ViewsFlash 7 Release Notes

ViewsFlash 7 introduces significantly enhanced capabilities for creating sophisticated questionnaires and forms and interoperating with existing systems.

Notes for system administrators

New training and learning aids

• Revised Examples are available right off the ViewsFlash home page. They contain copious notes about the techniques used to construct them.
• Instructional Videos are now available on the web at www.cogix.com/docs/vf70/video

New questionnaire and form features

• A new method for authenticating questionnaires using a generic hidden field with a unique ID is now the default. This method is well suited for anonymous and non-user centered questionnaires.
• Powerful new tools for arranging questionnaire layout provides precise control over question placement in a two-dimensional grid, and for aligning text against input controls horizontally, flush left or right, rather than always presenting questions above or below their input controls.
• A new way to display and customize validation alert messages inline,rather than alerts, for conditions such as required fields missing or invalid characters in numeric fields. See Upgrading styles.
• New Question Styles for a Calendar date picker, validating text fields that conform to a Regular Expression, and checking that items are ranked in a unique order. The DisplayOrHide and Calculate styles have been made more general and flexible, and can now be used with most question types and perform logical and conditional operations.
• The SQLSelect, SQLUpdate and DynamicDropDown actions can now work with data in a different JNDI datasource, even on a different brand of database. They offer more control over error messages and logging, and over conditions when there is no data. The documentation for each action describes its options in detail.
• New action SQLDisplay allows retrieving data from multiple rows in a database table using a SQL query and displaying the data in tabular form in a questionnaire.
• New Action CascadingMenus allows constructing multiple linked drop-down menus, such as for presenting car Make, Year, and Model. The values for each dropdown depend on the values of the previous one. All the data for the dropdowns comes from a database table and can be personalized using a dynamic database query.
• The Script action now includes built-in functions to redirect the browser,get the HttpRequest, HttpResponse, and HttpSession objects, to write to the ViewsFlash log, to display questions conditionally, to send personalized emails conditionally, and to display error messages at the top of a page and for multiple questons. It also includes a way to create Scripts that are executed only when using the data review API.
• A new parameter for Questionnaire URLs is available, &vwfdisableall=yes. This parameter displays the questionnaire with all input controls disabled, as appropriate when rendering the data for review in a read-only mode.

System administration

• System administrators should review the Upload technical notes. Documents that are uploaded with questionnaires are now stored in the database by default, instead of the file system.
• If you are using Oracle, or using the Upload Attachments feature, you must review the Upgrading to ViewsFlash 7 notes.
• When using J2EE declarative security for application and questionnaire authentication is needed, a new OtherAuthentication class is provided that is easily configured with servlet parameters.
• New servlet properties showadminservleturl and usingsslproxy are provided for use with reverse proxy servers.
• New servlet properties dbcreatetablespacestatement and dbtablenamesuffix are provided for when using DB2 for specifying a CREATE TABLESPACE statement and allocating tables in specific table spaces.
• When saving questionnaire data in its own database table, indices can now be created to speed up data retrieval by other applications.
• The ColumnBegin, ColumnBreak and ColumnEnd styles have been deprecated and are no longer included. Use the Styles page to see if they are used, and delete them if they are not. If they are used, they will continue to work as they used to.

Miscellaneous

• E-mail invitations now include options for retrying failed emails and for seeing who has been invited and who has completed the questionnaire. The options for sending e-mail with each questionnaire now include sending a test e-mail and allowing an e-mail to be sent when a questionnaire's content is revised.
• When including an item from a Question Library, and renaming the question names by prepending or appending a name mask, a new option allows for references to those question names to be automatically modifed by prepending or appendin the name mask to references to those question names automatically, rather than having to rename them manually.
• Staging files can now be stored on databases on different servers and exchanged without using the file system

ViewsFlash 6.2 release notes

ViewsFlash 6.2 introduces several new features. Data reports now allows displaying the human-readable text of the respondent's answer, rather than the value stored in the database. Another ehancement to Data reports allows appending an additional filter in the report URL.
An enhancement to the Participants API allows including additional fields in email-invitations. An enhancement to the Web Services API allows for programmatic survey creation and for retrieving a complete questionnaire definition as XML.

ViewsFlash 6.1 introduces several new features. Script actions now have easy ways to access Java request and response objects, as well as methods for redirecting the browser after saving and submitting entered data.

ViewsFlash 6 introduced numerous usability enhancements, including a simpler Question Editor, consolidation of the Live Tally and Summary pages, and the removal of the Bulk Vote, Remove Entries, and Set Rank legacy polling functions which are no longer in general use (but can be enabled when needed). A Level option is added to MyViewsFlash, which allows beginner uses to take advantage of the most commonly used features while hiding others that are often not needed.

The entire application, from user interface, to reports and questionnaire look and feel, have been visually upgraded for a more pleasant and effective experience, the HTML editor has been integrated throughout the application, and the Matrix and Grid wizards have been upgraded for ease of use and detailed control over presentation. Altogether, these enhancements make ViewsFlash significantly easier to use without compromising its power.

The standard Response page and the standard Results Style have been updated so that the image, header, and footer fields from the General page are used automatically in the Response page by default. This creates a more standard look throughout the questionnaire and its response page. A new section in the Response page allows for presenting the response message in the body of the page, between the header and footer.

The Data, Univariate, Cross Tabulation, and Live results reports have been redesigned. Univariate Reports now can be enriched by adding text and HTML using questions created with the ReportText question style. Cross Tabulations include a new option for shading report cells according to their content, so that cells with a low percentage are light while cells with a high percentage are strong. This pattern helps spot relationships visually in a cross tabulation.

The Publish page includes the URL of the final questionnaire. When using Question or Captcha authentication, the URL now shows the URL modifications that are appropriate for that method.

The Date and Number question styles now handle worldwide date and number formats. This was made possible by using a new capability in question styles, which can now specify additional parameters for a style such as the decimal separator character.

The Matrix Wizard can now create Likert and Semantic Differential scales. Their appearance has been enhanced by using fewer lines. The matrix is automatically sized for evenly spaced columns, and exact control over column widths is also available by editing the first question (the header) in a matrix.It is even possible to render these matrices using a custom CSS style.

The Grid Editor has been enhanced by allowing control over the generated question names, thus making them more meaningful. Grids now have an "elastic" mode, where only a few rows in a grid are shown, and a "More rows" link is provided that allows for entering additional rows of data. Because most grids use only a few rows, this allows for a more compact presentation while leaving open the option to fill out the entire grid when necessary.

A new DynamicDropDown Action creates drop down menus whose content is determined dynamically when the questionnaire is presented to the respondent, based on either the result of a database query or the content of questions asked on previous pages.

A new Upload style allows respondents to attach documents to a questionnaire, such as a spreadsheet, a document or a picture. The uploaded documents are retrieved using the standard Data reports by clicking on a link.

A new XML Import and Export option allows creating and exchanging questionnaires in XML. This option is also useful for creating questionnaire translations.

New Saving Data servlet parameters allow the Administrator to forbid saving questionnaire as text files, in their own database tables, or in the Normalized tables. This can simplify user choices and enforce database and file system usage policies.

A new cross-site scripting servlet parameter, provides additional checks for preventing cross-site request forgeries and cross-site scripting. Other standard practices for preventing cross-site scripting and SQL injection attacks have been strengthened and are always enabled.

ViewsFlash 5.8 introduces an HTML editor to make it easier to enter formatted text in headers, footers, and questions, using easily customizable styles. The editor checks English spelling in Internet Explorer and in all languages in Firefox. The User Guide has been revised.

This release introduces DisplayOrHide, a new Question Style that dynamically reveals or hides questions on a page depending on the value of earlier questions. It now allows including a "None" button in radio button questions to indicate no choice. The Installation and Database documentation have been thoroughly updated. Internationalization now provides a way to create a questionnaire in one language with localized messages, as well as questionnaires in multiple languages.

Administrators please note: when this release is deployed using User Security, the Examples and Default places will be locked so that only Administrators can create questionnaires and modify their settings. A new public Practice place is created for users to learn how to use the software. The Examples and Default places can be unlocked by an Administrator.

ViewsFlash 5.7 provides a new way to authenticate visitors, using only their email addresses. This scenario is very useful when there is a membership list with email addresses, but no passwords, and there is no other way to authenticate visitors. To support this, a customized login page can be specified in the Security page.

ViewsFlash 5.6 introduces Calculate, a new Question Style that performs live calculations in the browser. For example, given a total salary and a number of employees, this will calculate an average:
average=total_salary / employees;
The result can be optionally formatted with currency symbols, decimal point and digits, and grouped in thousands:
$1,234.56, €1.234,56. The calculated field can be made read-only.

New features to help with Questionnaire Printing have been added, and the Standard styles have been enhanced to allow easily specifying your own CSS style attributes, such as page borders and colors and font attributes such as small-caps.

A new internationalization facility provides a common language page for all translations of a questionnaire. A single URL can be provided to all participants, and they choose the language they want to respond to the questionnaire in from a drop-down menu with choices in their own language.

A new customizable CAPTCHA log in page for authenticating anonymous questionnaires is available.

A new section on How to use the Web Services API section has been written, including examples for using it in JSP pages and AJAX.
This API is now disabled by default, and must be enabled as described.

ViewsFlash 5.5 introduces a new Ratings API that allows easy construction of ratings systems for content such as articles, videos, photos, products.

ViewsFlash 5.4 allows using the Data View query and reports to examine responses that are still in progress and that have not been submitted yet. The Question library is enhanced to work with Grids.

ViewsFlash 5.3 includes a Grid Editor, allowing very powerful grids of similar question to be built. Releases 5.1 and 5.2 were maintenance releases.

ViewsFlash release 5 is a major release with powerful capabilities, including a Visual Editor, Charts, Reports, Filters, accessibility standard compliant questionnaires (section 508, WCAG, XHTML 1.0 Transitional), a streamlined user interface, a Matrix Wizard, question help, randomizing and hiding questions, and a MyViewsFlash preferences section.

A note on terminology for existing users who are upgrading: "Polling places" has been shortened to "Places".

Administrators who are upgrading from earlier releases: please read first Upgrading to Release 5.

New capabilities in release 5

• A new Grid Editor provides a way to create question matrices made up of similar rows of the same questions. An example is included in the documentation.
• A new Visual Editor provides a much simpler, intuitive way to create and edit questionnaire forms. The survey is shown in its final form, and a mouse click opens up the question designer to revise or create questions and question matrices. The entire application user interface has been reviewed and polished making the application dramatically easier to use. The traditional List Editor is still useful for more complex operations such as copying and moving multiple questions and using the clipboard.
• A new public place, Examples, provides ready-made examples of basic and advanced questionnaires. They are locked but can be copied for further study and modification. A new Question Library contains questionnaire snippets for frequently used operations such as branching, scoring, and hiding questions.
• The entire application user interface now has a more appealing and functional design, including a My ViewsFlash page for showing survey dates in your local time zone and locale for multinational users, time-stamping all objects and sorting object lists by clicking at the top of each column, and using AJAX techniques in the user interface to reveal features only as needed.
• A Matrix Wizard provides a foolproof way to construct ranking matrices, Likert matrices, and matrices of questions that share common answers.
• Question help allows entering additional explanatory text for any question. A [?} link appears in the questionnaire, which reveals the question help text when clicked. Other renderings are possible by creating a custom style template.
• Saving very long Text fields (larger than 4K) is now possible in the Normalized mode.
• A new Randomize capability allows presenting the questions in a page in to different survey takers in a random order. The Script custom action now includes functions that hide questions. The hidequestion("questionname") function hides questions that should not be presented to a respondent based on the answers to earlier questions. These two capabilities together significantly enhance the ability to personalize a questionnaire and to randomize the effect of question presentation.
• Accessible questionnaires are now created by default, without requiring any special options. The new default styles, named Standard_, create questionnaires that comply with XHTML 1.0 Transitional, section 508, and WCAG priority 2 and many priority 3 requirements. The new Matrix Wizard works with accessible questionnaires as well.
• The new Standard_ style templates can be used in both stand-alone surveys and in Portals. If the portal is 508 or WCAG capable, created surveys are accessible in the portal. Prior to release 5, special styles were needed for Portals.
• Analytical query tools (Univariate and Cross tabulation) now create pie data charts, bar charts and 3D stacked bar charts. Charts can be customized and viewed in PowerPoint and Excel as well as the browser. Commonly run queries can be saved as Reports and retrieved with one click.
• Queries and reports can now filter what data to use, such as state = CA. A new Data View query and report allow displaying saved data as HTML, Excel, and XML, in all character sets. In HTML, the data can be sorted and resorted by simply clicking on the top of each report column.
• Alerts, such as "Please answer this question", are now available in internationalized surveys in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese and Arabic. Explicit support has been added for including right-to-left, language, and charset tags when needed.
• A new database change watchdog alerts the survey creator who modifies a questionnaire after data has already been collected. If the modification requires a change in the table definition, the questionnaire will be closed until it is published again, which will alter the table appropriately. Without this safety feature, storing responses would result in loss of data due to a database exception.
• Data is now saved in questionnaire tables before the survey response page is shown to the respondent. While this introduces a small delay, it lets the respondent know immediately when a database error occurs. In such as case, live tallies are not updated with the record that could not be captured.
• Secure and anonymous questionnaires can now be done by simply selecting Basic authentication or Cookie authentication in the Security settings.

Previous release notes

Next: Introduction