2024 12 16 release notes (core)

Release summary

This page summarises items scheduled for the following release to the Patchworks Core Production environment.

Release version	Release date
v2024-12-16	16th December 2024 - starting between 8-9am

New features, updates, and enhancements of note are summarised by product area, below:

• ​Process flows

• Connectors

• Company management

• Peoplevox re-authentication

This release is in the final stages of testing, therefore items detailed below are subject to change. This page will be updated up to the time of release.

Process flows

Type	Summary	Ref #
New	Skip option for process flow shapes To help when designing/testing process flows, a new skip option is available for all process flow shapes (except for trigger). This is a toggle option at the top of the settings drawer - when toggled on, the associated step is skipped whenever the flow runs. Skipping shapes	CPT-3409
Enhancement	Postman importer The maximum file size allowed for import has increased from 5MB to 50MB. The Postman importer is now out of BETA. Postman importer	CPT-3746
Enhancement	Flow variables can now be made secret It's now possible to mark string-type flow variables as secret. This means that any value provided for this variable is not displayed anywhere in the system, and is stored securely. Adding & managing flow variables	CPT-3077
Enhancement	Company insights - CPU usage For greater clarity, CPU usage bars now display usage figures. Company insights overview	CPT-3478
Bug	Relative dates in scripts Fixed an issue where relative date flow variables used in scripts were reset to -0 seconds. Flow variables	CPT-3767

Connectors

Type	Summary	Ref #
Enhancement	Peoplevox re-authentication In this release, we've added a feature to enhance performance for Peoplevox re-authentication. This is an 'opt-in' feature - please see the notes below for details and implementation requirements. Peoplevox re-authentication	CPT-3720

Company management

Type	Summary	Ref #
Bug	Company creation Fixed an issue where creating a company via the dashboard could occasionally result in the company being partially created in the database.	CPT-3821

Peoplevox re-authentication

Peoplevox uses SOAP authentication with tokens. Typically, this works by authenticating once and sending a valid token in response - this token is included in all subsequent requests until it expires. When the token expires, a 401 (authentication failed) A response is returned, and we will re-authenticate with the next request.

However, Peoplevox doesn't send a 401 response when a token expires - a 200 (success) code is returned and the outcome is included in the response body. So, we need an alternative approach to manage these requests.

Current solution

We currently authenticate every Peoplevox request to ensure that valid tokens are always present. This happens automatically because a pre-authentication request script is applied for the SOAP authentication method on the Peoplevox connector.

This approach is reliable but not optimal in terms of performance.

Enhanced solution

In this release, the presence of a pre-authentication request script no longer triggers authentication for every request.

A new Peoplevox Re-Authentication Response Script has been developed, which should be applied to any connector steps in your process flows(s) where Peoplevox is used.

The script runs every time a connection is attempted and checks the <AuthenticateResponse><AuthenticateResult> section of the SOAP response body to determine success or failure. If authentication has failed, the connector step retries the request and re-authenticates for a new token. If authentication is successful, no re-authentication is required.

In this way, we only re-authenticate requests when necessary.

What you need to do

If you receive or send data from/to Peoplevox in process flows, follow the steps below to implement this enhancement.

Don't worry if you can't make these changes immediately - process flows with Peoplevox connectors will continue to run normally, though not optimally. For more information, please see The Peoplevox re-authentication response script.

Step 1 Install the Peoplevox Re-Authentication Response Script from the Patchworks marketplace.

Step 2 Apply this script to any process flow connector shapes where Peoplevox is defined as the source or target instance.

Step 3 Raise a ticket with Patchworks support for the Enhanced Peoplevox Re-Authentication feature to be switched on for your organisation.