Ruleguard Update 3.43.0

We are pleased to announce that Ruleguard version 3.43.0 is now live!

This update contains the following changes:

Issue Lifecycle Stages

We've added a fantastic new feature to the platform which allows you to define custom lifecycle stages for items.

This feature will eventually be rolled out to other areas (for example Rules Mapping items like Controls and Risks) but to begin with, the Issues module has received the new functionality allowing for powerful customisation of workflows here.

Get started by navigating to ‘Issue Stages’ under the Issues menu.

You’ll see that existing issues come with a default lifecycle matching the simple ‘Open’ and ‘Closed’ states that they could have before.

This is now represented visually on a flowchart representation of the lifecycle.

Here, we can see that the default workflow for an issue allows it to go from Open to Closed, and from Closed back to Open.

To add a new stage, hover your mouse over the ‘plus’ icon that appears after a stage name:

This popup will ask you whether you want to create a new stage, or to re-use an existing one. Re-using a stage is how you can create workflows that loop back to previous stages where needed.

When you create a new stage, you’ll be asked for some details about it:

1. A name – this should be something like ‘Under review’ or ‘Confirmed’; it describes the current stage in the lifecycle of the issue.

2. Background colour – purely a visual setting that affects how the stage appears in various places.

3. Closing stage – this indicates that the stage should be considered ‘closed’ for MI and other behaviours. For example, attestations that can’t be completed if there are any ‘open’ issues will respect this setting.

4. Stage users – this allows you to specify users (or groups) who you expect to take some action at this part of the issue lifecycle. Those users will see the issue in their inbox whilst at this stage, and you can also configure permissions based on this setting so that certain groups can ONLY see issues where they are stage users, if you wish.

5. Stage fields – this allows you to specify certain fields that you expect to be shown or edited at this part of the issue lifecycle. Any fields you add here can be configured to be shown and made editable for the current stage. If you use this, users will see a summarised list of just these fields when they open the issue to help them more easily update the fields you expect.

Once you have adjusted the stage to your liking, press Save, and the stage will be created:

You’ll see that it is linked to the previous stage by an arrow, and along that arrow is what we call a ‘transition.’ The transition simply describes the action that you can take to move the issue between these two stages.

A default name for the transition is always given but you can change this by opening the menu for the transition and selecting “Update transition”:

This opens the following popup, allowing you to make some adjustments:

The transition label can be changed here, and you can also change the button style for the transition. This affects how the button will appear on the issue card when viewed.

You can also add some specific rules based on field logic here; these can restrict the transition from happening unless certain conditions are met.

Here we’ve changed the transition to be called ‘Raise query’ and we can see that this is the action that moves an issue from Open to Under Review:

Now, when you open an issue, you’ll see a new layout for it like this:

The current stage is displayed on the left of the screen and the actions you can take (as configured by the lifecycle screen) appear on the right. In this way you can manage how issues are displayed and organised in the system.

You’ll also see that the stage for an issue appears in various places where you can browse issues, including the inbox and issue matrix screens.

Some new options in the MI designer allow you to base charts on issues grouped by their stage and you’ll also find an option to filter issues by stage in MI charts as well.

As always, if you have any questions about issue lifecycles or anything else in the system, please let us know and we’ll be more than happy to help you out!

Other Issue Improvements

• Added Tabs to issue fields. Add tabs using the menu at the top-right of the field configuration screen:

• You can then move fields or whole groups to different tabs using their own menus:

• Updated the Inbox to reflect the new Issue Stages work.

• Added an extra ‘visibility’ option for Custom Fields so that a Field may now be displayed where a corresponding field has 'any' value (not just as specific value), to provide a greater array of flexibility when designing Issue forms.

• Updated the external Issues API to include ‘Related items’ and other Custom Field data.

• Removed Owner from being Mandatory on Issues.

• Instead of using the traditional Owner Field a User may now set Stage User's to better tailor Issues to specific workflows (e.g., for where a specific Team manages Issues for certain types or at given Stages only).

• All existing Issues will remain as they are now and there is no change (Owner will still be Mandatory and everything will function as normal).

• Added a Linked Item Field type which enables a User to create a Field within an Issue to link Items of a specified Type (e.g. Rule or Control)

• Updated the Issue 'print' Functionality to support the Issue Stages feature set.

General Improvements

• Added the ability to grant Users a Permission to view the Global Audit, without requiring the Administrator Role.

• Updated the Responsibilities Permission coverage for the 'Specific Functions' scope to include Responsibilities that belong to a Legal Entity.

• Updated the help text to better explain the coverage for each Responsibilities permission option.

• Within MI added the ability to quickly ‘add all’ options from a Selection Field when designing a Card so that a User may quickly filter on multiple options (e.g., where some Selection lists are fifty items plus long it would not have been as time efficient to add these one by one).

• Updated the Audit wording to make it clearer where a Permission has been added to a Permission Role.

• Extended the 1000's separator for ‘Integers’ and ‘Decimal’ Custom Fields for a better representation of large numbers when giving responses to Field 'Prompts' (and when generating subsequent documents via the 'Generate document' Event ‘action’).

• Modified the default Date for Issue 'measures' to ‘Date created’ given that ‘Date occurred’ may no longer be designed only as a 'mandatory' Field (hence would no longer be the sensible default option).

• Fixed an issue whereby Issue Custom Field values were not being cleared when a visibility rule meant a Field was being removed due to a selection option being modified (it will now warn the User and clear the value as intended).

• Fixed an issue whereby archived Functions were still being displayed when designing a Workflow Event.

• Fixed an issue where the ‘Notify all Users on Tasks completion checkbox’ was not retaining the selected value when raising an Issue via an Event (e.g., Attestation).

• Fixed an issue where a User was not able to select a ‘Date resolved’ or Date (Custom Field) when raising an Issue during an Event.

• Fixed an issue within MI where drilling into ‘Occurrence date’ and ‘Resolution date’ Field was showing a value of 'undefined' for ‘Other’ values and was not always filtering the table correctly when ‘drilling down’ into these values.

• Fixed an issue where Users with View Record permissions could edit a Record if accessing the Record Card via an Event card.

• Fixed a minor issue when viewing 'Linked items' within an Issue whereby when attempting to re-add the same Topic (not permitted) it was displaying the selected Topic Name with a truncated name.

• Resolved an external API issue whereby calling upon a Task ‘evidence list’ was returning an 'error 500' response.

In a Rush?

Don't always have time to read our blog posts right away? You can always access our release notes later by clicking the release version in the Ruleguard Welcome menu.

If you encounter any problems or have any questions about this update, please let us know at support@ruleguard.com or contact your Delivery Manager.

Ruleguard Team