Nexus 3 New Features

In the illustration at left you can see two of the improvements we have made to the ECM Navigator: a right-click menu for adding new content and editing existing files, and a set of icons at the top, also for adding new links and content.

When you use these options to add new ECM content (links, files, folders and documents) Nexus presents a subset of the full set of ECM object attributes. The right-click Edit option does, however, present the full set of object attributes.

These new options will make it easier for you to work with your ECM content.

By displaying the group tree structure to the left of your maintenance area, you can more easily see and manage the relationships between your groups of Nexus users.

In Nexus 3, when you select an ECM document, the portal's default behavior is to load the whole page (including other portlets and menus). We shipped version 3 this way to enable users to bookmark individual pages (which would have been impossible had we just encapsulated the ECM content inside a portlet, and didn't change the page URL as you navigated the ECM).

However, one of our customers requested that we allow him to opt for a faster load speed instead. So with Nexus 3.3 we have included a new option in your ECM Configuration options, to Reuse Page Templates. What this means is that as you navigate the ECM, Nexus will only reload the entire portal page when you go to an ECM document attached to a different page layout than your current doc. This significantly improves performance, with the added advantage of eliminating the visual disconnect that can occur when the entire page loads just to refresh the ECM document portion.

And unwilling to part with the advantage of being able to bookmark existing pages, we have added another feature: if you re-click the same link to an ECM document, the second time you click the document is loaded with a unique URL. So you can still create bookmarks for individual ECM objects.

The illustration at left is taken from the ECM Maintenance window, and we're looking at the object authorities for the Nexus User Guide folder. The new option is the Ripple Authorities button, which allows you to overwrite all the sharing options set for other folders and objects within the selected folder, to match the sharing options for the source item.

This option is useful if you have a folder that over time has become subject to somewhat haphazard maintenance, with various users adding objects of different types, and with different authority levels. By using the rippled authorities option, you can easily make your sharing options consistent for the different sections of your ECM content.

When you edit the Advanced Options for an ECM document, you can now set a document purge date. This would be a date at which a document or object is no longer relevant, and you want it to be automatically eliminated from the ECM. The ECM's search index is also automatically updated.

For Nexus 3.3 we have also added a favorites menu in the Nexus header area, which allows you to set bookmarks that are local to your Nexus portal site. This feature allows you to create a set of browser-independent bookmarks that you can take with you wherever you go. And these Favorites aren't just links: this is actually a window to a personal, automatically-created area of the Nexus ECM. So as you create new users and grant them access to the ECM, you don't have to create new areas into which they can put their personal content.

The Favorites themselves are stored in individual folders in the ECM's root directory, and they can be maintained at that location using the ECM viewer or via a set of right-click options similar to those added to the ECM Navigator. The Nexus Administrator has access to everyone's bookmarks via the ECM Maintenance window.

In Nexus 3.3 you will also find options available to email and print documents directly from the portal. The print and email options are available from the ECM Viewer's document header, as shown at left. These options are dynamic, appearing with all appropriate document types.

Nexus 3.3 significantly improves the Object Authorities interface, making it easier for you to find and select the groups and authorities you need. When you first add an authority entry after installing version 3.3, the bottom of the list you see above will default to showing a list of all your groups and users. But from that point forward the list will default to showing a Most Recently Used (MRU) subset. The button shown at right, MRU List, allows you toggle between your most recently used groups/users and all those defined for your site. You can also use the Search options to further subset the entries to select from.

To add a new authority entry, all you have to do is click the appropriate authority level (Read, Write or Admin) for the group or user in the list. Note that group entries are also shown in green, in case your group names don't always make this self-evident.

Windows-Explorer like access to documents using a tree-like structure with folders, documents, links and a window for viewing them. Catapult can be used for auto-filing reports to the ECM.

Rich text editor to create HTML documents and interface to add or create documents, folders and links with same menu tree capabilities as the ECM Navigator.

The ECM is now driven by templates, which allows you to change the entire surrounding page contents as users click on different links within the Navigator.

Drag and drop portlets to easily customize the page layout. The whole page design process has been simplified and it now takes fewer steps to add or remove portlets.

Site Skins (formerly Schemes) can now be edited within Nexus using a built-in visual HTML editor. Site Skins give you the ability to customize the artistic elements and design of any Nexus site by editing a single file via the visual interface.

SmartCharts are included for Free in Nexus and allow you to create graphs and KPIs to visually present your iSeries data. They can be created in a couple of minutes through the SmartCharts wizard, where you have the choice of 6 different types of graphs to choose from.

New flexible and powerful abilities to organize users into a virtually limitless range of possible group and sub-group combinations. The entire group management interface has also been redesigned.

The Calendar has been redesigned to function more like PC based calendars. It now includes month, week and day views, many filtering options and better event authorization choices.

In Nexus 3 you can now create custom menus, and you also have more control over how menus are organized. Menus appear at the top of the Nexus user interface and provide access to all the pages (personal, group pages, and ECM document pages) to which you are authorized.

Many other features including bookmarking, customizable login pages, portlet appearance options, many UI improvements and more.

• The maximum ECM document size (for new HTML documents) has been doubled.
• HTML documents in the ECM are now indexed in their entirety (rather than just the description and additional search keywords you may have added).
• Several new fields have been added to the Advanced Object Attributes tab in the ECM Maintenance window.
• Menus items now automatically inherit authorities from the menu to which they were added.
• ECM Navigator supports a new fixed height attribute, giving you more control over your page layout.
• New size-to-fit option for images displayed in the ECM navigator.
• Improvements have been made to the process of creating Nexus profiles based on iSeries User IDs, to give you more control over the options associated with new users. In previous releases, new user options were derived from the settings for the profile of the user that was adding them to Nexus.
• You can press the ESC (Escape) key to close any right-click or popup menus.
• JavaScript files used by the portal have been consolidated into fewer files, improving performance.
• Several reported bugs in version 3 have also been fixed.
• Customizable initial login page - allows users to create their own design, including selecting a different page header than the one assigned to a particular Nexus site.
• Ability to bookmark pages (URLs) so you can return to the exact page or document or email an exact document link.
• An ECM document can be set as a default from the site level.
• ECM template management interface.
• Create Headers and footers for any page design. This includes for standard, group and template pages.
• All group and user popups have been replaced. The new UI can filter and scroll page at a time through the list.
• Retain URL after redirect to login.
• The links portlets have had a face lift and numerous improvements.
• Each portlet instance can now optionally display each border icon. In addition the top border and all borders can be turned off or on.
• Select ECM documents from the links portlets.
• Select ECM documents when designing your personal pages.
• General performance improvements across all areas.
• Improved foreign client support.
• New icons across every area.
• Improved Firefox support.
• Improved security with IP confirmation.