3.81.12 RCx

3.81.12 RCx Release Notes Archive

For current RC release notes, see Sepasoft Release Candidate - RC | Release Notes.

3.81.12 RC4 Release Notes

Enhanced Control and Flexibility in Batch Execution

In manufacturing, the ability to exert precise control over a live batch process is paramount. These new features provide operators and automated systems with the tools needed to manage process variations and handle exceptions in real-time without compromising the integrity of the batch record or deviating from compliant procedures.

Introduce Batch Execution Points: The new "Batch Execution Point" features provide designated markers within a recipe that enable operators or automated logic to pause, hold, resume, or jump to a specific location. This provides a structured and auditable method for handling manual interventions, quality checks, or other workflow variations within a compliant execution framework.
Detail the "Change Active Step" Feature: We have added a powerful Change Active Step feature, accessible via the enableChangeActiveSteps property in the BatchRecipeMonitor component. This directly empowers operators with the ability to intervene during runtime and redirect the process flow as needed, providing a crucial tool for exception handling.
Analyze New Scripting Capabilities: A new scripting method, system.mes.batch.queue.exitCommandLoop(batchQueueEntry, [path]), has been introduced. Its primary purpose is to programmatically resolve "stuck" batches that have entered a non-responsive command loop. This ensures that batches can proceed to a correct final state, preventing prolonged process interruptions and safeguarding data integrity.
Highlight Improved Resume Logic: New logic has been implemented that allows recipes in a Held or Paused state to resume execution precisely where they left off. This enhancement ensures seamless process continuity and accuracy, eliminating the risk of skipping or repeating critical steps after a planned or unplanned stop.

For more information about this feature, see Active Step | Skip Step.

Greater Flexibility and Precision in Recipe Design

A well-designed recipe is the foundation of a repeatable, scalable, and compliant batch process. The following updates provide recipe authors with more powerful and intuitive tools to define complex logic, manage process parameters, and streamline the creation of recipe components.

Evaluate New Mode Propagation Controls:

Propagate_Mode_To_Children: When enabled, a mode change at the parent level (e.g., placing a Unit Procedure on hold) automatically cascades to all active child phases. This is crucial for preventing process divergence and ensuring the entire operation pauses in a synchronized state.
Propagate_Mode_To_Parent: When enabled, a critical state change in a subordinate phase can automatically escalate to halt the parent process. This is vital for scenarios where a quality check failure or equipment alarm at a lower level must trigger an immediate, top-level process stop.
To ensure consistency, new enterprise-level “Batch Recipe Settings” in the Perspective Equipment Manager allow for defining fallback mode-propagation behavior. This, combined with improved internal mode propagation defaults for new logic steps, establishes a predictable baseline for recipe behavior across the system.

Document Scripting and Template Updates: The createTemplate script function has been updated to accept an optional templateType parameter. This provides greater flexibility when programmatically generating recipe components, allowing scripts to define the specific type of template being created. If the parameter is not specified, it will default to "Unit Procedure."

Improved Usability in the Batch Recipe Editor

An intuitive and efficient recipe editor is essential for reducing configuration errors, streamlining the design process, and making complex recipe validation more manageable. The improvements in this release are designed to make the authoring experience faster, clearer, and more error-resistant.

Detail UI and Workflow Enhancements:
- Intuitive Visual Design: The visual design process is now more intuitive with improved auto-placement logic for steps dropped on branchBegin elements. This is complemented by new auto-link support that streamlines the workflow when an And_End step is dropped onto collapsed, unlinked groups, making it faster to wire complex logic.
- Orphaned Step Detection: The Batch Recipe Editor now includes logic to automatically detect and report orphaned steps—those not properly connected within the recipe flow—preventing critical configuration errors before they impact production.
Analyze Advanced Validation and Error Messaging: We have overhauled the validation system to provide clearer, more actionable feedback to recipe authors.
- Enhanced Readability: Similar Recipe and Formula validation messages are now grouped, reducing clutter. For long error lists, the Formula Validation dialog now features a max-height and scrolling, making it easier to review.
- Specific Error Details: Validation messages for missing or extra parameters are now more descriptive, explicitly listing the specific parameter names affected to accelerate debugging. New validation has been added for unmatched And_End/Or_End steps.
- Link Validation: Validation for mismatched link counts between And_Begin and And_End pairs has been added, preventing logical errors in parallel process flows.
- Transition Clarity: The Transition itemPath has been added to the BatchController list of transitions, helping users more easily identify the targets of expressions and logic.

Increased Clarity and Accuracy in Electronic Batch Records (EBR)

In regulated manufacturing, the Electronic Batch Record (EBR) is the definitive document for compliance, quality assurance, and process analysis. The following updates are designed to make the EBR a more precise, readable, and auditable record of what occurred during batch execution.

Enhance Operator Visibility and Data Interpretation:
- Status Indicators: A new toggleable, colored status indicator can now be displayed on the left side of Step Panels in the EBR Viewer, providing at-a-glance insight into step status (e.g., completed, running, skipped). The colors for these indicators can be overridden for system-wide customization.
- Skipped Step Differentiation: The EBR now clearly distinguishes between steps that were executed and steps that were skipped. Parameter changes associated with skipped steps are also recorded separately, improving auditability and process clarity.
- Accurate Parameter Logging: The logic for determining which parameter changes are included for a given step entry has been improved, ensuring the EBR provides a more precise and accurate record of the values used during execution.
Detail Core Data and Record Fixes: Several fixes have been implemented to ensure the fundamental data structure of the EBR is correct and unambiguous.
- Correct Recipe Naming: An issue has been corrected where the EBR root record was incorrectly using the BatchName for the Recipe_Name field. It now correctly uses the RecipeName.
- Added Batch Name: To eliminate ambiguity, a Batch_Name field has been added to the EBR root record to explicitly distinguish the unique batch identifier from the procedure name.
- User Message Parameter: A fix ensures that the Message parameter now correctly appears in the EBR for all User Message phases.

Key Fixes and Stability Improvements

Platform stability is the bedrock of reliable manufacturing operations. This section details crucial fixes that address specific issues to prevent process interruptions, eliminate errors, and ensure consistent system behavior.

Summarize Critical Corrections:
- Phase State Acknowledgement: A condition has been corrected where a Unit Procedure or Operation could get stuck awaiting a state change from a command sent to a phase that is not in a state to acknowledge the command.
- Template Parameter Saving: An issue that prevented changes to built-in parameters on Templates from being saved correctly has been resolved.
- Built-in Parameter Scripting: The system now correctly prevents scripting changes to built-in Batch Phase parameters where the valueSourceType is set to "Neither", enforcing proper configuration practices.
- Startup Errors: Internal import methods were added to the MESRecipeNoteTagCollector to resolve an issue that could cause missing-method errors during gateway startup.

Updates Organized by Fixed, Enhancements and Improvements

Enhancements

Added system.mes.batch.queue.exitCommandLoop(batchQueueEntry, [path]) script method to exit command loops on “stuck” batches so they can reach the correct final state.
Added a toggleable colored status indicator on the left side of Step Panels in the EBR Viewer.
Added ability to override colors for new status indicators in the EBR Viewer.
Added functionality to distinguish skipped steps and their parameter changes from executed steps within EBR results.
Added logic to determine which parameter changes to include for a step entry in EBR results more accurately.
Added capability to customize “Mode” propagation within recipes via new logic item parameters: Propagate_Mode_To_Children and Propagate_Mode_To_Parent.
Added Enterprise-level “Batch Recipe Settings” in Perspective Equipment Manager to define fallback/default mode-propagation behavior.
Added Change Active Step feature in the BatchRecipeMonitor component (enableChangeActiveSteps property).
Added logic to resume Held or Paused recipes exactly where they previously executed.
Updated createTemplate script to accept optional templateType parameter (defaults to Unit Procedure).

Improvements

Improved auto-placement logic for dropped steps on branchBegin-type elements for more intuitive placement.
Added auto-link support for And_End dropped onto collapsed, unlinked groups.
Added validation for unmatched And_End/Or_End steps.
Added validation for mismatched link counts between And_Begin and And_End pairs.
Added max-height and scrolling to Formula Validation dialog for long error lists.
Grouped similar Recipe/Formula validation messages for readability.
Improved missing/extra parameter validation messages by listing affected parameter names.
Added Transition itemPath to BatchController transitions list to identify expression targets.
Improved internal Mode propagation defaults when creating new logic steps.

Fixed

Corrected issue where Unit Procedures or Operations could become stuck awaiting a phase state change when the phase could not acknowledge the command.
Fixed issue preventing parameter changes on Templates from being saved when editing built-in Template parameters.
Prevented scripting changes to built-in Batch Phase parameters with valueSourceType = "Neither".
Fixed Message parameter not appearing for User Message phases in EBR.
Added internal import methods to MESRecipeNoteTagCollector to prevent missing-method startup errors.
Fixed issue where EBR root record used BatchName instead of RecipeName for Recipe_Name.
Added Batch_Name to EBR root record to distinguish from Procedure name.
Corrected an issue where a Unit Procedure or Operation could get stuck awaiting a state change from a command sent to a phase that is not in a state to acknowledge the command.
Fixed logic to detect and report orphaned steps in the BatchRecipeEditor.

These updates improve stability, workflow accuracy, editor usability, compliance clarity, and operator visibility across batch execution and EBR workflows.

3.81.12 RC2 Release Notes

Production Module

MES-7257	Bug	Production Module	Fixed - Pick up on the session that a perspective event action, such as an action performed script, to record the user from the session when changing Setpoint values.
MES-7282	Bug	Production Module	Fixed - Pass along the calling user context from a Visualization or Analysis gateway to the Runtime gateway to attribute the change to the user rather than falling back to System modified.

Batch Procedure Module

MES-6446	Bug	Batch Procedure Module	Fixed - Issuing batch commands now cause batch to wait in an interim state until all active sub logic has reached the final state of the command. Example: Issuing a HOLD command will keep the Batch in HOLDING until all of the child logic has reached the HELD state Improvement - Added new script functions system.mes.batch.queue.executeEntryCommandAsync() and system.mes.batch.queue.executeEntryCommandBlocking(). The old function system.mes.batch.queue.executeEntryCommand() has been deprecated and will now call the executeEntryCommandAsync().
MES-6879	Improvement	Batch Procedure Module	Improvement - Expanded character limit of Batch parameter values from 1024 characters to 4000. Improvement - Enhanced validation error message when transition expression is larger than the character limit.
MES-6998	Bug	Batch Procedure Module	Fixed - Reset command is sent at the correct time after using the Complete Step checkbox.
MES-7328	Bug	Batch Procedure Module	Fixed - Equipment Phases no longer auto continue after 60 seconds if RESET command was not satisfied. It now waits for the equipment to have gone back to Idle.

3.81.12 RC1 Release Notes

Settings & Changeover

MES-6957

Bug

Settings&Changeover

Fixed - S&Co will show the raw audit log in the 'ChangedBy' column if a specific username in the MES Usersource is not found. The format of this value is <Ignition_Gateway>_<Ignition_IDP_or_Usersource_Name>_<Username>

MES-7012

New Feature

Settings&Changeover

Added - Recipe Selector Combo and Recipe Selector List have 2 new properties, 'requireNote' boolean - If the user must enter a note to activate or deactivate a recipe and 'user' - Name of user recorded in Change Logs when recipe is activated or deactivated.

Added - New Analysis Setting 'Show Recipe Cancellations' that will create rows when running analysis for when a recipe is deactivated. 2 new Data Points 'Recipe Change Note' for the note that was entered with the recipe activation/deactivation and 'Recipe Change Note Entered By' for the 'changedBy' or 'user' field associated when the note was recorded

Added - 2 new optional scripting method arguments for system.recipe.setItemRecipe and system.recipe.cancelItemRecipe - note - Optionally provide a reason the recipe was set or cancelled. changedBy - the actor that caused the change - requires a note to be recorded.

MES-7014

Improvement

Settings&Changeover

Added - Require Change Note on the Equipment Manager will now require a note before creating a new default recipe value, deleting a default recipe value, pasting a default recipe value, or importing a recipe value.

Added - The Settings Changelog component will now show when default recipe values are removed from Production Equipment