BizTalk360 v8.8 Released

Published on : Jun 19, 2018

Category : BizTalk360 Update

Praveena

Author

With BizTalk360, the one stop monitoring solution for BizTalk server, we always understand the empathy of the customers and improve the product accordingly, by developing new features and enhancing the existing ones. “The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know their expectations.” – Roy H. Williams We receive customer suggestions/feedback through various channels like our support portal, the feedback forum, emails etc. We make sure that all these suggestions and feedback are being answered and that they are accommodated in the product. The outcome is a new version, being released with the new set of features, enhancements and of course several bug fixes. “Success is not delivering a feature, it is learning how to solve the customer’s problem.” – Eric Ries We understand the customer needs and add them to the product to make the product as suitable as possible for the user. We are delighted to announce the availability of BizTalk360 version 8.8 with the introduction of a new feature, most expected enhancements and bug fixes.

New Features

Import/Export of BizTalk360 configuration

This is the most wanted feature in BizTalk360 as suggested by most of the customers. In the earlier versions of BizTalk360, we had the ability to import and export the alarms. But there was a requirement to have the option to import/export the other features like user access, saved queries etc. In this new release of BizTalk360, we have the option to import/export the following between the BizTalk environments.
  1. Alarm – Already exists (Moving to the new menu in the settings side)
  2. User Access Policies
  3. Saved Queries
    1. MessageBox and Tracking queries
    2. Advanced Event Viewer queries
    3. ESB, BAM and EDI queries)
  4. Secure SQL Queries

Enhancements

The feedback portal is frequently monitored and we make sure the customers’ suggestions are heard and answered. Usually, higher vote requests are considered for the upcoming release implementation. This release of BizTalk360 includes the following enhancements, which were based on requests taken from the feedback portal.

Stop alerts for maintenance:

This feature is added to allow the user to setup multiple maintenance windows in the future, so that the alarms will be disabled during that period and no notifications will be sent. The following options are available:
  1. Can set multiple maintenance window
  2. View the historical maintenance schedules
  3. Maintenance notification will be shown in the dashboard with maintenance details like time and date
When the maintenance period is active, the user will be alerted that the maintenance period is currently going on with an informational message, both in the Operational dashboard as well as in Stop Alerts screen. Information regarding the start and end times of the maintenance window will also be provided. Stop Alert For Maintenance A Purging policy is also set, for managing the table size of the historical maintenance schedules.

Allow users of applications to view Policies/Rules for just their application(s)

The user can now view the business rules associated for the application in the application view under “Application support” section, irrespective of the Business Rule Composer access permission.

Grid Filter capability

In a BizTalk environment, there are various types of data flows happening through the system. BizTalk360 allows users to query all the different types of data available in the BizTalk environment from a single location and the results are displayed in grid columns. Our grid columns got a new makeover! This new capability is specially designed to improve grid performance in high-volume environments. Filtering grid columns could result in a good end-user experience and get faster desired result. There are four types of filters namely,
  1. Date Time Filter
  2. Status Filter
  3. Boolean Filter
  4. String Filter
Application Filter

Pagination across all the modules

Pagination ability has been implemented across the product to improve the performance and usability of each grid view. This will divide the grid dynamically into separate pages, using the system settings configuration. A user can also change the grid page size dynamically. Based on the Max Match value, which can be configured in the System settings, a user can select a value for the pagination grid. Pagination The user can switch the page by selecting the next/previous arrows and can also switch by selecting the page number directly at the bottom of the grid display. The selected page will get highlighted accordingly.

Export to Excel

This functionality is already available in BizTalk360. In this version, it has been enhanced for better usability purpose. Now the user can export multiple grid information either in a single sheet or in separate sheets as well. The link type Export to Excel option has been modified to a dropdown in case there are multiple exportable data sources present. Export to Excel

Notification emails with high importance

This is a new and powerful capability, which we have included in this version. Most of the time we receive a lot of emails and important messages. BizTalk360 notification emails may be overlooked in our long list of messages. This functionality is useful for support people to determine the priority of the emails and allowing the user to take action quickly. High Priority Settings

BAM Enhancements

There were few changes made in BAM in our earlier release version v 8.7. This is continued in this new version as well.
  • Now the user can download the message content from both the database as well as the archive folder
  • Earlier, BAM data was getting displayed in the UTC date format irrespective of the user profile. Now this has been modified to display the BAM data in the user profile time format

Miscellaneous enhancements

The remaining enhancements include the following:
  • Zoom in/out options for the modules Graphical Message flow /Message Patterns:
The zoom in/out option has been provided for viewing the message flows in the Graphical Message Flow and Message Patterns. This will help users to view the complete flow of messages involving complex orchestrations without any difficulty.
  • Restart option for the analytics and monitoring services in the UI:
The user can now restart the analytics and monitoring services from BizTalk360 UI, without logging into the server where the services are installed. When the services are installed in high availability mode, the services will get restarted in all the servers where they are installed.
  • Host Instance restart – This is a new functionality where users can restart the host instances from BizTalk360 itself
  • The user can now terminate scheduled messages from BizTalk360 -> Message Box (Queries)

Issues resolved from different areas

We have closed around 70 support tickets as part of fixing the issues in different areas. Please refer the Release notes .

Conclusion

We always monitor the feedback portal and take up the suggestions and feedback. Now we would like to request you, our customers, to please take the time to fill this questionnaire to help us prioritize the next upcoming feature tasks, to let us know what are your main pain points and help us to further improve the product. Why not give BizTalk360 a try! It takes about 10 minutes to install on your BizTalk environments and you can witness and check the security and productivity of your own BizTalk Environments. Get started with the free 30 days trial.