Following last month's avalanche of new features, there are fewer noteworthy changes this month. The update took place during the evening of the 27th July. For a full list of changes in v2.49, please visit the Alloy Changelog.

Pull down to refresh pickers ⏬

You can now refresh the content of any picker by dragging the list downwards. A significant improvement for touchscreen users and fun for mouse users too!

Time picker improvements 🕘

Previously, editing the digits of a time picker was tricky. This was because the boxes acted like text fields, so you had to move the text cursor to the right place and press the Backspace/Delete key accordingly.

Now, you can simply select a box and type to overwrite its contents or press Backspace/Delete to clear its contents and reset to 00:00.

We've made it a bit smarter too, so it can handle more natural number input, e.g. selecting the first box and pressing 3 then 5 will result in 03:05 instead of 23:00.

While it's hard to illustrate the differences here, try it out and you'll see what we mean!

Timestamp photos in waste events 📷

In Alloy Mobile Android, the Timestamp in-app photos setting has now been expanded to include photos taken directly during any waste event, making it easy to see at a glance when the photo was captured.

This month sees major changes to the Report Builder, new nodes in the Item Form Expressions Builder and a couple of tasty workflow improvements. The update took place during the evening of the 29th June. For a full list of changes in v2.48, please visit the Alloy Changelog.

Report Builder toolbar ⬆️

When editing the layout of a report document, you can select a control to show its properties. However, you'll notice that they've moved from here…

…to up here! 😮

When we first designed the Document Layout Editor, we sought to give you maximum flexibility in customising the document's structure and content. It was therefore possible to set every one of a control's properties dynamically.

After some time and feedback, it became apparent that this was a bit overkill! Turns out, nobody wants to set the margins of a control based on the runtime value of a data source header. They just want to choose a value and move on.

Therefore, we've streamlined control properties by removing this functionality and moving them into a top toolbar, making it much simpler and quicker to configure them to your liking.

Fear not, any existing reports with dynamically set properties will remain unchanged. From now on though, those properties can only be overwritten with constant values (unless you use the API).

Horizontal Repeaters ➡️

In the Document Layout Editor, you can add a Repeater control to a flow document. These look and behave similarly to Vertical stack controls, with any child controls inside being automatically arranged in a vertical formation.

However, depending on the data being repeated, this can lead to unnecessarily long documents with lots of pages, e.g. listing multiple photo attachments.

To address this, Repeaters now inherit the layout properties of any container they're placed in. As a result, a Repeater placed within a Horizontal stack will have its contents arranged horizontally!

You may want to enable the Horizontal stack's Wrap property, to ensure the Repeater's content doesn't go off the page.

Item data source - Item Id header 🆔

In the Report Builder, you can create an Item data source to represent the attributes and properties of a particular item.

Until now, the data source's Item Id header couldn't be compared against other Item IDs, because the stored data was Text type rather than Alloy ID type.

This has now been resolved, meaning you can now do things like use the Item Id header as a parameter within an AQS data source.

For example, to get the attachments of a particular item, you can now create an AQS data source with a query that fetches all Files items whose parent ID matches the Item Id header of the Item data source.

You also have more flexibility when creating Join data sources. For more details, see this previous announcement.

Use dates in item form expressions 📆

Last month, we released the new Item Form Expressions Builder, to help you harness the power of expressions and make your item forms responsive to user input.

We'll be adding more node types over the coming months, to increase the number of data types you can work with and the ways you can manipulate data.

The first of these are the Date and Date Time nodes, which now appear in the list of Literals (fixed values used in one expression), Globals (dynamic values shared across the form's expressions) and Finals (expression outputs).

This means you can now reference the Default Value and Value properties of any Date/DateTime picker controls included on the item form.

You can also reference the current date and time, opening up all kinds of possibilities for expressions that change the behaviour of an item form depending on when it's being filled in!

For example, imagine being able to see when an item was last created/edited when filling out an item form. This can now be achieved by doing the following:

1. Add a Last Modified Date Time attribute to the design.
2. Add a Date Time picker control for the attribute to the design's item form.
3. Create a simple expression:
   1. Add a Date Time global node set to Date Time Now.
   2. Add a Date Time final node.
   3. Link the nodes together.
4. Set the Value property of the attribute's control to target your expression (and enable the Read Only property for good measure).

Customise workflow email subject ✉️

When editing a workflow, you can add a Message action that sends an email to one or more addresses.

The email's subject line was always Workflow Notification. This wasn't ideal if you received frequent workflow emails, as you couldn't tell them apart without opening them.

Therefore, the Message action now has an optional Subject field, so you can override the default with something more distinct.

Workflow type subtitles 🏷️

When workflows are listed in the Search panel, you can now see whether they are Event, Manual or Scheduled. A nice little convenience boost!

Convert coordinates during export 🌐

In the Data Explorer, you can export the data you're viewing for use outside of Alloy.

If that data contains geometry coordinates, you can now change the Coordinate system from the default WGS84 Lat/Lng to one of three other popular systems.

Efficient syncing on Alloy Mobile ✅

When you create or edit items in Alloy Mobile, it contacts various Alloy API endpoints to fetch and save the necessary data.

As you can see, most of the contacted endpoints were on the Extended Web API, which provided greater functionality at the cost of medium performance.

After months of hard work, we succeeded in reproducing the functionality of the Extended Web API in the higher-performing Web API.

As a result, Alloy Mobile now contacts just one endpoint for all its needs: /api/bulk/generic

This means that syncing is simpler, faster and more reliable than before!

Overview

In the Report Builder, you can add a Repeater control to a flow document's layout that iterates over a specific header of a given data source. When the report is run, any "child" controls inside the Repeater control will appear once for each iteration.

Currently, the child controls within a Repeater control are automatically arranged in a vertical formation. However, depending on the data being repeated, this can lead to unnecessarily long documents containing lots of pages.

Therefore, we're making it possible to stack repeated content horizontally - by placing the Repeater control within a Horizontal stack control!

Who will be affected?

This will affect new and existing reports containing Repeater controls.

Details

Repeater controls at the root of a flow document will be unchanged.

However, if a Repeater control is placed within a container, the appearance of its child controls will be determined by that container. This means that:

• A Repeater control within a Horizontal stack control will now repeat horizontally.
• A Repeater control within a Vertical stack control will continue to repeat vertically.
• A Repeater control within a Repeater control will behave according to its parent control.
• The Repeater control's Margins and Relative Width won't be applicable.

Initially, repeated content will only appear horizontally when the report is run. The Document Layout Editor will be updated to reflect this new behaviour in the subsequent Alloy release.

Wrap child controls

As flow documents typically use portrait orientation, it's important for Horizontal stack controls to have their Wrap child controls property set to Yes when appropriate. Otherwise, their child controls may go off the page!

Therefore, to ensure that any newly-horizontal content remains visible after the change, we recommend checking your custom reports for any Repeater controls within Horizontal stack controls and configuring them as above.

Expected release

29th June 2023 as part of the Alloy v2.48 release.

Overview

In the Report Builder, you can create an Item data source to represent the attributes and properties of a particular item, and an AQS data source to fetch the attribute data of multiple items.

You may have tried to use an Item data source as a parameter within an AQS data source, e.g. to fetch the defect items raised against that item. Currently, this doesn’t work because the Item Id header of the Item data source is a Text type, which isn't directly comparable with actual Item IDs.

Therefore, we're changing the Item Id header type from Text (string) to Link (AlloyId[]) to make this possible!

To accommodate this, a few other changes will also happen.

Who will be affected?

This will affect report builders wishing to use an Item data source as a parameter within an AQS data source.

Details

The Item data sources in everyone's custom reports will be updated with this change automatically.

However, any existing AQS data sources containing an unusable parameter as described above will still throw an error (1586360664 - Parameter type String cannot be used in node of type AlloyId). To fix this, simply recreate the parameter.

No more sorting by Item Id

After this change, it will no longer be possible to sort by the Item Id header on any data source. Doing so will throw an error (1603203353 - Ordering is not supported on the following type AlloyId).

Hardly anyone has attempted this, so we don't envisage it causing issues going forward.

More flexible joins

To create a Join data source, you must select a header from each of the two data sources you wish to join. Currently, you can only join headers of the same type (or a Link type to a Text type).

After this change, it will be possible to join a Text header to any other header type and vice versa. The other header type will be "stringified" for comparison.

AQS statistics constraints

AQS statistics data sources contain two headers to represent the data returned by its query. The Key header is a Text type and the Value header is a Number type.

After this change, API users will be able to specify the type of these headers via two new optional properties:

• KeyConstraint - corresponds to the attribute being grouped on, so can be set to any attribute type.
  
  
• ValueConstraint - corresponds to the aggregated values of the attribute being queried, so can be set to Number, DateTime or GeoJSON.

These can be declared within the relevant request model when using the /api/custom-report/{customReportCode}/data-source endpoint to add (Swagger/ReDoc) or edit (Swagger/ReDoc) an AQS statistics data source.

This will be useful for creating joins in some scenarios.

For example, imagine having an AQS statistics data source that counts Waste Containers grouped by type, and an AQS data source that fetches items of the Waste Container Types design.

To create a Join data source from these, you would select the Key header (String) of the first data source and the Item Id header (Link) of the second data source.

By default, the Item Id header will be stringified for comparison with the Key header, so the join should work. However, you can set KeyConstraint to "Link" to ensure an accurate comparison.

Expected release

29th June 2023 as part of the Alloy v2.48 release.

We've got some exciting new features for you this month! The update took place during the evening of the 25th May. For a full list of changes in v2.47, please visit the Alloy Changelog.

New Item Form Expressions Builder 🧱

Item forms let you customise how a user can enter data when they create or edit items of a particular design/interface. You decide which controls appear on the form (e.g. show a Checkbox control for this Yes/No attribute) and how they behave (e.g. make the control "Required" even though the attribute isn't).

You can now use expressions to make your item form dynamic and reactive to user input!

What's an expression? Well, it's a sequence of values and functions that produces a final output.

Each control on the form has several configurable properties. If you set a property to target an expression, it will be set according to the expression's output, which can change depending on how the form is used (e.g. make the control "Required" only if another control is populated).

While some of you have been experimenting with writing expressions manually via the Alloy API, we're proud to announce the new Item Form Expressions Builder!

This lets you define an expression visually, by adding nodes to represent different values and functions, and then linking them together in a logical sequence. On first use, a handy tour will highlight the key areas and walk you through a simple example. For more detail, check out Alloy Help.

Expressions unleash the full power of item forms. Therefore, we're thrilled to make them accessible to a wider audience, and look forward to seeing them being used in innovative ways!

New join types in the Report Builder 🖇️

In the Report Builder, you can define a Join data source to combine the data from two AQS data sources (or other Join data sources) that share at least one column header.

Previously, the joined data would only include matching rows. For each row in the first data source, the value in the shared column (Defects in the example below) is compared to all the rows in the second data source. For every match, a combined row is created in the Join data source.

Those of you familiar with SQL will recognise this as an Inner join.

However, there are now other join types to choose from when configuring your Join data source!

A Left outer join includes the matching rows, along with all the rows from the first data source. As these extra rows have no matches in the second data source, they contain no values for those columns.

A Right outer join is the same except reversed, so all the rows from the second data source are included instead of the first.

A Full outer join includes all rows from both data sources! As with the other outer joins, non-matching rows will have blank columns on their opposite side.

Set workflow parameters ⚙️

Last month, we announced a new feature initially for Alloy API users: the ability to define and set parameters for manual workflows. This lets a workflow take input from the user that triggers it, providing a whole new degree of flexibility.

Following that, it's now possible to specify values for workflow parameters in Alloy Web. If a user triggers a manual workflow with one or more defined parameters, a window will appear to let them select each parameter and enter a value (see below).

For now, workflow parameters can only be defined via the API. However, this ability will also come to Alloy Web soon!

New Close Project workflow ✅

We've added a new Close Project manual workflow to all customer projects.

This provides a quick and easy way to close all the tasks in a project by setting their Status attributes to a chosen value (using the new workflow parameter feature mentioned above).

For those of you with projects containing hundreds of tasks, this will surely be welcome news. 😊

Edit the colour and icon of any item 🎨

If the Context property of an item is Core or Module, it can't be edited (except for any custom attributes your organisation has added to its design). This ensures that important items remain consistent for everyone.

However, we do like to offer customisation where we can!

Therefore, you can now edit the Colour and Icon properties of any item, regardless of its Context. 

You can also set the Name and Colour of any basemap.

Optimised item header on iOS 🦲

Nowadays, iPhones come in different form factors and screen shapes. Up top, you've got your classic "rectangle" (iPhone SE), the distinctive "notch" (iPhone 14) and the new "island" (iPhone 14 Pro).

Additionally, some models display a thin grey bar at the bottom, to serve as a reference point for gestures such as app switching. In Alloy Mobile, this could obscure the dots in the minimised item header (that indicate when multiple items are selected).

Therefore, we've optimised the item header to display correctly on all iPhone models, whether it's positioned at the top or bottom of the app. The dots can no longer be obscured and a white bar now indicates that you can drag the header upwards to see the selected item's details.

Stacked assets on Android 🥞

As you perform a round using Alloy Mobile, you may find yourself needing to select from one or more overlapping assets (e.g. to record when a bin hasn't been put out).

Previously, only the top asset would be selected, unless you spent time zooming in far enough for the assets to appear separately (and then zoom out afterwards).

Now, the overlapping assets will be listed in a standard item picker, making it easy and quick to select the correct one.

We're pleased to announce that Alloy Help has received a beautiful makeover this week 💄.

The website has been rebuilt from the ground up to be bigger, bolder and easier to navigate.

Content now appears larger and fills more of the screen, making it clearer and more comfortable to read. The left sidebar can group articles more effectively for better browsing. A handy Table of Contents appears on the right, which displays an outline of the current article and your position in it, and lets you jump to a particular heading.

There's even a Dark Mode for some gentle night-time viewing 🌙.

This forms part of ongoing work to improve the quality and readability of Alloy's documentation, so you can find and absorb information when you need it.

To check it out, visit help.alloyapp.io or select the bottom-right ? icon in Alloy.

Overview

With the April 2023 update comes the ability to specify parameters for manual workflows, enabling the workflow to take input from the user that triggers it!

This new feature is currently only available in the Alloy API but will appear in Alloy Web soon (look out for it in upcoming release notes 👀).

Start by creating a design with the desired parameters represented as attributes. When you create the workflow, you can now specify your parameter design in the trigger model. You can then reference the parameters by their attribute codes when configuring the workflow's actions.

When you trigger the workflow, you can specify which parameters to use and supply any required values. Once the feature comes to Alloy Web, users will be prompted to enter values for all parameters defined by the parameter design when they trigger the workflow.

Parameters greatly increase the flexibility of workflows, to the point where a single workflow can now cater for multiple circumstances that previously required setting up multiple workflows. We look forward to seeing how you use them!

Who is affected?

This change provides new opportunities for workflow editors when designing and implementing manual workflows via the Alloy API.

Details

Here are the steps for setting up a manual workflow that takes parameters via the Alloy API.

Create a parameter design

• Create a design that implements the designInterfaces_workflowManualTrigger interface.
• Add an attribute for each parameter you plan to use.

Create a workflow

• Create a workflow via the /api/workflow endpoint (Swagger/ReDoc).
• For the trigger property, specify a WorkflowTriggerWebModelBase with a discriminator of ManualTrigger
• For the parametersDesignCode property, enter the code of your parameter design.

Use a parameter in an action

• Add an action via the /api/workflow/{code}/action endpoint (Swagger/ReDoc).
• For the parameters property, specify an array containing at least one object with a discriminator of WorkflowComputedItemAttributeWebModel.
• For the value property of the WorkflowComputedItemAttributeWebModel object, specify an object with a discriminator of WorkflowSyntaxNodeTriggerParameterWebModel.
• For the parameterCode property of the WorkflowSyntaxNodeTriggerParameterWebModel object, specify the relevant attributeCode from your parameter design.

Trigger the workflow

• Run the workflow via the /api/workflow/{code}/manual-run endpoint (Swagger/ReDoc).
• For the triggerParameters property, specify the relevant attribute code from your parameter design and optionally provide a value.

This month's update brings two new features to the Geometry Editor and makes several common actions quicker to perform. The update took place during the evening of the 27th April. For a full list of changes in v2.46, please visit the Alloy Changelog.

Measure geometry everywhere 📏

Back in October, we added the Measure tool, which lets you select multiple points on the map to see the length between them, plus the area of any closed shape.

We've now extended this functionality to the Geometry Editor, so you can see the dimensions of all lines and polygons, even as you draw them!

Snap to nearby geometry ➡️

Another new feature in the Geometry Editor is snap layers, which lets your pointer "snap" to nearby geometry.

To get started, select Menu (bottom-right), choose Snap layers, and then choose a visible layer to act as the snap layer.

From now on, when your pointer approaches snap layer geometry, it'll automatically jump to align itself with the nearest point or line.

This makes it super easy to plot geometry directly alongside another item's geometry, e.g. a building connected to another building, a road branching off from another.

Quickly add columns in the Data Explorer 📋

Adding attribute columns in the Data Explorer is a common action, one that we certainly find ourselves performing a lot. Despite selecting all your desired attributes upfront, you inevitably end up wanting to add more later!

To reflect this, we've added an extra Configure attributes button to the top bar. This lets you open the Pathfinder in a single click, without having to use the bottom-right Menu button.

Quickly access the Job Work Units Editor 🛠️

When viewing a job's details, you can open the Job Work Units Editor by switching to the Job Work Items or Job Bill Items tab, and then selecting More in the action bar.

While this is intuitive, it can become a bit laborious if you've got lots of jobs to move through!

To address this, you can now open the Job Work Unit Editor from the General tab as well, without having to switch tabs.

Easily filter designs in the map picker 🗺️

When selecting items in the map picker, you can filter the displayed items by selecting Menu (bottom-right) and choosing Filter designs.

Previously, the right-hand item list would change to a design list. After selecting the relevant designs, you then had to select Search here to refresh the displayed items and change the list back to items.

This proved confusing at times, so selecting Filter designs now displays a standard design picker, and the map refreshes automatically after saving your selection.

Custom Job Work Items on Android 🛠️

Following on from last month, custom job work items are now supported on Android in addition to iOS.

When adding a job work item to a job, you can now choose from all designs that implement the Job Work Items interface (and which you have permission to create items for).

To learn more about custom job work items, see February's post.

This month's update lets you do more with Alloy's existing features, particularly if you work with multiple contractors. The update took place during the evening of the 30th March. For a full list of changes in v2.45, please visit the Alloy Changelog.

Better looking AQS attributes 😎

Previously, editable AQS attributes appeared as tall dark boxes that displayed their underlying JSON code. While it was occasionally useful to edit the code directly, the box took up a fair bit of vertical space and was restricted by the limited width available.

Therefore, AQS attributes now occupy a single line like other attributes. This frees up space for up to five attributes below it, letting you see more information without scrolling.

Selecting an AQS attribute will open the query in the AQS Builder, where you can view and edit its structure and values.

To access the query's JSON code in a full-sized editor, select the { } button.

JSON attributes have undergone a similar transformation in recent months.

Process over 1000 activity items at once 📋

Creating or editing activity items (e.g. defects, jobs, job work units) requires Alloy to perform extra logic for activity-specific functionality (e.g. copying geometry from a parent asset, calculating costs).

Previously, this work was performed using Alloy's Extended API, which could process all the extra logic at the cost of performance. Unfortunately, a safety limit of 1000 items was necessary to ensure consistent service delivery.

However, over the past year, we've been working to gradually migrate these functions to the main Alloy API, which we've documented in previous announcements. With some crafty optimisations, we've been able to reproduce the same functionality at higher performance levels, to the point where the safety limit can be ditched!

Therefore, you can now create/edit over 1000 activity items in a single workflow, or by using the Alloy API directly.

Street Manager v4 🚧

Both Alloy Web and Alloy Mobile have been updated to support Street Manager v4, in accordance with legislation coming into force on 1st April.

For full details of what's changed, see this previous announcement.

Job cost calculation permissions 💵

When a user edits the Estimated Value or Actual Value attribute of a job work item, the Estimated Cost or Actual Cost attribute is recalculated accordingly.

Previously, this required the user to have read and write permission for the Cost attributes of the job work item's design.

However, if you employ contractors to carry out jobs, you probably don't want to grant them these permissions! Doing so would let them edit the cost of their work directly, irrespective of the value.

Therefore, Alloy now calculates the Cost attributes of job work items via a system process. This means that users can now update the value of their work without needing to see or edit the cost.

Custom Job Work Items on iOS 🔨

Following on from last month, custom job work items are now supported on Alloy Mobile iOS (and on Android next month).

When adding a job work item to a job, you can now choose from all designs that implement the Job Work Items interface (and which you have permission to create items for).

Support for Change Component Job Work Items is coming soon.

Edit JWIs and attach multiple images on Android 📷

Following on from last month, these two features are now available on Android in addition to iOS.

When creating a new job, you can now edit job work items as you add them. Previously, you had to finish creating the job, edit the job, and then enter values for the job work items you added.

When attaching images to an item, you can now select up to five images at once to upload them all in one go.

Overview

For those of you using Alloy to interact with the government's Street Manager service, an important transition is coming up.

In May 2022, the Department of Transport released v4.0 of the Street Manager API. Since then, they've continued to maintain endpoints for both v3 and v4.

While v3 isn't being decommissioned until May/June 2023, the legislative changes in v4 will come into force on 1st April 2023, effectively compelling all users to make the switch.

Therefore, we're updating Alloy to support the current v4.15 specification ahead of this deadline.

Who will be affected

This change will affect anyone using Alloy Web or Alloy Mobile to interact with the Street Manager service.

Details

Fortunately, there are only a few changes to learn about!

New permit conditions

• NCT09d - Changes to traffic management arrangements APPLIES TO ALL MAJOR PERMITS on Category 0, 1, and 2 streets only.
• NCT03 – Activities ancillary to those permitted – supplementary information.

For more detail, see the Statutory guidance for highway authorities.

New Traffic Management type

A new TM Carriageway Restriction Type will be available: Temporary obstruction 15 minute delay.

Footpath Closure

A new Foothpath Closure attribute will be mandatory for all permit requests.

Emergency Contact Name and Number

New Emergency Contact Name and Emergency Contact Number attributes will be optional for most permit requests, unless the chosen Traffic Management type is Multi Way Signals or Two Way Signals.

Expected Release

30th March 2023 as part of the Alloy v2.45 release.