Automations 2.0 Release (deployed 9/23/2022)

Requirements

• A modern web browser updated to a current release. Tested browsers include:
  • Google Chrome Version 102.0.5005.115 (Official Build) (x86_64)
  • Apple Safari Version 15.1 (17612.2.9.1.20)
  • Mozilla Firefox Version 101.0.1 (64-bit)
• ShotFlow user seat with access to at least one app
• For local capture work: ShotFlow Capture Version 2.2.1 and higher (please note older releases of ShotFlow Capture will no longer connect after this platform release)

What’s New?

• Automations 2.0! This is a huge upgrade to the ShotFlow Automations feature initially released mid-2020. This release adds an array of more powerful features to configure automated behaviors, including:
  • "Stacking" of Automation triggers in a series (cascading dependencies), to enable an automation on one table to trigger an automation on another table. A common example is to set a trigger to update a Sample record's Status field to "Ready" based on some criteria. Then another automation is configured on the Shots table to flip a Shot's Status field to "Ready" if at least one related Sample is "Ready." There are a whole range of scenarios where updating a record should trigger a "cascade" of impacts across other records, based on specific boolean filtering for the client workflow. This is an incredibly powerful toolset!
  • An Automation action can now transfer value(s) from fields in one table to another. For example, a Due Date field's value in the Requests table could be passed to related Shots.
  • An Automation action supports setting filtering to control which related record(s) are updated by an Update Related Records Automation, so that only appropriate records are impacted. An example would be updating only certain related shots based on a change to the sample.
  • An Automation action can stamp the current date/time value when the Automation is executed, into a Date/Time or Date field. This is perfect for recording changes to records for logging, time tracking, and efficiency reporting purposes.
  • New Remove Related Records action type enables remove existing relationship(s) between records as part of an Automation. This is helpful in scenarios such as removing Shot Lists from a Set once the work is completed, or removing all Samples from a Shipment after delivery.
  • Automation errors now trigger a ShotFlow support ticket for visibility, the support ticket can then be shared with client Admins for troubleshooting.

NOTE THAT DUE TO POTENTIAL DATA CORRUPTION AND PERFORMANCE IMPLICATIONS, CONFIGURING AND ENABLING AUTOMATIONS IN PRODUCTION IS NOW LIMITED TO SHOTFLOW SUPER ADMINS ONLY. CLIENTS WITH A SANDBOX ENVIRONMENT CAN BE GRANTED PERMISSIONS TO CONFIGURE AND TEST AUTOMATIONS IN SANDBOX, BUT MUST SUBMIT A SUPPORT TICKET FOR ANY AUTOMATION FUNCTIONALITY TO BE VERIFIED AND MIGRATED TO PRODUCTION.

• New Field Type: Related Field (Historical). This new type of field automatically logs each change to a specific field value in a specific table relationship. Example: adding this field to the Samples table on the [Samples to Studio Location] relationship, and targeting the Location ID field, would enable auto-logging a history of every associated Location ID field for each Sample record. This functionality will address an array of scenarios to track changes throughout a workflow, including:
  • Logging all the Studio Location IDs a Sample was related to (supports the new Areas & Locations workflow to replace a "static" logged Location field)
  • Logging the Studio Area IDs a Location (e.g. a rack) traveled through (supports the new Areas & Locations workflow)
  • Logging the Name of every Shot List a Shot was related to 
  • Logging the Tracking Number of every Shipment a Sample was related to
  • ...and more!

What Did We Change?

• Added support for fields from "one side" related record to Relationship Lookups. When utilizing a relationship lookup, now fields from a "one side" relationship can be included in the relationship lookup. For example, when looking at Shipments to Samples, fields from the Sample's Product Children relationship can be pulled into the lookup. For Studio Locations, the related Area can be included. This is helpful in multiple scenarios when attributes of a related "one side" record are relevant to choosing the correct target table record.
• Support for use of Barcode values in Charts. With Barcodes representing more than just samples, we've introduced the ability to include Barcode fields in Charts. This means you can now include Brand or Studio Shipment Barcodes, or Area and Location Barcodes in your Charts! 

What Did We Fix?

• Platform providing "Non Unique Values found" when upgrading a field to unique. This issue was caused by incorrectly escaping the field value and has been resolved!
• Uniqueness in Fields not Case Sensitive. If a field is unique, the casing of letters was not considered. For example Record1 and record1 were considered duplicate values. This has been fixed so that the values are now considered unique if the casing is different.
• Incorrect display orientation for mobile phone images shot in portrait. ShotFlow was not detecting the rotation tag to correctly display images shot in portrait orientation, but now they look fantastic!
• Unable to select records from view if the table is from another application.
• SF-S1008 error when sorting Shot Views by UUID or when including system fields in a Related Records (Dynamic) field. 
• Barcode Fields not displaying as expected in Calendars. If a Barcode field is included in an Event to be displayed on a Calendar it is now showing as just the value (which is expected).