9.2 Release Notes
Document Overview
Audience
This document is intended for use by active STEP users and partners. It serves to describe the new and enhanced features provided with the release. It does not serve as a replacement for the STEP Online Help, which includes additional information on previously existing and new system functionality, as well as more detailed explanations and step-by-step instructions for use, when appropriate.
Content
This document describes the changes between the current and previous release.
Some functionality is controlled via component activation, which may include licenses and/or component installations, and may not be available on a particular system. Questions should be directed to your Stibo Systems account manager or partner manager.
Release Overview
A wide variety of Product Master Data Management, Customer Master Data Management, PLM, and STEP enhancements were implemented with the 9.2 release.
Product MDM
- New Search and Product Editor Web UI screens are available for searching, viewing, and editing product details in a modern, user-friendly format. The complete functionality of faceted search includes the use of Elasticsearch, static facet search operations, personalized views by user, and a basket for collecting and exporting search results.
- Product Data Syndication integration enhancements include the ability to export data containers and asset metadata from STEP to PDS. Additionally, product master data can be syndicated from STEP to PDS in selectable languages.
- The ability to measure the quality and completeness of data has been enhanced with the introduction of a new basic object type, which allows users to create sufficiencies that combine basic and aggregator metrics to calculate sufficiency scores. These calculated scores, along with messages that pertain to the scores, are displayed clearly and colorfully within the Web UI’s new Sufficiency panel.
PLM
- Reporting capabilities on recipes using new Change Reports functionality enables administrators to identify important information that should be captured during a transition event and displayed to the users.
- An enhanced Multi Reference Editor allows users to add new references by selecting a target object and adding meta data attribute values in one dialog instead of multiple steps.
- Project Navigator enables a simple view of a group of objects that belong to a project and allows easy navigation to any of the objects in the project. For example, if a project contains multiple variations of a product, packaging options, labels, and supplier responses.
Customer MDM
- Centralized B2B Customer MDM improvements with particular focus on CPG, manufacturing, and distribution verticals.
- References from Data Containers to support Line of Business specific customer relations
- Support matching through configuration alone includes improved setup and configuration of matching, enabling quick time to value and an improved implementation experience.
- Extended Data Profiling to support value and function metrics.
Platform
- An Embedded Analytics Platform (EAP) has been introduced that provides users with a true end-to-end, one-stop analytics solution to capture, analyze, and visualize STEP and external systems' data.
- Configuration management updated to include new functionality that allows for the editing and testing of business rules outside STEP and for governing the lifecycle of business rules in a source code control system (GIT), and the ability to export single configuration objects. There is also a new user guide for maintaining partial data sets on lower level DTAP environments.
- Web UI updates that include a new Multi Context Edit toolbar action, a new Summary Cards concept, screen mapping based on business condition outcomes, updated navigation options including deep linking and back button behavior, and much more.
- JSON-based REST API V2 extended to support for Keys, creation with known identifiers, ability to do multiple updates in a single request, and handlers to access and control integration endpoints, event queues, and background processes.
- Translation functionality has been expanded to LOVs. Additionally, a new processor allows for the batching of translation requests, and a new asynchronous translation service (File Exchange Service) can be used to manually export / import translation files into folders with no translation service API needed.
This document describes the above and other new functionality and improvements, in greater detail.
- 9.2 Upgrade Guide
- New Search and Product Editor Screens in Web UI
- PDS Integration Enhancements
- Data Profiling Enhancements
- Customer MDM Enhancements
- New Change Reports For PLM
- New Features for PLM
- New Functionality for Matching through Generators
- New Embedded Analytics Platform
- Audit Message Framework Enhancements
- Data Exchange Enhancements and Changes
- Enhanced Translation Functionality
- Web UI Enhancements
- Smartsheet Enhancements
- Tables Enhancements
- STEP Publisher Enhancements
- Configuration Management Tooling Enhancements
- API Enhancements and Updates
- Additional Enhancements and Changes
- New PIM for Retail Product Content Management Business Module
- Enhancement Requests
- Platform and Software Support Changes
- Miscellaneous Bugfixes
In addition to the individual release notes, upgrading customers should read the 9.2 Upgrade Guide here.
Installation Recipe
The baseline can be installed using this command:
spot --upgrade=step:9.2
See the SPOT Program documentation for help doing the STEP upgrade and installing add-on components here.
Contact your Stibo Systems account manager or your partner manager for additional information on upgrading or installing the 9.2 release.