2020 R2 Release Notes

Meridian Enterprise 2020 R2 was released in July 2020. The major themes of this release are:

Meridian Portal integration
PowerWeb functionality
Autodesk 2021 family support
SAML authentication support for electronic signatures
Autodesk Forge integration
Numerous quality, stability, usability, scalability, and performance improvements

The following sections describe the specific changes and improvements in this release. Additional minor enhancements, third-party application support, and bug fixes are also included.

Administration Improvements

The following improvements have been made to the administration of Meridian Enterprise.

Administration improvements
Reference	Description
MPS-14116	Fixed an issue that could cause documents that have an umlaut character in their name to import from packages without file content.
MPS-17525	Additional parameter data is included in event log messages when Hypertrieve stops responding during certain operations.
MPS-19924	Fixed an issue that could cause full-text content indexing to fail.
MPS-23364	Fixed an issue that could cause the Vault Consistency Wizard to stop working with large vaults when the MaximumCacheSize setting is set to the default value.
MPS-23638	Detailed information is now included in the Vault Consistency Wizard log file for very large compartment warnings.
MPS-23700 MPS-23705 MPS-26353	In PowerWeb, electronic signatures authenticated via an OpenId identity provider are now supported when opening protected vaults or by workflow transitions as described in Sign Documents. Configuration is described in Configure OpenId Connect for on-premises installations and in Configure a Third-Party Identity Provider for Meridian Cloud.
MPS-23845	Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Enterprise is now supported.
MPS-24008	In an import profile, the only option for Existing documents is now Update when the destination is Meridian Portal as described in Create an Import Profile.
MPS-24713	A new utility program is installed with Meridian Enterprise to test server connectivity to the Meridian Cloud license service as described in Test Cloud License Server Connectivity.
MPS-25005	A new registry value MailServerParameters has been added to configure different SMTP servers per vault as described in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian\CurrentVersion\Installed DataStores\<vaultname>.
MPS-25110	Fixed an issue that could cause poor performance when adding members to a group in Meridian Enterprise Administrator when the Use Enterprise Server for user management option is enabled.
MPS-25179	A new server registry value XMLValidation has been added as described in the following topic to prevent authoring applications from crashing when the vault is searched in remote mode and the vault contains documents that contain invalid XML symbols. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Cyco\AutoManager Meridian\CurrentVersion\WebLink
MPS-25185	Packages to be sent to Meridian Portal no longer need to wait for new documents to be synchronized to the Meridian Explorer repository by a scheduled publishing job. The first synchronization job defined for a vault will now be run automatically if a new document or one of its references is unsynchronized.
MPS-25251	Fixed an issue in the Meridian Cloud Connector installation package that prevented that prevented user-configured paths from being retained during an upgrade.
MPS-25615	Fixed an issue in the Meridian Cloud Connector installation package that prevented European users from logging in through Application Integration.
MPS-26990	The subscriptions and audit log viewer (WebExtensibilityDBViewer) web application now supports the Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server (MSOLEDBSQL).
MPS-28036	A new service ContentIndexing has been added to the Windows application events log to help with search troubleshooting by Accruent Support.
MPS-28112	Fixed an issue that could cause Local DB update failed and bad gateway errors when a client PC outside the local domain attempts to download documents with a site cache connected and local workspace enabled.
MPS-28159	Fixed an issue that could prevent corrupted AutoCAD drawings from logging errors when reference resolutions fails during import package scanning.
MPS-28162	Fixed an issue that could cause packages sent from Meridian Portal to fail to import if date/time values in the metadata file were specified the period (.) character instead of the colon (:) character.
MPS-28551	Fixed an issue that could cause drawings that contain invalid xrefs to log Failed to read document. An unexpected error occurred errors and Meridian Explorer synchronization jobs to fail. Now, inconsistent references will be skipped and a better warning message (Invalid reference skipped for document) will be added to the log.
MPS-28614	Fixed an issue that could cause packages to fail to import if the metadata file contains very long source file paths.
MPS-29220	The quantity of site cache messages in the event log has been reduced to warnings only.

Application Link Improvements

The following application link improvements have been made.

Application link improvements
Reference	Description
MPS-20836	A new setting ReferencesCheckCircular has been added to the AutoCAD link and MicroStation link settings. It can be used to control circular reference checking and replacement.
MPS-21895	The AutoCAD application link no longer prompts the user to open a document read-only or start a workflow when inserting an Xref in AutoCAD and application integration is in remote mode.
MPS-21906	When Application Integration is in Remote Mode, a document thumbnail is now shown when you click the name of a document that has a thumbnail stream. Previously, a thumbnail was not available.
MPS-25292	Fixed an issue in the AutoCAD application link that could cause the properties of only one of multiple title blocks to be shown on the Title Blocks property page.
MPS-25622 MPS-25626 MPS-25627	Meridian now supports AutoCAD 2021 including these 2021 vertical toolsets: Architectural Civil 3D Electrical Map 3D Map 3D Mechanical MEP Plant 3D Raster design
MPS-25623	Meridian now supports Autodesk Inventor 2021
MPS-25624	Meridian now supports Revit 2021.
MPS-25628	Meridian now supports DWGTrueView 2021.
MPS-25629	Meridian now supports Inventor Viewer 2021.
MPS-25759	Publisher now supports AutoCAD 2021 and support for AutoCAD 2016 and earlier is removed.
MPS-25888	Support for versions of Revit, SolidWorks, and Inventor earlier than 2016 is removed.
MPS-26421	Fixed an issue in the AutoCAD application link that could cause references to be disconnected between project copies if an Xref is edited in place in AutoCAD.
MPS-27001	If using two AutoCAD profiles and the first one failed, the second one started to work, but the first one could not be used for subsequent documents. The error "Detected unexpected AutoCAD process" was shown.
MPS-27058	References to the name AutoCAD P&ID in the AutoCAD Plant 3D link have been changed to AutoCAD Plant 3D.
MPS-27581	The AutoCAD link has been upgraded to use RealDWG 2021.
MPS-27836	The performance of the Autodesk Inventor link in remote mode has been significantly improved.
MPS-28351	Fixed an issue in the Microsoft Office link in remote mode that could cause Microsoft Word to stop working when a user attempts to save a document in the Master branch of the vault even though it may only be saved in the Project branch.
MPS-28456	Fixed an issue in the MicroStation link that could cause title block synchronization to only work for the first drawing that is opened in a MicroStation instance and not for additional instances.
MPS-28463	A new command Update References has been added to the MicroStation link in MicroStation (x64) Connect Edition.

Client Improvements

The following improvements have been made to the PowerWeb client application unless otherwise noted.

Client improvements
Reference	Description
MPS-124	The Copy sub-menu has been removed from the folder shortcut menu.
MPS-19251	The Meridian Enterprise to Explorer synchronization has been improved so that if there is a corrupted document in a batch, only that batch fails and the rest of the synchronization job runs normally.
MPS-22108 MPS-22345	If a file is submitted to Forge and converted, you can now view it from PowerWeb. The Show rendition by Forge Native Viewer link allows you to view the document in Forge Viewer in a new browser tab as described in Third Party Viewers. If the rendition is already in Forge, you can change the URL of the Forge Viewer for that document as described in ChangeForgeURL method.
MPS-22787	Fixed an issue that could cause Meridian to stop working if a search is run with a very complicated DOS wildcard expression.
MPS-23682	A new option The latest released revision has been added to the Send to Meridian Portal dialog. When selected, the latest released revision of the document is sent to Meridian Portal instead of the working copy (default).
MPS-23687	The New Version and New Revision options are no longer available for import packages that have their import profile destination set to Meridian Portal.
MPS-23689 MPS-23690 MPS-23691	The Set Property Value command now allows the user to ignore validation rules per property instead of only for all properties. The audit log now includes the old property value as the third argument. The new option is only available to users with the new Advanced Set Property Value privilege described in Security Privilege Descriptions.
MPS-24000	If a document is locked to a package such as when sent to Meridian Portal, the name of the package can be found in the new AMDocumentPropertySet._LOCKPACKAGENAME property to confirm that it is safe to unlock the document.
MPS-24008 MPS-25367 MPS-26304	For the Send to Meridian Portal dialog Issue Reason option, the For Revision option is now available only for documents in an editable workflow state and assigned to the current user. The local workspace copies are synchronized to Meridian Portal before they are sent and the documents will stay locked until they are returned to Meridian from Meridian Portal and update the vault copy as described in Send Documents To Meridian Portal. If documents are released or not in an editable workflow state, the only option is For Information.
MPS-24725	The properties that may be selected as search criteria in folder searches as described in Find and the columns that are shown in the search results may now be configured by a System Administrator. For configuration information, see the Configuration Improvements section below.
MPS-24728	The collection name list in the Add to Collection dialog has been widened to 100 characters.
MPS-24838 MPS-26306	Users with the Advanced Document Properties privilege may now select from all defined properties in the Find dialog. Users without the privilege are limited to the properties specified in the Preferred for Search column collection as described in Configure Column Layouts.
MPS-25094	Fixed an issue that could cause error messages to be repeated in the progress dialog of batch operations.
MPS-25112	Fixed an issue that could cause Unable to set property 'serverUrl' of undefined or null reference errors when the page is manually refreshed while viewing a rendition in the viewer pane on Internet Explorer 11.
MPS-25186	Fixed an issue that could cause the References dialog to show the first revision of a selected document instead of the current revision when navigating between references.
MPS-25325	Routed properties can now be selected as search criteria as described in Find.
MPS-25393	Fixed an issue that could cause automatic CAD drawing title block updates that occur during a workflow transition to leave the local workspace file in a writable state and prevent further actions.
MPS-25637	A new command Reroute Projects has been added to the Workflow group of the Folder ribbon. It can be used to reroute an entire project in its workflow as described in Run a Workflow Transition.
MPS-25763	New documents that have not already synchronized to Meridian Explorer may now be sent to Meridian Portal without waiting for the synchronization to occur. They will be synchronized automatically when sent.
MPS-25880	Fixed an issue that could cause Cannot get object.; Object not found errors when a user opens PowerWeb to a previously visited document that has since been revoked.
MPS-25889	A new command Reset Profile has been added to the users' Preferences page that, when run, sets all options to their default values and clears any session errors.
MPS-26056	Fixed an issue that could cause The wait operation timed out errors when sending documents to Meridian Portal.
MPS-26183 MPS-26184	Once you have scanned an import package, the Documents list shows the Skipped Reason for each document that could not be imported. You can now filter the list to show only those that have metadata validation errors. If you download and open the metadata spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel, you can also filter the list based on Validation Status.
MPS-26207	Fixed an issue that could cause sending large PDF documents to Meridian Portal to fail.
MPS-26333	Fixed an issue that could cause A document or folder with this name already exists errors when an image is converted to a hybrid drawing, then moved to a different folder, and then moved back to its original folder.
MPS-26644	In MeridianPowerWeb, when you link a folder to a new Meridian Portal project, the Project Number and Project Name fields on the New Meridian Portal Project dialog box are automatically filled with the folder name.
MPS-26825	When you send a document to a contractor via Meridian Portal, that document can now be automatically acknowledged, accepted, and returned to the Meridian vault instead of requiring manual actions.
MPS-26769	The Create New Version command, which performed the same action as Replace Document, has been removed.
MPS-26847	Fixed an issue that could prevent corrupted AutoCAD drawings from logging errors when content searches fail.
MPS-26872	Fixed an issue that prevented changing the reference type restriction of an existing dynamic collection.
MPS-26939	In PowerUser, a script error no longer occurs when changing the state of a document on a Workflow transition that uses a script.
MPS-26980	When you start a workflow transition on a batch of documents in PowerWeb, the title bar of the dialog box that opens now shows the name of the document that is being edited.
MPS-27315	A synchronization error no longer occurs when: A new document is created in Meridian Portal. The new document is sent to Meridian Explorer. A new change is started on the document in Meridian Explorer. The document is sent to Meridian Portal for revision. Previously, this was resolved by running the Explorer Sync job before sending the document to Meridian Portal.
MPS-27391	We've made performance improvements so that when one cache server is unavailable, performance for all users is not degraded. When using HTTPS, it is now mandatory to install the site cache server certificate on the Meridian Enterprise Server machine otherwise the server is marked as invalid and an error is shown in the BC Application Events.
MPS-27571 MPS-28097 MPS-28851 MPS-28852 MPS-28873	Minor UI improvements.
MPS-28160	Fixed an issue that could cause packages to fail to be sent to Portal if the repository synchronization job configuration specified the vault name in FQDN format.
MPS-28243	Fixed an issue that could cause the Select User dialog box to appear with an empty user list in a specific environment configuration.
MPS-28271	Fixed an issue that could cause the workflow state to be changed only for the first 30 documents in a batch when the batch was rerouted a different state.
MPS-28420	Fixed an issue that could cause only the first document in a batch to be sent to Portal when the batch is routed to a custom workflow state.

Configuration Improvements

The following improvements have been made to the configuration of Meridian Enterprise.

Configuration improvements
Reference	Description
MPS-17175	A new option This expression must return an empty string has been added to the Validation tab of custom property configurations as described in Restrict User Input.
MPS-23639	When a file name is calculated from a document type, it is no longer truncated after the last period (.) before the file extension. For example, if aaa.bbb.1000.jpg is calculated, that is used for the file name instead of truncating it to aaa.bbb.jpg.
MPS-23688	A new column collection named Set Property Value has been added to the Environment branch in Meridian Configurator as described in Configure column layouts. This collection is intended to restrict the properties that users may select for the Set Property Value command described in Set a property value. Note: The vault must be upgraded as described in Upgrade Meridian vaults to make this collection available. The Available columns list will also contain document properties.
MPS-23689 MPS-23690 MPS-25700	A new privilege named Advanced Set Property Value has been added as described in Security Privilege Descriptions. It can be used to restrict the users that may select from all defined properties when using the Set Property Value command and to disable validation rules per property as described in Set a property value. The audit log now includes the old value of the property.
MPS-24009 MPS-26342 MPS-28098	The Send to Meridian Portal for revision check box has been added to the Workflow Definition State options as described in Create And Edit States. When selected and a user transitions to that workflow state, the usual pane that allows the user to select to-do persons is replaced with a pane that allows them to select the Meridian Portal users who are to receive the documents.
MPS-24725	A new column collection named Folder Search Result Columns has been added to the Environment branch in Meridian Configurator as described in Configure column layouts. This collection specifies the properties that users may select as search criteria in folder searches and the columns that are shown in the search results. Note: The vault must be upgraded as described in Upgrade Meridian vaults to make this collection available. The Available columns list will also contain document properties.
MPS-19671 MPS-25770 MPS-25771	A new option Unlock all project documents from local workspace has been added to project workflow configurations as described in Configure Transition Document Control.
MPS-26602	A new option Document imported from Portal has been added to email notification event configuration.
MPS-26603	A user group may now be configured to receive email notifications when an import package fails as described in Create an Import Profile.
MPS-27299	Fixed an issue that could cause user names to be shown in an incorrect format on custom property pages.
MPS-28046	Fixed an issue that could cause lookup list fields to appear with incorrect widths in edit mode when the DataList registry value is set to 1.
MPS-28258	Fixed an issue with a particular revision number configuration that could cause the revision number of a project copy to be reused for subsequent project copies.
MPS-28453	Fixed an issue that could cause custom multi-line messages to not be shown correctly when a custom workflow transition authentication expression does not return True.

Customization Improvements

The following improvements have been made to the Meridian Enterprise customization features (VBScript).

Customization improvements
Reference	Description
MPS-211	The performance of the GetUsersWithRole method has been significantly improved.
MPS-335 MPS-27696	The GoTo method is now supported by PowerWeb.
MPS-17171 MPS-17176 MPS-25724 MPS-25725 MPS-25728 MPS-25736 MPS-26406 MPS-26971	The Batch object has been extended with a new property and methods that provide alternatives to WinMsgBox and WinInputBox, which are not supported by PowerWeb. These extensions can be used to implement custom confirmation dialogs for workflow transitions in the new DocCWFEvent_PreInitializeExecuteTransition and DocCWFEvent_PreBeforeExecuteTransition events and existing events described in DocCWFEvent_*ExecuteTransition Events. A new property ConfirmationTitle is available as well as new methods AskInput, AskConfirmation, Confirmation, and ShowInfo as described in Batch Object. Several data types as well as the Memo type are supported for user input.
MPS-17211	Fixed an issue that could prevent a property override expression from being calculated for every document in a batch during a workflow transition.
MPS-22345	A new ForgeURL property and ChangeForgeURL method have been added to the Document object in the VBScript API.
MPS-26849	The IsChangedByPortal property has been added to the Document object in the VBScript API.
MPS-27326 MPS-27327	We've added these in the VBScript API for PowerWeb to allow you to determine the document types that are configured for the current scope: DocumentTypes property to the Scope object DocGenericEvent_BeforeSelectDocType event
MPS-27981	Fixed an issue with the GetUsersWithRole method that caused it to return all users regardless of their role membership when invoked by the Rescue Account.

Viewer Improvements

The following improvements have been made to the Meridian Enterprise viewer.

Viewer improvements
Reference	Description
MPS-22105 MPS-22108	Autodesk Forge is now supported for viewing AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Revit, and SolidWorks drawings.
MPS-25196	Fixed an issue that could prevent annotations from being saved for a user with extended characters in their full name.
MPS-25446	Fixed an issue that could prevent the viewer from loading documents from a site cache after the first document is viewed in a session.
MPS-26137	Fixed an issue that could cause a manually attached rendition to appear for all prior revisions of the document. The issue does not occur for automatically generated renditions.
MPS-27100	The default zoom level of the PDFtron viewer is now the full page.
MPS-28549	Fixed an issue that could cause the source document to be shown instead of its rendition when opened from a full-screen property window.
MPS-29308	The rendition tab is now shown for 3D models if the Autodesk Forge configuration is invalid.
MPS-29794	The Autodesk Forge Rendering Module now supports IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) and DGN (Bentley MicroStation) formats.
MPS-29795	The default value for the LargeViewFileSizeToWarnInKb setting, which determines the threshold before displaying a warning about Forge rendition file size has been increased to 51200 KB as described in Customize the user interface.
MPS-29798	These unsupported file formats were removed from the Autodesk Forge Rendering Module: slddrw: rfa: drw:

Explorer Improvements

We made these improvements to Meridian Explorer.

What’s new in 2020 R2
Reference	Description
MPS-19674	The security of Meridian Explorer has been improved.
MPS-21700	The Download command has been divided into separate Download (to LWS) and Download Rendition (to LWS) commands.
MPS-25911	Fixed an issue that could cause the wrong watermark to be shown in Print Preview mode.
MPS-25286	Fixed an issue that could cause Access denied errors when attempting to view a prior revision with PDFTron configured as the viewer.
MPS-25267	Fixed an issue that could cause documents to stop being shown in the viewer after deleting redlines and refreshing the page.
MPS-26118	Fixed an issue that could cause the error Invalid XOD file: Zip end header is wrong size! when viewing a superseded revision of a document.
MPS-26185	We have added the Stop on validation error option to the SCAN OPTIONS group in the Miscellaneous page that appears when you create an import profile. If the Do not import package if property validation failed check box is selected, when you scan the import package and there are validation errors, that import package cannot be imported and an error message is shown in the Status field.
MPS-28178	Fixed performance issues with multiple site caches.
MPS-28602	By default, synchronization between Meridian Explorer repositories and their Meridian Enterprise source vaults, is now done in batches of documents as described in Configure the application options. Pre-2017 sync mode is not supported.
MPS-29329	Fixed an issue that could cause searches to return incomplete results due to timeout errors .
MPS-29863	If a file is submitted to Forge and converted, you can now view it from Meridian Explorer. The Open in Forge button allows you to view the document in Forge Viewer in a new browser tab as described in Third Party Viewers. If the rendition is already in Forge, you can change the URL of the Forge Viewer for that document as described in ChangeForgeURL method.

Publisher Improvements

We made these updates to Publisher.

What’s new in 2020 R2
Reference	Description
MPS-19574	A new option Enable layer support has been added to the Acme CAD Converter rendering module as described in Configure the Acme CAD Converter Rendering Module.
MPS-22424 MPS-24117	The Autodesk Forge Rendering Module is available for rendering AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Revit, and SolidWorks drawings as described in Autodesk Forge Rendering Module.
MPS-19942 MPS-25766 MPS-27000	A new job template Synchronize Content has been added as described in Publishing Jobs and Configure Content Synchronization Options. The job can be used to automatically synchronize properties and references from documents.
MPS-24991	Fixed an issue that could prevent source files from being published when the Publish the source document option is enabled for jobs with SharePoint and file system destinations.
MPS-25363	Fixed an issue that could cause No storage available. ; The system cannot find the path specified errors when updating renditions.
MPS-25373	A new rendering option Disable XOD generation has been added to publishing jobs as described in Configure Rendering Options.
MPS-25767 MPS-26873	A new job type Synchronize Content has been added that can be used to synchronize document properties and references as described in Configure Content Synchronization Options.
MPS-27614	Fixed an issue that could cause sending a package to Meridian Portal to fail if a repository synchronization job is already running at the same time. The package transfer will now wait until the synchronization job has finished.
MPS-28946	Fixed an issue that could cause assets synchronized from Maintenance Connection to be deleted when a sync validation job is run.
MPS-28662	Minor UI improvements.

2020 R2 Release Notes

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