the files with scanned sheet ID as file name even though the actual scanned sheet page is not attached into the file. [Only valid for clients upgrading from v3.0]

General

• Users can now check-in multiple files in a single zip file. And the system would not accept any invalid zip files with incorrect documents.

   

• DTSearch Indexer is optimized and enhanced for .net version in order to index larger amount of files faster and efficiently.

• A Spell-checker (CKEditor) is enabled by default in all relevant iChannel screens allowing users to conveniently type their texts throughout the system.

UI Enhancements

• Top menu icons are re-designed to match with the new iChannel theme.

• Menu icons and respective tooltip texts for Help & Release Notes are updated.

• Advanced Query option is moved as a top menu bar icon in Contacts Page and removed from the dropdown menu. The same option is available in Reports sections as well for the eaze of use.

• UI and functionality of Contacts Merge Screen is enhanced facilitating more user-friendly and convinient user experience.

• All the iChannel screens are updated with the new theme, maintaining consistency through-out the system.

General

• New Autocleanup functionality and SQLCleanup functionality are optimized to process smoothly.

• ID field in Linked Sites page, is re-named as “Site ID”

   

• The Modules section in the Systems tab is updated with the new Routing module and not used components are removed for admin users to easily control the access permissions for respective user groups.

   

• When the Internet Explorer browser is not supported for iChannel Internal & Portal, the system detects the not supported browsers when users are trying to login and displays the relevant message, which informs users to move into a supporting browser to convinitly use the system.

   

• File search indexer functionality is optimized, now searching files by file content is enhanced.

File Area

• "Copy Full File path" option in File area is enhanced, that supports more file types now.

• “Type” column of Activities page, is clickable now, same as the “Subject” column. That shows the Activity information of the respective activity, when clicked on the Type/Subject column.

• History Records Details section of File History section in File area is enhanced to display all the necessary details:

• Users are allowed to create “Portal Requests” from File Area without selecting a file.

• Auto Publish feature for DPP windows service is enhanced, which automatically publishes routed files into the Portal, when the respective categories are selected for Auto-publish. This feature applies for below routing methods:

  • Manual routing files

  • MFR auto-routing

  • Scanned sheets auto-routing

  • File upload

• When the tax year is changed on a caseware binder through file properties, tax year of all the files on the binder gets updated to the new tax year.

Workflow Module

• Create Workflow functionality incorporates, Informative notification messages alone with the list of successful and failed workflows, and the respective statuses.

• Workflow module Reports are redesigned to improve performance and efficiency.

Admin

• The “Security Groups” section in the Site Settings page is renamed as “Portal Security Groups”, as this section shows the portal/external security groups of the particular group.

iCD

• Security features in iCD are enhanced, where customers with view access are allowed to open files in direct mode (read-only), but editing files directly is restricted.

Routing

• Auto routing functionality is upgraded to fully support scanned documents and MFR applied formatted files, now all these files properly get auto routed through DPP Service.

• The functionality of generating Scan sheets is enhanced that, if any invalid character is added in the title field when creating a new scan sheet, the system displays a warning message and the invalid character is deleted with the confirmation form the user. Therefore entering any invalid characters to the title field is restricted.
  [Only valid for clients upgrading from v3.0]

Auto Sweep

• AutoSweeps service is modified to ignore hidden files (temporary files) starting with ~ character. However, if a user copies a files starting with ~ character it will be considered to autosweep and display on File Area.

• Another highlight with AutoSweeps service is that, it automatically sets the tax year and expiration date for auto sweep files based on the settings defined in the advanced settings and in lookup.dbf file

  • The Tax Year is taken from the site advanced setting “CA_DEFAULTYEAR”. If the “CA_DEFAULTYEAR” key not available then Tax Year will be the current year

  • The Expiration Date is calculated based on the primary_category_folder/secondary_category_subfolder matching record “value“ in lookup.dbf

Portal

• Forgot Password functionality located in the Portal is enhanced with additional security, that the auto-generated password complies with the iChannel password policy (Contains special characters accordingly).

General

• Fixed the issues with My Tasks Report, which is now working properly with all expected details.

• Internal Subscriber advance settings modifications are getting saved properly when updated.

• Inactive users are allowed to be activated when there are valid licenses in iChannel system.

• Fixed the issue in displaying field names in the “Activity tab”, All the field names are properly displayed.

• Naming standards are imposed through-out the iChannel system.

• Previously, when creating an email internal users are displayed in Client linked entities section, though they are not linked. This issues is fixed, now only the linked contacts are shown.

File Area

• Fixed the issue of not generating Barcode when creating scanned sheets. Now Barcodes are available on the generated scanned sheets.
  [Only valid for clients upgrading from v3.1]

• When sending a Secured Link Email, File History is properly updated with secured link email details and as users download file from the link, download count gets updated in the respective history records. [Only valid for clients upgrading from v3.1]

• Both internal iChannel system and Portal supports uploading files larger than 15MB file size.

• Fixed the issues in PDF Compress and Cacompressor functionalities, which now properly check-out files, when the files are checked-in to these processes.

• Earlier emails related history records were not properly displayed on File History, now this is fixed and all the respective history records are updated.

• Access to locked files / files in restricted entities are blocked from File Search tab.

• Resolved the issues in misaligned File Area columns after updates, now all the updated columns are properly aligned in the widget.

  • Columns are flexible

  • The size of the columns are changeable via the Columns option

• Users are allowed to delete caseware files in the system even the respective folder is moved from the backend.

• When a user drag and drop a file onto another file in the in the firm file area. The new file(s) are automatically added to the Parent category as defined on the source file. The Secondary category and file status as the already existing file.

• Resolved an issue in the file Check-In / Check-Out functionalities which was not properly creating file versions. Now, the function maintains respective versions of the Check-In / Check-Out files through the system as expected.

• When a file is checked out and then checked back in and the user is trying to move the particular file, the file moving action would fail in previous verisons. Now this issue is resolved, that any checked-out and checked-in files can be moved without any failure.

• Fixed the issue of long File names getting automatically truncated in the system. Now the users are notified with the maximum file length and not allowed to route the file unless the exceeded file length is reduced.

• Resolved issues caused for errors when sending emails with email addresses in CC and BCC fields, now the users can successfully send emails with email addresses in any category; TO, CC, BCC.

• File recategorize feature is enhanced, that the original file is restored in the original location, whenever a failure occurred with file rename/move functionalities. And the respective errors are logged properly for references.

• File History records in File Area are updated with below options and details for the users to conveniently use these actions.

  • “Open” button to open the file and the “Restore“ button to control the versions of the file.

  • File Name is displayed in all respective logs

  • Document path is updated in the Details section

  • The version number is displayed as Version #1 and the versioned file path is mentioned

• Fixed the issue in file search, now all the Auto Published files are properly displayed in the file search results.

Workflow

• Functionality for view Workflows is fixed, which displays all workflow details in a new pop-up screen.

• Resolved an issue when setting workflows into ‘Private’ mode when updating other fields. Now the workflow mode remains unchanged, unless it is specifically updated by users.

• Resolved an issues when adding contacts of entities to a projects/workflow. Now all the entities and contacts, which are not bound with a site also searchable and properly displayed for adding as primary/secondary contacts to projects.

• When a project/workflow is completed by checking the ‘Completed’ checkbox, the current date (today’s date) is considered as the completion date and displayed next to the completed status.

  • When the ‘Completed’ checkbox is unchecked, the completion date is hidden.

Portal

• Previously, there was an issue when uploading requested files in Portal in responding to a Request List. Now, this is fixed.

• Users would encounter an error message revolving around the File name lengths. This issue is now checked and verified when uploading files on the Portal.

   

• When files are uploading to the Portal, if the file name is too long, the system would automatically trim the file name to the maximum allowed character length, that system supports and uploads the file successfully.

• The client number is always displayed next to the client/entity name in Portal, making it easier to uniquely identify clients, specially when the clients are attached with multiple entities.

• Once the portal password is reset via "Forgot Password" option, users are now required to change their password. Ensuring the security in accessing the Portal.

• Fixed the issue of not incorporating the specified number of Security Questions from the Advanced settings in the portal. Now the number of security questions defined in the Advanced settings get successfully reflected in both My Profile page and Forgot Password page.

• Fixed the issue in applying security permissions for non admin users in the Portal. Now the non admin users are allowed only view the secondary categories and not allowed to add/remove them.

Admin

• Proper validations are imposed with respective warning messages when performing create/activate/de-activate Subscribers and Contacts.

  • Activating/creating a Subscriber: User ID and email address are validated for uniqueness and the action is restricted when violating the uniqueness.

  • Deactivating a Subscriber: Uniqueness of User ID or email address is not considered

  • Activating/creating a Contact: Email addresses are validated for uniqueness and the action is restricted when violating the uniqueness.

  • Deactivating a Contact: Uniqueness of email address is not considered

Retention Module

• Resolved the functionality for “To Be Deleted Documents” search results in Retention module. Any documents marked for deletion in the System are displayed when search through the retention module with the flag to be deleted.

iCD

• Fixed the issues in sending email notifications, when publishing files. Now all the internal assigned users in the security group receive email notifications accordingly when files are published.

Routing

• Page format of the Routing sheet is enhanced, that allows users to conveniently add all the related details and create the routing sheets.

   

• Fixed the issues in displaying document preview in Routing preview function in Routing page, now the document previews are displayed properly.

CRM

• Resolved the issue, that confirm password is not properly validated when creating a new subscriber in the Contacts module. Now the respective validations are properly imposed, thus the confirm password field is compared and validated against the newly added password.