Support Central
This release brings a big update for Oracle Aconex. Highlights include a new Document Search, Related Items, Mail process improvements, Packages, and many enhancements to help you work smarter with Aconex.
This new release is so big, we’re releasing it to you in two stages, beginning February 12th, 2021. Document previews, viewer enhancements, and mobile features are set to be released later this month.
These release notes have been split into two parts.
A new look for Aconex
We're excited to introduce a new look for Oracle Aconex, including updated colors and icons. This is a part of our new design direction at Oracle.
Although Aconex will look different, rest assured everything is where you would normally find it.
As you navigate through Aconex, you'll notice
Try the new Documents search
We've made searching in Documents faster with a simplified interface that delivers powerful results and reduces total search time. The new search screen is intuitive and allows you to customize the pin-able columns in the Document Register results.
Features include:
Make sure you opt-in so you can experience the simplified interface which includes all the popular search features.
Drawing your attention to the most important ‘current set’ of drawings
We’re introducing a new Drawings tab in the Document Register to give you a fast and focused view of the latest, approved-for-construction drawings and information for your project. This can be easily viewed on both web and mobile apps - you can scroll through thumbnails to help find what you’re looking for.
The Project Admin from the Aconex project-owning organization can define what drawings will be displayed in the Drawings tab.
Auto-populate document properties from a filename
You can now replicate your filename convention and the system will automatically populate the document properties out of the filename, without having to enter the values manually. This saves you time when uploading and registering new documents.
Select the Documents tab, then Multiple File Upload to create a new profile or edit an existing one. You'll then be able to create a Custom ruleset by selecting document fields from the dropdown menu.
The system will support the following document field types:
For the Select list fields, your filename will have to contain the codes saved in the system. We will try to match the codes from the filename with the ones in the system and apply the corresponding value.
You're able to skip parts of the filename which don't form part of your document values, and tell the system which parts of the filename should form the document number by adding a checkmark next to the dropdown.
Separators including "( )" and "[ ]" accommodate more complex filenames when auto-populating document values. You can also separate filenames after a fixed length of characters to support specific filenames such as "ARC5GR_2568_P(1)".
Note: you can create / edit an upload profile for your organization, however you will require permission to share an upload profile with the project. Shared upload profiles can still be viewed by all users, but can only be edited by users in your own organization.
Define which file types are allowed in your projects
We’re keeping your projects and project participants safe by restricting upload of file types or strings that can contain malicious content.
The list of file types that will be restricted by default is in the link below. We recommend that you don’t allow these files, but if there’s a project need, Project Admins can go into Setup / Security / File restrictions to remove a file type from the restriction list for a project.
Create Document field hierarchies with Cascading Metadata
Cascading Metadata lets the project owner set relationships between certain document tags on upload, so they show only after others are selected. Each attribute choice the user makes restricts the related attributes to relevant options. This gives users fewer and more relevant options to choose from with each selection. It also minimizes the risk that they’ll choose an inappropriate tag for the documents they’re uploading. You must be a project administrator of the Aconex project owning organization to apply and update cascading metadata.
Related Items now available to all project organizations
We've made it possible for all project organizations to use Related Items in Documents. This means that all organizations on a project can now use Related Items to manage the relationships that connect your Documents. Related Items is also now enabled by default for new projects. In earlier releases these had to be enabled by the Aconex support team.
Preview PDF, JPG, and PNG files in the Document register
The Preview feature allows you to see the contents of a document from within the Document Register. Preview supports PDFs, JPG, and PNG file types. To preview a document in the Document Register, click the ellipsis menu (three dots) for a document to open the drop-down menu then select Preview. You will only be able to see the first page of the document. From the preview, you can download the document, or navigate through the Document Register using the arrows on either side of your document preview. To exit the preview, press escape or select the X in the top right corner.
Improvements and Fixes
Easily scan mail with the new color-coded statuses.
Mail statuses displayed in the mail detail have been updated to meet accessibility requirements for contrast ratio, and are right-aligned for easier scanning.
Renamed mail search columns
The labels of two existing columns have been updated:
Responses → Replies
Response Date → Reply Date
Reduce incorrect or unintentional close out of mail threads
If you've ever accidentally closed-out a mail and its corresponding thread by clicking the Close Out Mail, it can be a pain to undo. To avoid confusion, we're changing this button to clearly say Mark as Closed-Out. We've also changed the message in the confirmation window to make it clearer what happens if you select Mark as Closed-Out.
Org Admins can further reduce this frustration. As of this release, users will still be able to close-out their own mail threads but will have to be assigned permission via their role to close-out threads started by others in the organization. Note: permission is granted by default to the Basic +, Document Admin, Project Admin, and Org Admin roles.
Project Admins get more flexibility with Project Fields.
Configuring default response times for mail
We've made it easier for Mail users to set response due dates, by adding functionality that lets Project Admins set time frames for the mail type selected by the mail sender. This removes the guess work for the sender as they no longer have to decide the date for themselves.
As a Project Admin, you can set the time frame for all mail types that need a response as required. You do this using Response Time Frame in Settings/Mail Types. From here you have to:
Copying Workflow templates to another project now retains its custom review sets.
If you're a Project Admin, and you want to copy a Workflow template to another project, you'll know that Custom Review Sets were not being copied at the same time. This has now been fixed. So as long as you are a Project Admin for both projects, they'll copy across with the template as you'd expect. You can then assign them to project roles manually. When you do this, you can use the Review Sets on other templates as required.
However, if you are not the project owner on both projects, the Review Sets will only copy the system Standard Review Set. This is because only project owners have permission to create custom review sets on a project: copying a review set effectively creates it on the target project.
Extract markups and metadata from PDF documents
We've added new functionality that provides a download option in the Document Register, now available in the Aconex application.
The Markup Summary Download allows users to automatically extract user comments from markups and metadata from the selected PDF document. Extracted comments are published at the end of the downloaded PDF, making it easier for you to see comments separately and reference the markups from a Workflow process.
Users who view PDF files outside of Aconex will not lose critical marked-up information, even when printing files. Files also include document revision, number, title, and project name, so you don't have to refer back to Aconex.
Improvements and Fixes
Create and manage themed sets of documents and mail
A package is a number of documents and mail that you group together for a specific purpose. For example, you might create a package of electrical design drawings for one level of a building you’re working on. This creates a snapshot of the documents at a point in time – they can’t be changed within the package without the package administrator or editor explicitly doing so, and any change is recorded (and the original package document is maintained.)
A package administrator or editor has explicit control over what documents belong in a certain version/revision of a package, and only they can update documents within a package.
A new reporting module to run preconfigured reports on many of the common processes in Aconex.
Reports can be filtered and have different layouts depending on your needs. You can:
Company Registration Number now mandatory on the registration screen.
When registering a new organization on Aconex, you'll now be asked to add a Company Registration Number. This is to ensure that duplicate registrations are easy to identify and don't register more than once on any one instance.
Note: this field was already available and voluntary in the organization details once the registration was complete. This change is to make it mandatory at the point of registering the organization.
