K2 blackpearl 0807 Released

Important news 0807 build of K2 blackpearl, that I previewed here, has been released. There are major changes and bug fixes that have been addressed. Below is the announcement.

K2 blackpearl™ 0807 (4.8210.1.0) is now available!

Greetings K2 Customers!

K2 blackpearl™, the centerpiece of the new K2 platform, has the K2 blackpearl 0807 (4.8210.1.0) release now available.

The 0807 release focused on greater stability and better performance than ever before. It includes various enhancements and performance increases for the K2 Workspace, the K2 Designer for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and the K2 blackpearl Workflow Server to name but a few. It also includes post-0803 patches and bug fixes. New exciting features included in this release are Out of Office functionality and K2 Interop!

OUT OF OFFICE The K2 Out of Office feature enables a user to share specific worklist items or their entire worklist with other users. The user, the out of office participant, will be able to share current and future work items with designated colleagues, and redirect all remaining items to others by creating exception rules. The additional column on the K2 Worklist allows users to differentiate between their own and the absent colleague's worklist items. This functionality ensures that important and urgent work items receive prompt attention, regardless of someone being away from their desk.

K2 INTEROP (Moving Process Definitions from K2.net 2003 to K2 blackpearl – CLIENT SIDE) K2 Interop (short for interoperability) is the ability for K2.net 2003 process (.kpr) files to be opened in the K2 Designer for Visual Studio that ships with K2 blackpearl. It is a client-side, design-time functionality that allows converted K2.net 2003 and hybrid (K2.net 2003 and blackpearl) processes to be deployed to K2 blackpearl. With the release of K2 blackpearl, organizations with an investment in K2.net 2003 may want to leverage the advantages of the new platform and migrate their existing business processes from the old platform to the new. From a technology perspective, K2.net 2003 is distinctively different to K2 blackpearl, and K2 blackpearl offers a whole new feature set however still supporting the same K2.net 2003 features moving forward. As a result the divide between K2 blackpearl and K2.net 2003 is bridged by supporting K2.net 2003 features within the K2 blackpearl environment using K2 Interop MIGRATION (Moving existing K2.net 2003 Process Instances to K2 blackpearl – SERVER SIDE) K2 blackpearl 0807 is now migration-ready. The migration utility will be released in the next few weeks and is NOT available immediately. It is important to note that you will require K2 blackpearl 0807 to use the Migration Utility. The Migration capability should not be confused with K2 Interop. Migration is the physical migration of data from K2.net 2003 to K2 blackpearl. This is a server-side, runtime functionality enabled by a separate utility that migrates database records from K2.net 2003 to K2 blackpearl.

NEW ACTIVE DIRECTORY SERVICE The New Active Directory Service provides new objects and methods to access information from Active Directory for easy access and use of information to help create business processes and workflows in K2 blackpearl. This service surfaces information from AD and has a great number of performance enhancements and added functionality along with the functionality contained in the original Service, however it does not replace the original one.

PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENTS Numerous performance enhancements have been implemented. Some of the highlights are as follows. Workflow Server Performance > Improved processes execution > Worklist & Worklist Item performance > Worklist enhanced paging and filtering capabilities > More granular selection on Workflow Reporting SmartObjects > Improved memory usage on K2 Designer for Visual Studio > Improved memory usage when starting processes and finishing work list items > Improved batch execution of K2 processes > SmartObject Performance (runtime execution) > SmartObject Server data handling enhancements

ENHANCEMENTS ON K2 WIZARDS Some changes have been made to the functionality which resides behind the scenes of the K2 Wizards – specifically the items used for Microsoft SharePoint Server integration. These wizards now leave a smaller footprint on the process definition (.kprx) files, resulting in smaller file sizes and better memory management in the different designers available for K2 blackpearl.

DOCUMENTATION Several additions and enhancements have been made to the K2 blackpearl Documentation. The key areas of improvement are as follows.

OVERALL DOCUMENTATION Certain topics of the K2 blackpearl documentation has been updated and new topics added. New or updated topics are marked with an asterisk image in the Table of Contents

The following sections contain new or updated information: > K2 Concepts - Content Fields > K2 Wizards - Chaining wizards > Mail Event > IPC Event > SharePoint Records Management Wizard > Deploy Project Wizard > K2 SmartObject Integration - SmartObject Association > K2 for Visual Studio - K2 Design Canvas > K2 Interop > K2 Workspace - Management Console > Out of Office > Standard Reports > User Preference > K2 Developer Reference - Architecture of K2 Platform > Users > Extending the K2 Platform

Please take the time to review the latest K2 blackpearl 0807 (4.8210.1.0) Release Notes and product documentation before installing 0807 to ensure you understand the enhancements, fixed issues, and outstanding known issues. For installation, we urge you to look at the Release Notes prior to Installation! There are two issues that you should be aware of before installing 0807 that may, depending on your current blackpearl installation, overwrite custom configurations.

DOWNLOAD K2 BLACKPEARL 0807 (4.8210.1.0) K2 blackpearl 0807 (4.8210.1.0) is available at https://portal.k2workflow.com/downloads/bp/Default.aspx. License keys can be obtained at https://portal.k2workflow.com/licensekey/Default.aspx. The page can also be found via the Support > License Key Request > License Key menu on portal. The 0807 installer is slipstreamed, so if K2 blackpearl is not already present, the installer will install K2 blackpearl with the 0807 updates.