May 2021 Release Notes

Your Kahua experience is improving as we work to release new features and correct errors. Below is the improvements you'll find in the latest release:

Desktop Hosts

Nomenclature Change in “Add Kahua Doc”

In the “Add Kahua Doc” UI, under the list of Apps to select from, ‘Files’ was changed to ‘File Manager’ to more accurately refer to the File Manager app.

New Widget Type: Clustered Bar

Users can now create Dashboard widgets with clustered bars. To include, select “Clustered Bar” for the widget type when creating custom charts.  

Fly-up Indicator following successful Markup Save

Following a successful Markup save action, a fly-up appears at the bottom of the screen to indicate that a successful save occurred. Prior to this this change, the only indication of a successful save was that the Save icon would become disabled.

Controlled Folders – Enable Multi-Release for Moderator Role

In File Manager, within a Controlled Folder, the Multi-Release action is now enabled for the Moderator role, as well as the Administrator role.  Prior to this change, the Multi-Release action was only enabled for the Administrator role.

Design Review – Addition of ‘References’ Section 

In the Design Review, there is now a ‘REFERENCES’ section to supplement the ‘FILES FOR REVIEW’ section.  The new References grid may be used to include supplemental files that aren’t necessarily part of the Review Set.

Locking Defined Views

Administrators can lock any views within the Manage Views section of any hub application. This action will prevent others from modifying the view. To lock a view, in the View Selector dropdown select Manage Views > the view you want to lock > Scope > Lock.

Scheduled Reports

Kahua’s brand new Scheduled Reports capability provides a way to automate the generation and distribution of reports to both users and non-users, via email notifications and messages.

Reports may be scheduled from any Kahua app, as long as it’s a Hub app (which most apps are).  Any app report may be scheduled, including:

• Standard App Reports
• Wizard Reports (created by end users from the Reports log in the App)
• Data Store reports (created externally, and installed by end users in the Reports log in the App)

Reports now include a new “MANAGE SCHEDULED REPORTS” action that enable reports to be scheduled.  The new ‘Schedules” column provides a clear indication of whether a report has been scheduled or not, and how many scheduled runs have been created. For example, the “Open RFIs” report might have 2 scheduled runs: one to be generated once a day for internal record keeping, and a second to be run once a week to be sent to the project manager (with perhaps a different filter).

To schedule a report:

1. Click the Reports icon in the ‘Action Toolbar’ within your app
2. Select the Report you wish to schedule, and select “MANAGE SCHEDULED REPORTS”
3. In the “Schedule Reports” window that pops up, click “ADD”
4. Enter in the following information:
   1. a Name for the Report (e.g., “Open RFIs assigned to PK Builders”)
   2. the range of dates to start and end the report generation
   3. the report frequency, e.g., Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc.
   4. recipients (you might just want to send to yourself, but you can also include any combination of Contacts, Groups, or non-user email addresses)
   5. any filters that you want applied each time the report is generated
   6. the delivery method (may be either sent as an attachment or be directed to File Manager to be served up as an “Anonymous File Link”)
5. Save, and you’re all set!

Once a report has been scheduled, a record will be created with an indication of when the report will next be run.  Each time the report is generated, the ‘NEXT RUN’ and ‘LAST RUN’ columns will update accordingly:

After the reports are run, emails are generated, and depending on how the scheduled report was set up, the email with either include an attachment or a link to the report:

If configured to use the “File Manager” delivery method (the default), an “Open File” link will be generated.  The “Open File” link will enable the recipient to either download the report or open the report directly in Kahua.   The link offers two major advantages over the attachment option:

1. a recipient’s inbox won’t get overwhelmed by large, and potentially frequent attachments
2. the Report is saved in File Manager, in a folder of your choosing, for easier retrieval and ability to attach to other records, such as Meeting Minutes, etc.

NOTE: Kahua uses the scheduled “Start Time” to determine when to start the report generation process.  However, depending on the complexity and size of the report, as well as the how ‘busy’ Kahua is when the report is generating, the report may be delivered several minutes after the “Start Time”.

NOTE: Related to ‘Scheduled Reports’, a new centralized ‘Report Manager’ app is currently in the works that will enable all reports and associated report scheduling, to be managed from one place.  Expected delivery of the new ‘Report Manager’ app is this summer.

Local Files Status Icon

For users of Local Files syncing functionality, an icon displays in the footer to indicate the current sync status. 

Indicator states are:

1. [blank] - Sync is totally disabled or Paused
2.  Sync has crashed completely and is not running
3. Sync is enabled and running with no errors
4. One or more projects failed to initialize

Local Files Handling of Restricted File Types

When the user attempts to add a restricted file locally, Kahua now prompts the user that the file upload has been denied and the file has been moved to the user’s unsynced folder. 

Log is Auto-Refreshed following an Import

Following a successful Import, the associated Log is automatically refreshed to display the imported items. Prior to this change, a manual log refresh was necessary.

RFIs and Subcontractor RFIs

Note:  This update applies to domains that have either the Kahua Standard or Kahua Subcontractor extensions loaded. Domains that have the base RFI app without workflow will remain unchanged.

Kahua is updating the Subcontractor RFI application to take advantage of our patented Kahua 2 Kahua (K2K) technology. This technology allows seamless collaboration between GC and Sub, while allowing each party to own and control their own data. 

In this new feature, a tab is being added to the RFIs application called “Subcontractor RFIs”. This new tab will serve as a collection point for any RFI that has been submitted to the project by a subcontractor/vendor. Once an RFI has been received by the project, users will now be able to quickly respond to the Subcontractor directly, or, if needed, they are able to promote the RFI to the new “Official RFI” tab.

Once an RFI has been promoted to the Official log, it can then be placed through workflow for review. Once the project team receives, and is ready to distribute, a response, they are able to notify the vendors, and update the subcontractor’s record simultaneously.

Kahua Standard

Kahua for Subcontractor

Configuration requirements:

There are two steps required in configuration which will enable Kahua 2 Kahua for a domain or project:

1. Turn on Kahua 2 Kahua in the Projects app: 
2. Enable the Collaboration workflow in the Sub RFIs app:

WBS Segment Configuration
Administrators can now configure the segments of the WBS Activity Code to be selected from a configured entity (eg: from the CSI Code app), from a static list, or continue using the existing rules about length and type of text the user can enter.  

IMPORTANT: before entities can be used, the relevant underlying application needs to be configured. For more details, see the linked article Cost Configuration Settings. 

Entities must be configured in the application definition prior to being able to be used to populate segment values.  The CSI Code application has been pre-configured to be available for segment entity selection.

The static list is available with no additional setup required. A simple comma separated list provides the valid content for users to select from.  

Project Approval Limits

Admins can now configure project limits in approvals.

This feature allows an admin to establish maximum amounts a per person can approve for selected approvals in a single project. Once individual project limits are set up you can enable checking these limits per approval. When a person receives a document where the amount of that document will put them over their project limit, it then requires the next person in the route to approve the document.

After you set up project limits, check the box for 'Use Project Limits' on the approvals where you wish to enforce the rule.

An Activity tab is also provided to show the admin what documents have been processed that are counting against the person’s project limits.

Mac Host

File Manager – PDF Viewer Update

Users who attempt to view the PDF preview of a file that is uploaded to Kahua before it has rendered, they will now see a descriptive message with the option to retry rather than an error message.