What’s New in XFRACAS Version 2021

XFRACAS Version 2021 has many new features and enhancements.

Refreshed Interface

XFRACAS now has an updated interface with new icons and a modern, more readable, user-friendly design.

Security Levels

XFRACAS now provides the ability to restrict specified users from accessing certain incident, problem, project and CSI records, along with any actions and failure analyses that are associated with these records. Application admins can define security levels, which can then be assigned to users and applied to individual records. Only users who have the required security level for a given record will be able to view it. In addition, we have implemented measures to ensure that file attachments can now be downloaded securely.

See About Security Details and Security Levels (user help) for more information.

History Logging and Reporting

XFRACAS implementations that use a SQL Server database (version 2016 or later) now support history logging, which tracks changes to records and facilitates historical reporting. Once this is enabled, users can generate reports that show a historical "snapshot" of data as it existed at a specified point in time.

See Viewing Historical Data (user help) for more information.

Change Notifications

Users can now receive a daily e-mail digest that lists any records (incident, problem, project and/or CSI) that have been updated within the last 24 hours (or since the last digest was sent). The digest is subscription-based; users must subscribe to each record they wish to include in this list. Note that this feature requires the XFRACAS Data Import Utility (DIU) service to be running.

See Getting Notified when Records Are Updated (user help) for more information.

View Tracking

Users can now generate reports that include information about who has viewed a particular set of records and when they viewed them. This feature is available for standard incident, problem, CSI, action and failure analysis reports and for reports that are based on these standard reports.

See Tracking Views (user help) for more information.

Ability to Suspend Account Access Due to Inactivity

XFRACAS can now be configured to automatically disable account access after users fail to log in for a specified period (e.g., 30 days). This service also supports the use of e-mail alerts to warn users that their account access is due to expire within a specified number of days. It requires the DIU service to be running.

See Disabling Account Access Due to Inactivity for more information.

Ability to Associate Incidents to a Problem via Reports and Charts

XFRACAS now provides an easy way to associate large groups of incidents to problems. Once a user generates a standard incident report, they can create a brand new problem that contains all of the incidents in that report; alternatively, they can assign the incidents to one or more existing problems. Charts provide an even more granular way to do this using the drill-down function to create a subset of incidents.

See Associating Multiple Incidents to Problems from Reports and Charts (user help) for more information.

Lookup List Merge

XFRACAS now includes new functionality for merging options (and their associated values) in lookup lists. Designed to address a common issue when importing records from other systems, the Merge command allows admin users to select multiple list options and merge their values into a single option.

See “Merging List Values” for more information.

Tip Files Customization

Admin users now have the ability to customize the look and feel of “tips” files in XFRACAS via a separate CSS file. This ensures that CSS changes will not affect the main XFRACAS website.

See “Static Pages” in the Implementation Guide for more information.

New Functions for Calculating Criticality

XFRACAS now provides the ability to calculate criticality using the maximum or minimum value within a group of two or more specified values.

See Configuring Criticality Metrics for more information.

Information for Tracking Reused Parts

XFRACAS now shows accumulated hours and other key details for serialized parts that have been repaired or replaced, making it easy to track these parts across systems when they are reused. This information includes the part disposition, time metrics (e.g., run hours, number of starts, kW run hours) and a link to the related incident. It appears for the selected part in Serialized pages as well as in the Repair or Replace Parts utility.

See Serialized Page and Repair or Replace Parts Utility (user help) for more information.

New Filtering Option for Reports

The Report Builder now includes a "Does Not Contain" operator for use in creating filter criteria. This allows users to generate reports with records that do not contain a certain text string in the specified field.

Ability to Edit Time/Usage Data in the Repair or Replace Parts Table

Users can now edit time/usage data (e.g., “Run Hours,” “Number of Starts” or “kw Run Hours”) directly in the Repair or Replace Parts table within an incident; it's no longer necessary to delete and then re-enter all of the formation for the new part to change these values.

See Incident Repair Information Area (user help) for more information.

Streamlined Import Processes

When importing part data into XFRACAS from an XLSX file, you can now specify whether to use existing parts or add new ones to the system template.

See XML and XSLX Templates for more information.

In addition, you can now export an XLSX import template that is pre-populated with HIDs and Part IDs; you no longer need to enter these values manually when importing a serialized system.

See Tips for Importing Serialized Systems for more information.

Performance Enhancements

Version 2021 has improved performance when handling large data sets (more than 1,000,000 records). It also has improved abilities for handling large diagnostic and import logs, which now display the most recent 1,000 records per page and include a count of the total number of records.

Online Implementation Guide

The XFRACAS Implementation Guide is now available in an online format as well as in the traditional printer-friendly format (PDF)