Stat 6.1 is GA!

On behalf of the Stat team, I’m pleased to announce the release of Stat 6.1.  I will cover the highlights of the release in this blog, but encourage you to read the release notes in detail to understand the full scope of the release.

The biggest single item in this release is a 64-bit Windows client, which can either be installed on each user’s desktop, or run directly from a network drive.  Obviously, using the Stat 64-bit Windows client eliminates the need to install the 32-bit Oracle client.  We are delivering 32 and 64-bit Stat Windows clients in 6.1, but are considering removing 32-bit Stat Windows client in 6.2.0 release. If this would be a problem for you, please contact me at richard.schiller@quest.com.  For those who are running Stat for SQL Server and Peoplesoft on SQL Server, make sure that you install SQL Server Native Client 11.  Here is a KB article explaining the need for the native client.

You may notice other minor changes in the Windows client, including new icons, a new Rich Text Editor for Description/Resolution editing, and a new File Compare tool.  The Project Gantt tool was removed because there is no 64-bit 3^rd party component that can support it.  Third party controls for ftp, sftp, ssh and zip were moved from the Windows Client to the Stat Central Agent.  This means that your Stat Central Agent must be running to perform those functions.  In some cases (connection refused error, for example), you may need to restart your Stat Central Agent with the –b=<hostname of Central Agent host>.  Here is a KB article to help troubleshoot this situation.

A Configuration Guide is a new feature in the Windows client added to help customers configuring new installations.  The configuration guide lists the mandatory and optional configuration steps, in the recommended order that a user would complete them, and includes a status indicator and drill path that allows them to review and modify the configuration details of each item.

New functions related to managing Oracle E-Business agents from the Windows client include starting and stopping the agent, viewing log and edit conf files, showing SSH logs for debugging SSH issues, and the ability to display and change the current log level.

Changes to the Web Client include a new Query Settings Wizard, a CSR Migration path (for technical users), and a What’s New screen in the “Help/About” section.

For VCM integration, we have now added path configurations specific to each object type.  Object type sub-paths will make it possible to better align Stat to custom VCM directory structures.  The change was made to support Perforce and PVCS VCMs in 6.1.  In 6.2, we expect to add that for SVN, CVS, GIT and TFS. 

Other improvements taken directly from the Stat Ideas community page include:

• Ability to define labels for 3 fields… This was more broadly implemented as the ability to customize labels for the Web Client (STAT-2286)
• Allow Multiple Custom OAF directories (Stat-1898)
• Update CSRs with the new workflow changes (Stat-2659)
• Ability to copy a file from Archive Set to logged on user's working directory (Stat-2147)
• Stat Business Rules Email Content Enhancement Request/Change the subject of email for the business rule "CSR Update" (Stat-1903)
• Include the Alt# field in the console view column list (Stat-1905)
• Create archive set automatically with the action and upgrade checks of an environment (Stat-1904)

We have added support for PeopleTools 8.56, and many other minor improvements including the ability to auto-advance CSR workflows based on Migration, Patch Apply or Task Rules, a simplified Public Key Maintenance window, loading AOL objects based on the valid products in each E-Business environment, allowing multiple values in the parameter (OA CUSTOM_OAF_DIR) that defines directory locations for custom OAF objects, exporting data to PDF formats, and adding the user name into the User Rights Report.

We are starting work on the 6.2 release now.  I will be publishing a blog in a few weeks covering the targeted contents for 6.2, and will be soliciting feedback on the design of several of the features.