Release Notes

This topic provides a list of product changes released for Plant Applications.

Table 1. Enhancements and New Features

The following enhancements and new features have been added.

DescriptionTracking ID
You can now install Plant Applications Universal Client using Docker. Installing Universal Client using Docker deploys the following applications:
  • Operations
  • NCR Management
  • Order Management
  • Route Management
  • Work Queue
  • Property Definition
  • Security Management
  • Downtime Displays
  • Equipment
  • Reports
  • My Machines
  • OEE Aggregation Store
  • Alarm Notifications
Note: If you install Plant Applications Universal Client using Docker, any existing Universal Client applications hosted in Application Assembler will not be replaced with the new ones. Instead, the new applications will be deployed in a new Universal Client set up, and you must manually remove the existing applications. Therefore, if you want to upgrade the existing Universal Client applications, install Plant Applications Universal Client without using Docker.
N/A
A new feature, Route-enabled line, has been introduced in Plant Applications Administrator. Using this feature, you can enable a product line to be used in a route and all the discrete applications.
Note: If a product line is not route-enabled, you cannot use it in the discrete applications. For instructions on how to route-enable a product line and use it in discrete applications, refer to the Plant Applications Universal Client Installation Guide.
N/A
A new application, Work Order Manager, has been added in the Plant Applications Web Client. Using this application, you can perform the following tasks:
  • Access a list of work orders associated with a Line.
  • View and modify the priority of the work order on a Production Line.
  • Access the work order history, status, summary, and clocked on and clocked off operations.
  • Access the NCM defects.
  • Cancel the work orders in the Ready status.
  • F43030
  • F40680
  • F33681
A new application, Security, has been added in the Plant Applications Web Client to authorize user privileges to the process and discrete applications. Using this application, you can:
  • Authenticate and authorize the users as members of groups from supported identity provider applications to access the privilege sets, in turn, the applications associated with the privilege sets.
  • Add groups to the privilege sets.
  • Remove the groups from the privilege sets.
F43005
A new application, Unit Operations, has been added in the Plant Applications Web Client to display the operations associated with a Machine. Using this application, you can perform the following tasks:
  • Clock on or clock off the operations.
  • Complete the operations.
  • Access the documents and properties associated with the operations.
  • Create non-conformance defects.
Using the BOM section, you can perform the following tasks:
  • Access the mandatory and supplementary BOM parts necessary to complete the operations.
  • Consume the BOM parts during production.
  • Create the lots, if the lots are not available for consumption.
  • Access the consumption history of the BOM parts.
  • F42912
  • F40679
  • F39463
  • F33751
  • F32611
  • F32462
The following features have been added to the Non Conformance Management application:
  • The Rework disposition method: Enables you to rework on the non-conforming part for the selected operation. The defect is moved to the Submitted state after the rework operation is completed.
  • The Create Plan feature: Enables you to dispose multiple defects at once by creating a plan.
  • The Edit CTP feature: Enables you to modify the disposition details when the disposition method is specified as Continue to Process (CTP). You can also change the disposition method from CTP to any other method (such as Clear, Rework, Scrap or Use as is).
  • The History feature: Enables you to view all the actions performed on the defect by the user. The History option has been added to the menu.
  • The Queue feature: Enables you to access the previously searched Serial/Lot numbers, Non-Conformance numbers, Work Order numbers and Plan numbers. The Queue option appears in the home page.
F42661
Now, the Universal Client applications are hosted in a new container instead of Application Assembler.F42513
Plant Applications now works with Operations Hub UAA instead of the Historian UAA. To facilitate this enhancement, changes have been made in the Plant Applications Universal Client installer to connect to the Operations Hub UAA and create a set of default users.F42431
Universal Client can now display the variable name (user-defined) based on the display configuration defined in the Plant Application Administrator.F42309
You now have the option to choose Top 5 Causes and Actions when perform the alarms in the Alarm Notifications application.F41817
You can now edit the Product in the Production Event page of the Activities application autolog display.F41647
All the Plant Applications applications are now technologically upgraded using the Angular 6.
  • F40980
  • F40979
  • F40978
  • F38520
  • F37328
You can now install Plant Applications in a FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standards) enabled environment.F40567
In the Activities application, you can now filter out the Dynamic rows using a toggle button. You can select this button (On) to display only dynamic rows that has specification limit or target frequency set. You can switch back to the initial view displaying all the variables by selecting it again (Off).F38848
A new application, Work Queue, has been added in the Plant Applications Web Client. Using this module, you can maintain a list of operations on which you want to work, and perform the following tasks:
  • Clock on the available serial numbers.
  • Specify the consumption of BOM items for each serial numbers.
  • View a list of documents associated with an operation.
  • Provide data for quality variables.
  • Specify whether you have completed working on each serial number.
  • Create a defect for defective serial numbers.
F37817
A new application, Property Definition, has been added in the Plant Applications Web Client to manage custom properties tailored to the requirements of your business. These properties, when configured with other applications, such as, ERP, Route Editor, and Unit Operations, can capture additional business data specific to your requirement. F31338
A new application, Route Management, has been added in the Plant Applications Web Client. Using this application, you can create a route by providing the following information:
  • The product line, BOM formulation, and material associated with the route
  • The operations performed in the route
  • The bill of material (BOM) items, equipment, and documents required to perform each operation
  • Any additional properties associated with the route.

You can then release the route for use in a work order. You can also create a work order using a route.

F29661
Table 2. Resolved Issues

The following issues, which existed in one or more previous versions, have been resolved.

DescriptionTracking ID
Previously, if multiple alarms were triggered, only one of them was visible in the SOE report. This issue has been fixed.DE109872
Previously, when you open the PE Autolog display and generate PE column, you could see significant slow down for variables subbing on an Autolog sheet. This issue has been fixed. DE107485
Previously, whenever a native historian (same machine where UCC is installed) is configured in Plant Applications using the host name, UCC is unable to trend historian tags. It displays "Unknown error" on analysis app. If you observe in the network request the response in 401 unauthorized. This issue has been resolved.DE106705
Previously, after upgrading the Plant Applications Universal Client from SP4 to SP5, if you check the historians in the mes-dataservice-impl properties file, the old historians configured in SP4 are overwritten with the new configurations of SP5. This issue has been fixed.DE106437
Previously, unhandled exception occurred when you select Duration filter and click on slider bar after opening two PA clients. This issue has been resolved.DE104423
Previously, in the Autolog display of the Activities application, if you have entered value in the input variable field and tab out to the next variable, the calculated variable value was not getting updated. This issue has been fixed.DE104266
Previously, in the Downtime Displays application, whenever you switch to the next page, the last record of the page is not displayed. Also, the sum of the downtime durations of the Downtime Displays view does not match with the total downtime durations displayed in the Equipment view. This issue has been fixed.DE103601
Previously, you could not open variable external links pointing to HTM files in Plant Applications Client. This issue has been fixed.DE102743
Previously, the Downtime Displays application displayed 00:00:00 uptime for all records. This issue has been fixed.DE102225
Previously, the administrator could not assign default view to the role-based AD user in the Plant Applications Administrator. This issue has been resolved.DE101157
Previously, when you create a downtime unit view client display and then open a second client and add a comment to a closed downtime without saving, you see all the downtime columns in black. This happens when you switch back to the first client and close the open downtime. This issue has been fixed.DE88568
Previously, when you add the UDPs “Include NPT” and “OEE Calculation Type” at the Production Unit Level and export, the Field value is blank. If you import after setting the field value for another Production Unit, the UDPs are not added. This issue has been fixed.DE84727
Previously, in Proficy Administration, it was not possible to set DefaultDomainName correctly. This issue has been fixed.DE57924
Previously, after resuming a timed-out client session with one or more displays and providing the user credentials, selecting any display shifts focus to another display until all displays are minimized/restored. This issue has been fixed.DE55450
Previously, only a user with view-only privileges in the Users tree could edit and save reports. This issue has been fixed.DE8289
Table 3. Known Issues and Limitations

The following issues have not been resolved in this release.

DescriptionTracking ID
In Route Management, in the Operations section, you cannot use the scroll bar to access more than 20 operations.
Workaround: Search for the operation using the Search box.
Note: This issue does not occur when you access the route for the first time or after you perform the workaround.
DE117105
WorkFlow or MES products are not installed when Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable package (x86) is already installed. This occurs when you install SQL 2017, which installs Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable package (x86).

Workaround: Uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable package (x86), and then install Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable package (x86).

DE115386
When upgrading Universal Client from version 7.0 SP2, SP3, SP4, or SP5 to version 8.0, the existing UAA users are not imported to the upgraded to the UC 8.0 version.DE114856
In Non Conformance Management application, The Underline Text symbol in the Rich Text Editor of the Disposition page is sometimes not displayed.DE114530
While accessing the Analysis application in an iPad, the drag-and-drop functionality does not work when you try to drag a row to either Add Chart or Add Batches panel.

Workaround: You must manually select the check boxes of relevant rows, and then add them by selecting Add Chart or Add Batches.

DE114477
While accessing Plant Applications in an iPad, the pagination does not function correctly. If you tap on the next or previous page links, instead of the next immediate page, the alternate page appears.DE114475
In the Activities application, when you select the filter icon of the first column, the filter menu appears under the Applications panel due to an alignment issue.DE114378
In Non Conformance Management application, Defect is not retrieved if it is logged against a Work Order that has any special character (!@#$%^&*()=_+/?><\ e) in its name.DE114327
While accessing the Plant Applications in an iPad, the drop-down list boxes do not display the whole character length after you select a value from a list. This behavior can be observed when the selected option character length exceeds the size of the dropdown. DE113852
In Non Conformance Management application, History is not displayed when there are two defects on a Serial Number and one of them is scrappedDE113670
In Plant Applications Web Client, when you right click in the Search field of the grid and select Paste, the value is not pasted in the field.DE113317
While accessing the Activities application in an iPad, in the Open page, when you select the Due In column (for an overdue activity) to view the tooltip, the Overdue comment box appears along with the tooltip.DE112907
The Create account and Reset password links are not working on the Universal Client login page.

Workaround: To create user accounts, you can use the uaac-create-clients-and-users.bat batch file that is located in the Plant Applications Universal Client installation directory. To reset a password, you can login to UAA, and then select Change Password from the Account Settings page.

DE111982
While accessing the Activities application in an iPad, if you enter invalid data in any of the fields when editing an event, the Save button remains enabled. If you select Save, the value is not saved. However, a success message appears.DE111683
Do not to scale below services in multiple instances - RabbitMQ dependent services:
  • downtime-app-service
  • downtime-service
  • alarm-app-service
  • alarm-service
N/A
Do not to scale below services in multiple instances:
  • erp-scheduler-service
  • erp-import-service (if you want to scale, ensure that Workorder-service is scaled before).
N/A
If for any reason Kafka services are restarted, you must restart the below services:
  • Operator app service
  • WorkOrder
  • WorkOrder History service
  • Supervisor app service
  • Plant execution service
N/A
Table 4. Obsolete Features

The following features are no longer available.

DescriptionTracking ID
The following REST API microservices are deprecated from Plant Applications 8.0. These REST APIs will be permanently removed in the future release:
  • In activities-service:
    • GET /userDefined/v1/events/{eventId}/status
    • GET /production/v1/events/{eventId}/status
  • In comment-service:
    • GET /comment/v1/commentThreads/permissions
US328042