Introducing Seamless Quality Window 5 support
Quality Window 6 now supports Quality Window 5 data format seamlessly and now allows customers to install Quality Window 6 and immediately transition without the need to migrate their data. See Quality Window 6.1 Upgrade guide for further details on the upgrade.
For customers already using Quality Window 6, the only difference this update will have on your experience is quality window data files will now use the quality window 5 file extensions by default. Any existing quality windows 6 files will continue to work as is with their existing file extensions without issue.
Workstations users can now open Quality Window 5 files in Quality Window 6 without issue, benefit from supported software and Quality Window 6’s new capabilities.
Administrators, users can manage their Quality Window 5 applications immediately without worrying that they will break compatibility with Quality Window 5. The only exception to the seamless experience is scripts and macros. Please see our Upgrade guide for further details.
What does this mean for existing Quality Window 6 customers?
There should be no impact to existing customer deployments. QW6 customer will notice we are no longer saving files with the QWT6|QWD6|QVM6 ect… extensions and this version is now saving the same extensions as QW5.
The exception to this is the global script, for reasons related to protecting the existing QW6 customers, this is left unchanged at QWX6.
Any existing application with the 6 series extensions will continue to work as is and do not require migration or special handling.
Script Updates
As an admin of existing QW6 deployments, if any of your scripts reference older references, you will be prompted to upgrade them when the application is opened in admin. It is recommended to do this, though not critical. See section below on Script Editor improvements for more information.
New Features
Email Notifications for Rule Violations
In this version Busitech has added a new capability that allows organizations to get email notifications when a Rule violation occurs on a record update. See our Email Notification Administration Guide for all details about this new feature.
QW Workstation Improvements
Performance improvements
Busitech has invested considerable time to improve the performance of Quality Window and in some cases, users may see an increase of close to 30% in load times.
Open Application Dialog
Open Application Performance improvements – In some customer configurations where a network folder has hundreds of applications, the open application dialogue can take a long time to load or even lock up. Even though Busitech would guide customers towards more organization of their applications as a best practice, especially on a network, we have removed the application title unless the user has the show application details checked which will decrease the network load when on this screen.
QW Admin
Manage Applications Improvements
Improved Deleting referenced Variable Experience – When deleting a variable that is referenced elsewhere in the application (calculations, lookup, general setting etc.) the following experience improvements have been added:
- To ensure clarity, the deletion of multiple variables was removed. Administrators now must delete 1 variable at a time.
- When a variable that is referenced is deleted, an error message will be displayed indicating the variable is referenced and where it is referenced. This allows administrators to go and update the reference.
- When a variable that is referenced is deleted the variable reference panel will automatically be enabled allowing the administrator to view all references for the selected variable.
Manage Rules Improvements
Email Notifications – In this release, notifications were added to rule definitions, enabling administrators to optionally configure email notifications for rule violations. . See our Email Notification Administration Guide for all details about this new feature.
Save Rules confirmation – a save confirmation dialog was added notifying administrators that rules configuration has been successfully saved.
Rule Identifier Locked – It was discovered that when editing rules, if a rule identifier is edited to a different value, that there may be undesirable consequences based on customer feedback. To avoid confusing impacts, Busitech chose to make Rule Identifiers read-only once set. If an administrator needs rename a rule, they should delete the rule and create a new one.
Quality Window Security Improvements
Manage Configuration Permission – In this release, a new permission was added to the QW Administration to provide more governance options to customers. The new “Manage Configuration” permission limits access to the following Shared Data and Scripts administration consoles:
- Directory Files
- Manage Units
- Manage Statistics
- Manage Rules
- Script Editor
- This will only limit editing Global and folder level scripts and does not prevent application specific script editing.
- Shared Configuration
With this update, the following administration consoles have been moved to the applications section to aid with usability and clarity for administrators:
- Manage Popups
- Spec Manager
The Query License Server console was moved to the Tools and Utilities section to further align the sections with specific security permissions.
The following table describes which permission is required for each administration console
| Section | Option | Permission Required |
|---|---|---|
| Applications | Maintain Application | Manage Applications |
| Applications | Create Application | Manage Applications |
| Applications | Manage Popups | Manage Applications |
| Applications | Spec Manager | Access Spec Manager and Manage Applications |
| Shared Data and Scripts | Directory Files | Manage Configuration |
| Shared Data and Scripts | Manage Units | Manage Configuration |
| Shared Data and Scripts | Manage Statistics | Manage Configuration |
| Shared Data and Scripts | Manage Rules | Manage Configuration |
| Shared Data and Scripts | Script Editor | Manage Configuration |
| Shared Data and Scripts | Shared Config | Manage Configuration |
| Shared Data and Scripts | Security Administrator | Manage Security |
Security Permissions Table
*NOTE: if no defined user is given a specific permission than the permission is considered not enabled and all users inherit the permission.
Support for NLog logging – To improve traceability, Busitech has added initial support for NLog. This will allow customers in a regulated industries to connect Quality Window Logging to external log consuming applications.
Transaction Log File now static – Due to customer feedback and issues where customers did not have transaction logging properly configured or having multiple QW Applications logging to the same file creating corruption or mismatched entries, Busitech has made Transaction log files static to the same file name as the QW Application and in the same folder. Administrators will be notified of this change when it impacts an application.
Quality Window Script Editor Improvements
As part of this release, the Quality Window Script Editor has undergone many improvements that apply to both the global script editor and the Application script editor to make it easier for script developers.
Auto Comment on Script Edits – Now when an administrator edits a script in the script editor a comment is added to the top of the script indicating who updated a script and when.
Example: ‘ [2024-04-20 4:27:00 PM] – Modified by Kelly On machine KellyLaptop
Updated File menu items – The Script Editor’s file menu has been updated to make it easier for common script tasks.
The below table describes each of the file menu options.
| Menu Item | Description |
| New Folder Script | Prompts user to choose a folder and a new Folder Script (QWScript.qwx) will be created in that chosen folder and be used by any application that is stored in this folder when saved. *If a script already exists, the user will be notified of the existence and the existing script will be loaded instead. |
| New Application Script | Prompts user to select an application and a new script created and added to that application (<applicationFileName>.qwx)when saved. *If a script already exists for the application, the user will be notified of the existence and the existing script will be loaded instead. |
| New External Script | Will create a new external script. User will choose filename when saving the script using the “Save Script” menu option. *External scripts are scripts that don’t interact with an application directly instead are used with other tools such as QWAdd.exe. |
| Open Global Script | Opens the currently configured global script based on your shared configuration settings. |
| Open Folder Script | Prompts user to select a folder, if a script exists, it will be opened in the editor. |
| Open Application Script | Prompts user to select an application. If Application has a script, the script will be opened in the editor. |
| Open Sum Stat Script | Opens the Sum Stat script in the editor. |
| Open External Script | Prompts the user to select an external script on the file system. |
| Save Script | Saves the script to the appropriate location. |
| Exit | Exit’s Script Editor |
Auto Update of QW5 Script References – With the added seamless Quality Window 5 support, when an administrator opens any script with QW 5 references, the Script Editor will prompt the user with an “Outdate Script Reference Detected” message allowing the user to optionally auto update the script to the latest Quality Window 6 references.
Yes – If yes is selected, all references in the table below will be updated to their Quality Window 6 equivalent. A comment will also be added to the top of the document indicating the script was migrated. The added comment should not be removed as it also improves performance as it will tell Quality Window to not have to support QW5 references.
***Note: Once upgraded, these scripts will no longer work and may error our in Quality Window 5. If QW5 support is needed while you upgrade, select “No” option until your entire deployment is upgraded to Quality Window 6.
Example comment:
‘ ********************************************************************************************
‘ [2024-04-03 4:15:22 PM] #QWSCRIPT:V6_REFERENCES_UPDATED# – Script references automatically updated by kelly on machine KELLYSURFACES (do not remove)
‘ ********************************************************************************************
No – If no is selected, the script will remain unchanged. Quality Window will still work with the old references because the product magic replaces Quality Window 5 references with the updated QW6 versions.
| Quality Window 5 Reference | Quality Window 6 Reference |
| QWAccessClass | QWAccess60 |
| QWAccessClass.QWAccess | QWAccess60.Connection |
| QWTool | QWTool60 |
| QWTextClass | QWText60 |
| QWLogView | QWLogView60 |
| prjQWSelect | QWSelect60 |
| QWLicense | QWLicense60 |
| QWRep | QWRep60 |
| QWComSrv | QWComSrv60 |
| QWSQL | QWSQL60 |
Resolved Issues
QW Workstation
Add Screen Fixes
Named the Add screen, this reference infers the user experience for add, edit, copy and insert.
Add Screen focus issue – An issue was resolved where in some cases after user get a validation warning on the add screen, they were unable to properly regain focus to the variable to enter a corrected value.
Add Record focus issue – When Add Record function was initiated, the focus would be placed on the selected column on the logsheet instead of the first editable field. This has been resolves.
Add Screen Missing Highlight – In rare cases, the current variable would have focus but the highlight would not be shown to the user which is now fixed.
Add Screen Subscript out of Range – In some cases when multiple QW applications were opened a bug was resolved that would throw an error on add or edit screen, forcing the user to restart Quality Window to clear the error.
Add Screen Required Indicator color issue – The add screen colors that render on the left side of variables indicating if a variable should require a value based on the required and sampling plan properties was not working correctly and has been fixed. See below for table indicating how it works.
| Required | Sampling | Has Value | Color | Definition | Mandatory |
| Yes | 0 | No | Red | No sampling. | Yes |
| Yes | 1 | No | Red | Always sample. | Yes |
| Yes | > 1 | No | Red | Sampling value requires user to enter a value. | Yes |
| Yes | > 1 | No | Blue | Sampling value dictates that the user is not required to enter a value. | No |
| No | 0 | No | Blue | No sampling, not required, | No |
| No | 1 | No | White | Always sample. | No |
| No | > 1 | No | White | Sampling rule says you should enter data. | No |
| No | > 1 | No | Blue | Sampling rule say you do not need to enter data. | No |
| Any | Any | Yes | Blue | Entry rule fulfilled | N/A |
New Line characters inserted in add screen – It was found that users that user could insert invalid new line characters into variable value by pasting from clipboard, using the CTRL+ENTER key combination or using SHIFT + ENTER key combination. This would result in a malformed transaction audit file and other symptoms. With this release it is no longer possible.
Edit Smart Focus broken – in the last release of Quality Window, when initiating an edit record operation, the user wasn’t automatically placed on the variable that was selected in the logsheet. The feature is now working as expected.
Jumping Variables after entering values for an Average Variable Type – When users were using the keyboard to enter the values for variable of type “Average” the variable focus would skip after completing the entry. This issue has been resolved.
Popup Crashing when adding records – In some rare cases where Popups were improperly defined, quality window would crash when adding records. The crash is now being prevented and an error is being displayed to the user indicating the detected issue with the popup definition.
Logsheet Fixes
Column width issue – If an admin defined a variable to have a length of 1, the column width was too small to read the variable name. This issue is now resolved and will render columns ensure that the variable name is always readable.
Trieto Screen Fixes
Improper rendering of charts for Popups – In some cases on the Trieto screen, the charts were not charting correctly when QW workstation is configured to not show popup keys. Now the charts will render correctly regardless of the Show Popup Key setting.
Open Application Dialog Fixes
Incorrect rendering of dialog tabs – In some cases Quality Window would render the tab contents incorrectly on the open application dialog where the “Existing Applications” and the “Recent Applications”. These tabs now work as expected.
QW Admin
Updated Icons – The QW Admin experience was updated to remove generic icons in favor with a more relevant icon.
Manage Applications Fixes
File Pack menu option not working as expected – The File Pack option in QW Admin Manage Application console would open File Pack instead of just packaging the current application. This issue has been resolved.
Manage Units Fixes
Toolbar not always working – It was discovered that in some cases the toolbar ceases to work in the Manager Units admin console. The toolbar now works as expected.
QW Installer Fixes
Multi Lingual windows user groups – An issue was resolved where if default windows user groups were translated due different language edition of windows, permissions were not properly set.
QW5 Configuration Migration – In an effort to help with upgrade to Quality Window 6.1, the installer has a new post install process that prompts the user to migrate these settings if QW5 is detected on the device. See QW 6.1 Upgrade Guide for more information.