Our Aconcagua Release is Coming Soon! 🗻
We’re excited to announce our Aconcagua Release, named after the highest peak in the Americas.
Chosen by our Latin American team, Aconcagua is a symbol of clarity and perspective—standing high above the clutter. An appropriatel name for a release focused on simplifying and refining your experience on our platform!
New Features & Improvements
1) Web Portal UI Refresh
Over the years, we’ve added powerful features to Appenate based on your requests (keep them coming!). But along with these features has come a little clutter. So, we went back to the drawing board—literally.
Our dev team spent some quality time in their cave, reworking the Web Portal’s layout and design. The result? A cleaner, more focused experience that we think you’ll love.
The functionality you rely on is still there, but menus are cleaner, navigation is simpler, and the overall experience is much easier to use.
2) ArcGIS Connector
We’re excited to introduce our new ArcGIS Connector, making it easier than ever to integrate ArcGIS with Appenate.
For those unfamiliar, ArcGIS is a powerful mapping and spatial analysis platform developed by Esri. It’s widely used for managing geographic data and creating maps that help businesses visualize patterns, trends, and insights.
With our ArcGIS Connector, you can now:
- Pull spatial data directly from your ArcGIS layers into Appenate.
- Populate mobile forms with mapped data, such as asset locations or site boundaries.
- Push form submissions (like inspections or surveys) back into ArcGIS to update your maps in real-time.
Example:
Let’s say you manage a network of field assets—think utility poles, pipelines, or environmental monitoring stations. With the ArcGIS Connector, your field teams can:
- Access up-to-date location data from ArcGIS on their mobile devices.
- Collect and submit inspection data directly from the field.
- Instantly update your ArcGIS maps with the latest information—no double-handling required.
3) OAuth 2.0 Support for the REST Connector
We’ve introduced OAuth 2.0 support for our REST Connector—giving you more flexibility and security when integrating with external systems.
Until now, our REST Connector supported basic authentication and allowed for standard headers, query parameters, and more. But many modern APIs—like Xero’s—require OAuth 2.0 authentication, which means you can’t use the REST Connector to connect to them.
That changes with this release.
You can now set up a dedicated OAuth 2.0 Connection within Appenate. Once connected, your REST Connector can use that authentication to securely interact with APIs that support OAuth 2.0.
Here’s an Example:
Let’s say you want to connect to Xero’s API, but we didn’t offer a dedicated connector (for the record—we do 😉). Previously, you’d be stuck waiting on a purpose-built solution from us. Now, you can set up an OAuth 2.0 Connection to Xero yourself, and then use the REST Connector to pull and push data, all using secure authentication.
This opens up a world of new possibilities for connecting to third-party systems quickly and securely—without waiting for custom development.
Just keep in mind, while OAuth 2.0 support expands your options, some third-party systems may have their own unique quirks or requirements that could need a little extra work to get things running smoothly.
4) App Settings Screen Layout Improvements
We’ve heard your comments about the App Settings screen’s user interface being a little crowded (we noticed too!). So, we gave it a cleanup grouping related settings more logically, making it easier to find what you’re looking for.
It’s the same functionality you rely on, just presented in a way that makes a whole lot more sense.
5) Access to Task Presets in Task Connectors
We’ve made improvements under the hood so that you can now access Form Presets using placeholders when you trigger a Task Connector.
For Example
Imagine you trigger a Task REST Connector for an Inspection Form. If a preset called buildingLocation is passed to the form, it will now be accessible in the body of the REST Connector by using the placeholder {{Inspection.buildingLocation}}.
This makes it easier to pass preset data into your task connectors.
6) Signature & Sketch Field – Added Timestamp Watermark
Our Media field already supports watermarks, and we’re bringing that same capability to the Signature and Sketch fields!
You can now automatically apply a dynamic watermark to any signature or sketch, making tracking when and where they were captured easier. Perfect for maintaining audit trails and improving data accuracy.
Watermarks can be customized using template syntax—so you can include dynamic information like timestamps, GPS coordinates, and more.
Example:
Signed on: {{ NOW() }}
Need multiple lines? No problem! Use {(‘ ‘)} to create line breaks in your watermark text.
And to help with readability, you can also enable a black stroke outline around the watermark text.
7) Process Step – Single Button Press & Form Submit
We’ve simplified the Process Step experience based on user feedback. Previously, users had to press a Process Step button and then separately press an Upload button, which felt awkward and unintuitive.
With this release, we’ve added User Interactions to the Process Step buttons. Now, users can push the Process Step button and Upload or Upload and Print—all with a single button press.
This makes completing and submitting forms much faster and easier for your team in the field.
8) Security Score on the Organisation Setup Page – Helping You Stay Secure
We know security is always top of mind (it is for us too). To make it easier to keep track of how secure your Appenate environment is, we’ve added a Security Score right on the Organisation Setup page.
This score gives you a quick, at-a-glance indicator of your current security posture based on key settings, such as password policies, two-factor authentication, and more.
If your score isn’t where it should be, we’ll highlight what needs attention and give you clear steps to tighten things up. It’s one more way we’re helping you stay ahead of the game when it comes to protecting your data.
9) Mystery Connector (Coming Soon)
We’re keeping this one under wraps for a little longer—but trust us, it’s been a frequently requested feature, and we think you’ll be thrilled. Hint: it rhymes with FishHooks.
Bugs & Maintenance Items
- Launch Option: We’ve introduced the ability to export and import Launch Options.
- Web Forms: Title text on various fields was being truncated; text now wraps as expected.
- Table Field: Fields nested within a Table field will now inherit the read-only property set on the Table field, making it consistent with the Gallery field. Existing forms are unaffected.
- User Interaction: We’ve added Eval function support for interactions and data source filters.
- Form Designer: Prevent saving of a form when it contains only non-UI elements, such as a hidden or data source field.
- Brand Center: Fixed an issue where saving wasn’t possible due to validation issues in the Brand Center.
- Brand Center: Updated the screenshot requirements for iOS.
- Image Annotations: Fixed an issue where annotating an image would increase the image canvas beyond the original image dimensions.
- Location Field: Fixed an issue on Windows where the Mouse cursor was jumping around when zooming/panning.
- OCR Field: Fixed the missing processing message and a loading indicator.
- Connector Logs and Notifications: Added additional information where necessary or fixed issues with information being truncated.
- Error Details on the Login Screen: Added additional Azure Single Sign-on (SSO) error details.
- Action Field User Interaction Formula Builder Syntax Issue: Fixed an issue under User Interactions where if you pass a parameter, an invalid syntax message appears regardless of whether it was valid or not.
What’s Next?
This is just the beginning of what we have planned for 2025. 📅
The next big thing on the horizon is our new Business HQ—a central place to manage your contacts, jobs, and resources directly within Appenate. This will lay the groundwork for future reporting capabilities and deeper platform-wide integration.
And yes, the long-awaited Dashboards are still on the roadmap (the legend lives on!).
Stay tuned! 💻😉