Affinity Global Solutions

IBARS Roadmap and Feature History (under construction)

2011
2011	Standard reports universally and automatically hyperlinked in HTML & PDF formats Interactive browser chart editing User configurable UI Notifications component release, provide a configurable alert system that is activated when specific workflow steps are coming due, late, have been undertaken or completed. Schedule Wizard Generic Schedule rate component (for unit costing using reference rate tables) Posting Wizard Department/agency schedule security (allow agencies to have differing workflow/checklists) UI Dialog response audit tracking Dynamic multipage scrolling (allows for very large lists of data to be scrolled on a page without "paging") Push AJAX application server to browser request queuing (makes the application more robust on flakey/slow Internet/WAN connections) Narrative import/export migrated from BARS
2010
December
November
October	Payroll/position Performance - migration complete from BARS
September	Stacked 3D bar chart integration (pie charts available 4/09) Support for footnote columns in all standard reports
August	Dynamic Schedule enhancement - generic drop down selector fields added Quick navigate - menu bypass via application function alpha-code with auto complete and most recently used list
July	CKEditor 3.3 upgrade Schedule exchange - allow schedule forms and configuration to be exchanged between systems
June	Inter-department Transfer report added to standard reports Wide row page view and edit - allow rows that require horizontal scrolling to optionally be viewed and/or edited in a pop-up page view
May	Schedule entry/review available directly at an object level (without specifying line/class) on a schedule-by-schedule, object type basis Incremental drop down searching available system wide Global narrative search and replace, supporting regular expressions, with context list preview and control selection
April	Publication / narrative print preview, displays narrative snippets in publication context
March	MS Visio SVG support Dragable dialogs used to facilitate capture of better documentation Pre-release: general cross reporting of up to three levels
February	Auto logout warning Build sheets and change logs made available on IBARS Tech Wiki
January	Enhanced position replication to allow for YR1 to/from Y2 copy Budget Bill Session Law publication Legislative Status report Version 2 generic sort and search upgrade rollout starts - select screens receive enhancements to their filtering and multi-page sorting
2009
December	IE 8 and FF 3.x supported Publication footnote support added
November	Allow for program narrative to be entered via a tab on any schedule while entering program financials Wiki Technical Documentation - added build notices Support for global budget adjustments and forecast operations to track and separate budget adjustments and/or payroll benefits into specific accounting objects by adjustment type, schedule and benefit type (for payroll)
October	Multiple narrative type support for columns added Multiple column narrative support added
September	Publication generation with auto-hyper linked output
August	Publication template trees with table driven control logic (template looping and selections can be designed via the template editor) Large narrative disk spooling added. Narratives > 2048 characters are now written to application server disk prior to doing a database update in order to improve the performance of saving large narratives (previously narrative blocks were spooled to the database)
July	Narrative validation feature added. Allows for the definition of formatting rules for narrative to insure consistent narrative entries Query user indicator added. System administration allowed for granting users restricted readonly query from 3rd party tools
May	Ability added to copy dynamic field definition between years/bienniums Allow for default schema user name to be changed Table drive balance methodology to allow for system configurations that will balance object types beyond standard fund, expenditure and revenue objects Added table driven linkage of publication columns to versions and schedules. This eliminates publication maintenance when column configurations are changed year to year
April	Drag-n-drop chart data selection enabled
March	Most recently used version list (and fast link to each version) added to home page Custom dialogs added (replacing browser "alerts") that provide more flexibility to control the display system response messaging Chart generation and drill down made available on all schedule columns Line and object performance budgeting and linkage migrated from client server BARS to IBARS
February	System wide schedule posting functionality added
January	Report writer API available Button security added to narrative edit buttons to control what edit functions are available by user group
2008
December	Granular locking released. This locks and tracks subsets of version data during transactions (previously a version lock was used) thereby increasing system performance Generic publication (books & reporting) output selection types added for HTML, PDF, CSV (Excel) and Formatted CSV FCKEditor upgrade 2.6
November	Bookmark copy feature added to allow for copying of bookmarks between years/bienniums
October	Transfer module released allowing version/departments to formally exchange budget $
September	Position search functions migrated from BARS Lock handling changed to allow for non-blocking transaction locks Multi tier progress status bars added to longer running operations Integrated business intelligence released RTF (Rich Text Format) narrative import updated to support RTF 1.6 Column setup total indicator added to allow columns containing data like rates to not be totaled Browser data isolation scheme enhanced to allow for current thread access. This results in better performance when a client browser makes multiple/concurrent application server requests
August	Improved tracking and reporting of attempted/failed logon requests 3 level sort/sub-sort enabled on all screens Universal raw and "formatted" CSV output option added to all reports IE7 support added Salary adjustment option added to optionally allow for compounding of prior mass salary adjustments (previously compounding was always enabled) Dynamic class calls enabled to allow independent Java classes to be linked to IBARS
July	Default allocation component - feature added to source actual data to seed an allocation scenario Version independent schedule indicator added to allow any schedule to be configure to post through to all version sequences (snap shot / scenario) within a version type Fund balance reports migrated from BARS
June	Checklist workflow and posting enhanced to support multi-tier posting operations (for schedules posting up 3 or more tiers) Client (browser) tree caching implemented to improve the performance of tree loading and navigation of large trees Enable entire version reorgs in the subschedule copy/reorg screen Enhanced default allocation system to allow allocations between any two object types (previously allocations only related funding and expenditure objects)
May	Generic XML interface support provided Payroll detail tab enhanced to optionally display each benefit and salary adjustment either rolled together or separated by base plus each adjustment in a separate by column Posting configuration copy functionality enabled to allow biennial/yearly posting setup to be copied in mass to alternate years Class code maintenance enhanced to allow biennial/yearly class codes to be copied in mass to alternate years System setup changed to allow for dynamic changes to the number of columns supported with schedules Reporting level maintenance feature added to allow reporting levels to be copied selectively or in mass to alternate bienniums/years
April	Schedule recalc subsystem enhanced to allow any column formula to reference future/forward columns Yearly/biennial payroll forecast function - performance enhancement
March	Migration of the adhoc report builder completed from BARS Migrate report profile, preferences and selection naming features from BARS
February	Checklist security added to allow workflow checklist items and access to vary by user group within a version Report administration functions migrated from BARS allowing administrators the ability to control selection parameters available by user group on standard reports ROI evaluation schedule setup features added to dynamic schedule engine Version 1 generic sorting upgrade rollout starts - select screens receive multi-column sorting
January	Payroll forecasting and benefit tracking enhanced to track by pennies (was dollars) in conjunction with the more granular tracking of benefits Generic CSV on-screen extract rolled out system wide Column narrative support added allowing any schedule column to allow rich text narrative entry System wide operations: salary adjustment, benefit recalc, version copy and schedule posting are enhanced to present of selection list of departments in order to allow for more targeted mass operations
2007
December	Fund balance schedule migrated from BARS Salary adjustment function enhanced to allow for options to "prorate" and/or apply "retroactive" adjustments
November	Data selection drop downs universally changed to dynamically query reference data on "mouseover" to allow screens to load faster All system wide operations (e.g. version copy, recalc benifits, etc) upgraded to allow for selective system wide scope via the addition of a department selection list Row "highlight" enabled system wide - click on a row to highlight then review data with horizontal scroll
October	Report API Released Position allocation "adjustment indicator" added to allow salary and benefit adjustments to be allocated differently than base salary and benefits (functionality was migrated from BARS) Provision for dynamic database role passwords System wide version summary review window released Legislative tracking window released Generic window tab level security implemented
September	Online documentation provided in IBARS via integration with the User Wiki System wide, generic screen export to CSV (Excel) functionality released
August	Dynamic menu maintenance with drag-n-drop implemented Browser configuration testing added during login to ensure browser setup/config is compatible
July	Publication template tree - conditional template print controls added
June	Narrative spell check implemented
May	Viewing of multiple reports via tabbed browsing added
April	Salary Adjustment functionality migrated from BARS Reorg functionality migrated from BARS Implemented checklist (workflow element) security
March	Added posting of "info tab" (form fill fields) between schedules Implemented subschedule "info tab" field level security
February	Added "approp" feature that optionally links appropriations to reporting levels and lines. This allows specific budget lines (aka class or series) to be used only for data entry at specific reporting levels (program, project, business unit, etc) Publications engine enhanced to provide generic table of contents formatting for all documents Integrate "Standard" (aka Operating/Infrastructure) options with in schedules for new project initiatives
January	Support added for multiple "info tabs" (form fills) for each subschedule System "debug" module created to allow administrators to turn on detailed system log messaging on a component-by-component basis
2006
December	Default Allocation functionality migrated from BARS Percentage Change functionality migrated from BARS
November	Payroll module upgraded to track detailed budget costing by pay period (previously amounts were tracked yearly by cost element and position)
October	Mouseover autopopulate of list controls added to improve load times of screens that contain a lot of data
September	Added automated RTF to HTML and WMF to SVG narrative conversion
August	"Busy" icon added to indicate when the browser is awaiting an application server response
July	Schedule Maximum Column count changed from 32 to 99
June	Rich Edit Narrative functionality migrated from BARS
May	Initial Production Release
2005
May	IBARS Development Begins Full Force