PMF 5.1.0 Released to Manufacturing

October 09, 2008, 01:19 PM

Bob Jude Ferrante

PMF version 5.1.0 was released to manufacturing October 9, 2008 and is now available from the Downloads menu on http://techsupport.ibi.com

The major highlights for V5 are:

NLV support for French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese
Vastly improved performance, user management, and dashboard experience
More gadgets, more industry content
Sophisticated new capabilities including alternate targets, dimensional tolerances and weighting
Scorecard-level access control
PMX edition for OEM and embedded use in re-branded applications

In addition PMF and PMM 5.1.0 now specifically support:

Basis handling for Descending Measures
Autonomic personalization defaults for Dashboards
Units conversion, operational with all target types.
Ease of use improvements on Time Ranges
More consistent user experience on all panels
Support for Windows Vista browsers

This English and Japanese version has some limited functionality (see below) and is certified with WF 7.6.5 and above and supports both PMF and PMM modes. Additional NLV versions will become available with the 5.1.1 release.

The PMF/PMM Installer will automatically upgrade PMF/PMM to the latest version without requiring a manual uninstall as was required in previous releases. You can simply re-run the PMF/PMM installer to upgrade your installation.

Note: If you have working with a V4 or earlier data mart, you will have to migrate the PMF data mart manually to the V5 level. However, from V5 onward, migrations are autonomic - when the Admnistrator starts PMF/PMM, the application will detect and allow the administrator to automatically migrate the currently data mart by choice. PMF 5.1.0 will only work on that mart after it is upgraded. Upgrades are safe, however you should always back up a mart before migrating it.

Also Note: If you have PMF/PMM installed in a multi-tier configuration, please remember to run the installation separately for your Web server and WebFOCUS server boxes.

Capabilities that are functionally limited as of 5.1.0 are:

Predictive methods for metrics
Out of the box support for Google Maps and Magnify (these can still be manually built)

These and other new capabilities will be made available progressively in ongoing point releases. It is very simple to apply a point release to your base PMF installation; the Install program has been optimized to upgrade PMF without disrupting any of your customizations.