RELEASE NOTES
8 May 2024
We are excited to announce the latest update to the ComUnity Digital Service Delivery Platform – the Platform Engineering Solution for every organisation. This update includes a range of new features designed to improve functionality, user experirence, and performance. Here are the details of what’s new
PLATFORM TOOLKIT
IMPROVED ONBOARDING AND REGISTRATION
Streamlined onboarding and login experiences provide an improved interaction with the Toolkit registration process.
Enhanced Toolkit Functionality for Team and Projects:
Improved organization of teams and projects. Create teams, assign them to projects, and designate Project Owners with management UI support for efficient team management
Figure 1: ComUnity Platform Toolkit showing enhanced management of Organisation and Teams within a project.
Enhanced Operations UI for Roles and Permissions:
New data structures for roles and security enable fine-grained access control within the Toolkit application.
Figure 2: Enhanced roles and permissions offer more fine-grained control.
Icon Management - New Icon Management Module:
A new icon management module has been added to the Toolkit to facilitate complex icon management including import of industry standard, commercial or custom icon sets. These icons are available to enhance the customization of declarative clients
Figure 3: New Icon Library management module in ComUnity Platform Toolkit.
Observability Visualisations within Toolkit:
Observability features such as Metrics, Traces, and Client Analytics are surfaced within the Toolkit (based on user permissions). These visualisations are available as part of the new ComUnity Platform Observability module.
Figure 4: Various Observability related visualisations are displayed directly within the Platform Toolkit incl. Client Analytics.
Enhanced Toolkit Interaction with Environments:
Full interaction with all platform environments (Development, QA, and Production) and the ability to assign toolkit functions based on roles ensures a more flexible and controlled environment.
Figure 5: Manage platform projects across all environments.
Deployment Across Environments:
Developers can now deploy Toolkit Projects from development to QA to production with ease.
Figure 6: New Deployment Manager facilitates automation of project deployments across environments.
Centralized Configuration Management:
Simplified management of all environment settings from the Toolkit Application ensures consistency across deployments.
Improved Debugging Tools:
External users can now build basic declarative applications and deploy them to production, extending the platform’s utility.
Extended Platform Accessibility:
Developers can now download data service traces for better debugging and efficient project building.
Figure 7: New Configuration Hub supports management of configuration settings across environments.
UX/UI Enhancements:
Enhanced user experience with Tooltip Tips, an improved Project Screen process, high level navigation enhancements, and user management settings directly from the Toolkit.
Figure 8: Full deployment history keeps track of releases.
Project Deletion Capability:
Users can now delete projects within the Toolkit, allowing for better management and organization of your workspace.
Figure 9: Self-service deletion of projects.
Project Deletion Improved Documentation:
Comprehensive documentation, including guided tutorials with a public URL for easy access, improves the product learning curve and usability of the platform. This documentation is available here: comunity.gitbook.io/
COMUNITY PLATFORM
Static Web Page Support:
Users can now integrate static web pages within the platform, allowing for enhanced HTML functionality. This feature enables the referencing of static resources, such as the ComUnity website, for seamless integration.
Secure Content Storage:
Sensitive content can be securely stored using Azure Key Vault, ensuring data privacy and security.
Platform Backend Improvements:
Optimized database and reduced resource utilization contribute to a more stable and efficient platform.
Observability Services v1:
Added v1 of a new ComUnity Platform Observability service. This service has been built from the ground up using Open Telemetry standards (https://opentelemetry.io/) including platform support for Metrics, Traces, Logs and Client Analytics. Data from these services may be accessed directly in the specialised tools, or visualised within the ComUnity Platform Toolkit.
Native Client Support for iOS and Web Apps:
Improved the native clients for iOS and web apps which allows for a broader audience reach.
Performance Improvements:
Enhanced caching mechanisms and platform stability, as well as improved CPU and memory management, result in a more robust platform.
Additional Backend Enhancements:
Backend enhancements have been made that streamline maintenance tasks and improve the overall performance of the platform. These include reduced database utilization for maintenance, reduced memory footprint, CPU utilization with finely grained caching, and context propagation for observability.
Summary
We’re committed to continuously improving our platform to meet the evolving needs of our users. We hope these updates will enhance your experience and enable more efficient development and management of your projects.
