Reflow 1.5.0

Check out the What's New in Reflow 1.5 video at the bottom of the page for a deep dive in to all of the new features!

This release contains new features for almost every system in Reflow. Highlights include a redesigned and more powerful floor plan editor, building and equipment groups, and more robust charting components in histories.

Niagara 4.10.1 Notice

There is a known issue affecting all versions of Reflow in Workbench on Niagara 4.10.1. This issue only affects access to Reflow in Workbench and does not affect Reflow on 4.10.1 stations or in web browsers. A fix for this will be released by Tridium in a future version of Niagara Workbench 4.10. For more details consult the Reflow Documentation.

Buildings

• NEW Groups
  • Buildings can now be grouped together to form Campuses and Regions or just for better organization
  • The Building Dropdown will also show buildings grouped
    • You can turn this off under Navigation
• Buildings Index page (All Buildings) has received a graphics overhaul to accommodate the new Groups options and provide a fresh, more interactive and data-centric experience
  
  

• The Buildings map has had its popup cards updated to reflect the new style
• A warning has been added to the Buildings Index Page configuration explaining that it will not appear when there is only one building in the Reflow Config,
• A warning has been added to the Buildings Index Page configuration when 'Map + Grid' or 'Map' Layouts are selected and no building exists with location specified

Equipment

• NEW Groups
  • Groups are special Equipment Types that allow you to combine groups of devices in to a single page; for example combine pumps, pipes, sensors, and chillers in to a Chilled Water System
  • Groups link to and display all devices that are assigned to them
  • Each group has its own integrated dashboard allowing for full customization of the view
    
    

• Device Config
  • NEW Change Device Ords – the base ord of Reflow devices can now be changed by editing the device. Changing this ord will prompt a points remap on the new device ord
  • NEW Points on devices can now be linked from anywhere in Niagara instead of being limited to children of the device's base ord
  • When adding devices, the ord picker now shows a small Reflow icon next to devices that are already added to Reflow
• NEW File Attachments - images (jpg, svg, gif, png), documents (doc, docx, pdf) and spreadsheets (xls, xlsx) can now be attached to devices. A new 'Attachments' button will appear on the device graphics of devices with attachments
  
  

• Summary Views – added paging controls to the top and bottom of the page for both grid and table views
• Device Graphics
  • The point action form when expanding points has been restyled and now expanded vertically instead of horizontally

Alarms

• NEW Custom Alarm Consoles
  • Create custom alarm consoles in addition to the global alarms page provided by Reflow
  • Custom consoles can be assigned to buildings allowing for quicker setup and more reusability
• A new property named 'Alarm Record Limit' has been added to the ReflowService that sets the maximum number of alarm records returned from Niagara. This property eliminates memory/heap issues when a large numbers (more than 10,000 records on Supervisors or more than 2,000-3,000 records on JACEs) of alarm records are compiled for Reflow in the station. This property can be safely increased, however when increasing to more than 2,000 records you should monitor your station's memory usage and heap settings – you may need to allocate more memory to the heap depending on the setting.

Histories

• NEW Chart System Upgrade
  • The chart system has been migrated to a new library that is faster, smaller, and provides a better foundation for new functionality in the future. Charts remain relatively the same, although there are minor differences
  • You can now compare time-over-time history data
  • Comparisons can be added by clicking on the history label at the top of the chart
• Exports
  • Exports have moved from the chart controls to the toolbar above the chart in the History Builder under the new 'Exports' button
  • CSV export supports an unlimited number of histories (from just 1 in previous builds)
  • CSV export now supports Boolean history types

Dashboards

• NEW History Chart Card - fully interactive history dashboard card with the ability to export data
  

• NEW Schedule List Card – lists selected schedules and their current values
• Hyperlink Card – the horizontal text alignment can now be set in the card configuration

Floor Plans – States

• NEW Floor plans can now have multiple states. The visibility of elements can be changed on a per state basis. All other properties for Elements are global and will not change based on State
• End-users can switch between states in the Reflow View by using the new dropdown located next to the floor dropdown menu on the top right of the page; these drop-downs can be hidden from end-users in the Reflow view by unchecking the option in the new 'Layout Options' tab in the editor
  
  

• Added a dropdown in the Elements tab to quickly switch between states
• The new States management tab has been added next to the Elements tab
• States can be linked to from any link picker by expanding the floor item

Floor Plans – Elements

• NEW Actions
  • Elements have a new configuration tab called 'Action' that allows additional interactivity options when end-users click on elements
  • In addition to 'Hyperlink', point actions can be invoked, a list of point actions can be displayed to the user, state can be set, or a state selector menu can be displayed
  • Hyperlink properties on all elements have been moved to the new Action tab
• NEW Groups – you can now group elements in to folders called 'Groups'. Hidden groups will hide all of their children automatically
• NEW Multiple selection - you can now hold the shift key and click on elements in the Canvas or in the Elements pane to select multiple elements at one time. Elements can be moved together on the Canvas and managed in the properties panes
• NEW Copy & Paste – you can now copy and paste settings between property panes. Use the new toolbar on each property tab or right-click on an element to select which settings to copy and paste
  
  

• NEW Status-based Dynamic Colors - you can now choose to color elements based on a point's status instead of its value
• NEW Button Element – used to create Reflow-style buttons on Floor Plans
• NEW Icon Element – add content from the library of more than 1,800 icons
• Zone Element
  

• Add points to zones by selecting the zone and hovering the cursor near the edges of the shape. Click to add a new point
• Remove points from zones by right clicking on the point while the zone is selected
• Zones can now optionally display a tooltip on hover (in Desktop mode). When enabled, the Zone name will appear along with the point value of the dynamic color if a dynamic color is enabled on the Zone. On mobile, the dynamic color's point will appear in the Zone label if the tooltip is enabled.
• Hovering zones with a mouse cursor now causes all other zones to fade out slightly. This can be behavior can be disabled in the new 'Layout Options' tab in the editor with the 'Highlight Zone on Hover' checkbox
• A new option has been added to toggle off hiding of non-zone elements while drawing zones. This option appears in the top toolbar when in zone drawing mode
• New zones are no longer created at the bottom of the list (behind all other elements) and are instead created at the top consistent with all other element types
• Image Element
  • Added a 'Hover Opacity' property to change transparency of images when a user's mouse is over them
• Label Element
  • NEW Status Indicator - choose to display status for a value with a colored dot or colored icon indicating the status
  • Properties and Bindings tabs have been changed to be more consistent with other elements
    • The Properties tab is now first
    • The Visible on Mobile List checkbox has been moved to the Properties tab
• Misc
  • Context menu options have been added to show and hide elements on all States
  • Width, Height, X and Y position can now be set for non-SVG based elements including Label, Text, Button, Icon, and Image
  • Element visibility is now defined at the State level. Hiding or showing an element will hide it on the active State

Floor Plans – Editor User Interface

• Dark Theme - the tools now use a dark with which helps content stand out in the editor
• Margin and padding have been removed from the views and panes to provide as much room as possible for content
• The tab panes on the right hand side of the editor can be resized both vertically and horizontally by dragging their borders
• The 'Actions' tab next to 'Canvas Settings' has been renamed to the 'Macros' pane
• The Elements Toolbar has been moved from the top toolbars to the right hand side
• Elements Action Bar - a new action bar is located at the bottom of the Elements pane
  • The "Duplicate Element" and "Delete Element" buttons have been moved here
  • Buttons for "Show All Elements" and "Hide All Elements" have been added to the toolbar
• Items in the Elements pane have had their styles updated to make it more obvious which element is selected and which elements are hidden

Floor Plan Canvas

• New Canvas Form
  • The form has been updated from a simple button to include all of the new options below
  • An option is available to create Label elements for all devices assigned to the floor when creating the Canvas
• Canvases no longer require a background image
• Background color for canvases can not be set in the Canvas Settings
• Canvas dimensions (width and height) can now be set independently from the background image
  • A new option is available to maintain the aspect ratio of the image when setting width or height
  • A new option to use the image size as the dimensions has been added and is set by default, uncheck this option to set custom dimensions
  • Fit Image to Canvas option has been added to stretch the background image to the dimensions of the canvas; this option will cause the image to skew if the dimensions of a canvas do not have the same aspect ratio as the image dimensions
  • The Margin setting has been removed; to add margin around the image increase the canvas dimensions; Pre-1.5.0 canvases have had their canvas dimensions updated to account for the margin setting during the 1.5.0 migration
  • The Image Scale setting and value has been changed to 'Element Scale' for clarity; this setting continues to change the size of elements (labels, zones, text, etc) in relation to the background image
  • Preferred label size mode can be set on each canvas. New labels will use this size mode on the canvas when created.

Pages – Custom Sub Navigations

• NEW Added support for Sub Navigations on custom pages
• Global Sub Navigation colors can be set in the Theme > Colors > Sub Navigation Colors in the config menu. These will apply globally unless overridden for a specific Sub Navigation
• All Sub Navigations (including Building Sub Navigations) can now be edited in one place at Navigation > Sub Navigations in the config menu

Misc

• NEW Automated Backups
  • Incremental Backups - When enabled, a backup of the Reflow configuration will automatically be made and saved as "Incremental Backup" when any changes are made the configuration. This backup is taken when the configuration is saved and will only occur once every hour. When a new incremental backup is taken, it will replace the existing backup file. This feature is on by default and can be turned off in Settings > Backup or on the property sheet of the ReflowService.
  • Daily Backups - When enabled, a backup of the Reflow configuration will automatically be made every 24 hours. This backup file is called "Daily Backup" and new daily backups will replace the existing backup file. This feature is turned off by default, and can be enabled in Settings > Backup or on the property sheet of the ReflowService.
• NEW Config View Access - Restrict Reflow Config View access to specific Niagara users with a new option in the Settings > User Profiles configuration
• The Reflow View and Reflow Redirect View now explicitly require "r" read permissions
• The Reflow Config View now explicitly requires "rw" read/write permissions
• Settings - this menu has been reorganized and streamlined
  • 'Configuration Backups' has been renamed to 'Backups'
  • 'Configuration Options' has been renamed to 'Additional Options'
  • The order of menu items has changed to move more commonly accessed items to the top
• Phoenix Contact controller Host IDs (PxC) are now supported in Reflow JACE and JACE Pro licenses
• The default icon for a building without a photo has been changed when grouping equipment by building/floor
• A loading spinner now appears while the Reflow Niagara widgets are loading instead of a blank screen. This is particularly helpful in Workbench to monitor if the widget is properly loading. In Workbench, a message appears under this spinner reminding users that the Reflow experience is better in a modern web browser
• After 3 minutes of loading in Reflow Workbench, a warning message will appear with a documentation link to help integrators diagnose long loading times or loading errors

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where items would scroll offscreen on the mobile view of Table Cards when vertical alignment was set to 'center' and the card height was set to 'double'
• Buildings Landing Page now shows 5 floor plan cards alongside the "All Floor Plans" card, and no longer counts hidden floors when doing this calculation
• When making a new Alarm dashboard card, the title will now auto-populate
• Equipment Summary Views now save when editing Points Template
• Top navigation will now wrap in cases where the logo is very long and there are multiple nav items forced to be shown on smaller/tablet viewports.
• Fixed an issue where hyperlinks with long names would hide the edit and clear buttons in Table dashboard card configuration
• Fixed an issue where floor plan elements could be deleted from the canvas when the backspace or delete key was pressed inside of a color picker
• Non-interactive items in floor plans will no longer prevent a user from dragging to scrub if the cursor is hovering them
• Fixed a bug where equipment could be incorrectly mapped when using the finish button
• Fixed a bug in Reflow Config View where floor plans previewed in mobile landscape would load with a zoom level set to the desktop zoom. This bug did not affect users on actual mobile devices
• Fixed a bug where disabled buildings could appear when grouping devices by building on the global Equipment Index page
• Fixed bug where resizing your window didn't refit floor plans
• Fixed a bug in equipment point mapping where special characters including parenthesis will could mapping issues
• Fixed a bug in the Reflow link picker where equipment type items would properly be expanded if a device child was selected
• The Cross Origin helper for URL Dashboard cards and Web Page custom Pages now accepts // as valid starting characters for a URL
• The Cross Origin helper for URL Dashboard cards and Web Page custom Pages now adds custom ports to the Cross Origin list
• Fixed a bug where the History Builder wouldn't update when you change the range on the table view
• Relative paths in alarm extension hyperlinks are now properly supported in Reflow
• Fixed an issue where the alarm action bar would sometimes not display when multiple records were checked
• Fixed a bug making it hard to interact with Elements at the top of the canvas in the Floor Plan Editor
• Fixed a bug where Image elements used the label icon in the Elements pane of the Floor Plan Editor

1.5.0.156 Patch – 10/11/2021

• Enabled comparison to History Chart dashboard cards in the history picker modal
• Enabled export and time range options to the featured history widget on the landing page
• Fixes bug in the formatting of labels along axises for certain date/time ranges
• Fixes bug that caused incorrect time periods to show when comparing Today vs. Yesterday on Histories
• Fixes bug where where Building Groups and Element Groups were only clickable on their labels

What's New in Reflow 1.5 – Deep Dive Video