IMan Version 6 represents a major step-forward for IMan and will form the basis for our cloud native solution to be offered later this year.

The goals for V6 are to make IMan more intuitive and easier to use. We have achieved this by better information and feedback to integration designers (yourselves), enabling them to created integrations more quickly. The design of these features has used user-feedback and drawn inspiration for other products we use on a daily basis such as Postman, Visual Studio and text editors.

• A major component of V6 is the new user interface for the Setup and Schedule screens. The Setup screens have had radical improvement to increase feedback with connection tracing and ability to preview the results of the particular record being edited.
• New Tiered Lookup – Tiered lookups allow you to define cascading lists of data which can be queried through an accompanying TieredLookup function. Tiered Lookups can have differing rules attached to any one lookup. For example shipping rules can be maintained where rules are based on differing combinations of criteria i.e. weight, supplier, quantity, product type.
• Authentication – New OpenIDDict compliant authentication and authorisation.
• Preview Screen – A trace tab has been added to the Preview. This enables users to see the detailed requests and the corresponding responses.

The improvements have been facilitated by a major upgrade of our backend services, made through a migration from .net framework to.net core.

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• The new backend services (meta-data, preview, logging, etc) have each added a raft of new features and performance improvements.
• A performance improvement of between 20-40% of the main IMan processing runtime (IntManEng.exe).
• Setup, DataService and Schedule screens now streamed results and traces immediately back.

The setup screens have been upgrade to our new UI.

• Improved entry validation across each of the setup screens.
• Database Connections – Can now test parameterised connection strings.
• Counters – Live preview of sequence.
• Custom Functions – Custom functions can now be tested.
• (Database) Lookups – Ability to test lookups and see the results in a grid next to request.
  

  

• Webservices Basic and OAuth Authentication – Each setup now has a live preview to show the exact request that will be made.
• Webservices (General) – Improved request header setup, with defaults and better ‘Authorization’ header handling.
• Webservice Lookup – Webservice lookups can now be tested with a trace of the request and response shown to the right of the setup.
  

  

• Webservice Behaviour – Improved setup screen with ability to jump to specific section; ability to test the setup.
• FTP/SSH, Smtp and Pop – Each form now has a connection trace to the right of the setup.
  

  

• System Connectors – Ability to test (finally) system connectors.

The scheduler setup and viewer page has also been upgraded to the new UI.

• Improved responsiveness – schedule setup is improved and audit logs are streamed directly to the job viewer page.
• Run now button eliminates the need
• Improved schedule setup, removing the need to specify a description (it’s the schedule frequency and start time which does).
• Ability to jump from the summary directly to any errors or warning in the detail section.

  

• New OpenIDConnect compliant authentication mechanism, bringing IMan inline with current security.
• Ability to easily reset passwords.
• New user setup screens.
• (Near Future) Support for Entra and MFA will be added.
  

  

• A trace tab has been added to the Preview – displaying debug and trace data from the resource being consumed, the data being written or the transform being executed.

  For example, web requests will display the request and responses being made to the webservice. Where possible the trace will format any responses into an easily navigable form i.e. JSON and Xml type data adds ability to expand collapse each of their nodes.

• Preview area is much more performant with results and traces being streamed, as soon as they are generated.

  

Tiered lookups allow you to define cascading lists where the choices change based on the value selected on the previously selected values.

Tiered lookups can be used to capture and maintain sets of data exhibiting these characteristics. For example, an eCommerce integration may require shipping costs to be calculated based on differing sets of factor.

For example, an eCommerce integration for drop-ship orders may require shipping costs to be calculated based on differing sets of criteria. One set of products may use weight and quantity, whereas another uses a combination of destination postcode and product type.

Tiered lookups allow you to define the differing sets of rules (and values) whilst keeping them under the same lookup ‘entity’.

• Values can be either a value, a range of values, a set list of values, or a value which has a different set of rules.
• Each value defined as it’s own rule can define its own child sets of values (a value, a range, a list of values).

VBScript Enhancements and Functions

• Enhancements to the Sum, Mininum, Maximum, Count and Distinct fields allow each function to include a criteria for evaluating the value. For example Minimum(“field”, “record”, “criteriaField”, %criteriaValue).
• A new In function allows you to check for the existence of a value either in a list/array of child set of transactions.
• First and Last functions allows you to get the first or last values from either a list/array of child set of transactions.

Connector and MetaData

• Connectors now have a meta data refresh button, removing the need to stop/start services when a new field/optional field/analysis code/dimension is added.
• The whole suite of connectors can now be refreshed – removing the need to stop/start services.