This document describes the changes made in ABBYY Timeline 6.0.

New Features 

Timeline

New Navigation 

Timeline 6.0 introduces a fresh look and a redesigned interface. The user interface has become more convenient and functional. Explore updated navigation paths that make program usage even more understandable and easy. The logical grouping of elements and the general design approach will help to make users comfortable with the new navigation in a short time. 

Process view 

In Timeline 6.0 Process view is replacing the former Process schema. The feature has undergone colossal changes, seriously expanding the functionality while retaining familiar features. It is enhanced with the new schema type called Primary path view. The name here means that it helps to see the most frequent and common flow of events. Primary path is a graph that allows finding deviations from the common flow, the reasons for such deviations, and revealing them from different perspectives. 

Eventually, this feature brings together a new schema and a highly interactive board that contains interactive tiles with visualized metrics and set statistics. This makes possible a flexible custom visualization of metrics and graphs. Explore the process as deep as you need: 

1. Use the brand-new Primary path view to see the typical flow of events in timelines on the graph. 

2. Switch to the Milestone view, the improved version of the Process schema, to have a fresh look at your existing graph or to create and analyze a new one, to visualize a certain scenario. 

3. Configure Boards, the operational board, with Tiles displaying anything you might require: charts, dimensions, set metrics, intervals, or event data. 

Views and Boards are co-dependent, which means that change of data in Tiles will impact the Views, and if the schema structure is altered - the data is recalculated on the Board accordingly. This interaction guarantees the up-to-date state of the displayed data and gives you freedom of action in your analysis tasks.

Integration with Chorus 

Now paths and schemas can be also exported in a BPMN format supported by the Chorus BPM application. The format is the already familiar BPMN, but it has Chorus-specific extensions to make the import seamless. You can now easily go beyond Timeline functionality and spread your analysis tasks to other systems and share your research with colleagues choosing a suitable format. 

Simulation 

Timeline 6.0 introduces a new analysis module called Simulation. Using the possibilities of process simulation allows you to experiment with process performance by altering the number of transactions initiated per unit of time, varying processing times, or available resources. The feature allows you to simulate potential changes in processes in a complex way and evaluate the impact of these changes on the entire business process. It helps to assess the effectiveness of optimization decisions without a real implementation of the solution, which means saving money and time. 

Simulation is based on Milestone view schema, so you can alter involved resources preserving the process structure and save them as scenarios. Running simulation recalculates data according to the reallocated resources and displays the results as process metrics (duration, cost, etc). Create multiple scenarios with resources redistributed differently to find different approaches. Compare these scenarios, find the most effective ones, and export them to share your vision with your colleagues.

Task Mining 

Support End of Life for Timeline versions 5.2 and previous Please note, that after the release of Timeline 6.0, ABBYY will no longer support Timeline versions 5.2 and previous. If you need assistance to migrate to currently supported versions, please contact ABBYY support. 

PDD Generation improvements 

The essential task attributes now can be exported to PDD (Process Definition Document) as a description of a task. This document outlines the task and its properties in PDF format or as a Microsoft Word document and can serve as a basis for creating automation solutions. It allows you to undertake preliminary research of the common workflow: assess what systems are involved in the process, and the frequency of events occurring, the presence of decision points affecting performance. And helps to elaborate opportunities for the process unification. At the same time, it is a comprehensive tool to form a vision of the automation direction and figure out an ideal image of the process, and then convert the result into development requirements. Its flexible visual configuration makes possible to get familiar with complex processes in an intelligible and illustrative manner, that is easy to share. 

Discover tasks 

Spare time and effort discovering tasks with the help of this new feature. This view allows you to choose the forms you want to include and instantly create a task with them. This new feature offers you the freedom to experiment with multiple tasks without thoroughly configuring each of them. You will be always able to insert the necessary corrections on your own, so the rapidity and accuracy come together. 

Subtasks 

Timeline 6.0 offers a separate entity for the tasks that are parts of a larger one - Subtasks. Now you can detach concurrent tasks from those, that are completely integrated into other tasks. Make subtasks valid objects of analysis on the task definition step. 

Clone projects 

In Timeline 6.0 cloning becomes available for Task Mining projects. Duplicate an existing project with its data to a new one to make necessary adjustments without recreating a project from scratch or affecting the initial one. Timeline complies with the privacy and data protection regulations adopted in different countries, so no sensitive information is transferred during cloning. In addition, this option is disabled by default. When creating a new public project you can choose whether to allow cloning or disable it. 

Recorder & Recording Service 

• Web Recorder now supports a new manifest 3.0 version, that allows having all Recorder versions in one extension. 
• It is now possible to review logs' structure presented as forms in the Recorder Log Viewer. 

Improvements 

Timeline 

Account section enhancements: 

• New tab in the account settings related to repositories, associated with the account. You can now see a list of all the repositories belonging to the project as a table, containing their general configuration data without actually switching to the repository view. 
• Now it is possible to export settings in the CSV format from the Users, Projects, and Repositories tabs of the Account Settings.
• Account Settings now offer a more detailed image of your subscription possibilities. You can now see how many timelines and projects currently are in the account comparing to the maximum set allowed by subscription limits.
• Timeline 6.0 brings in an additional unique ID for subscriptions and licenses. Now it is possible to identify client licenses and match them with the data in CRM system or databases. 

Additional permissions in project 

A new list of starting roles is added to the Sharing section of the project settings. You can now decide which user roles in your project are allowed to clone projects and export their data. 

"Report an issue" button logic changes 

The button now redirects to the support page with a form to submit a request. 

Deletion timelines via event-type criteria 

Timeline deletion mechanism acquired flexibility. It is now possible to delete specific events in a project from the timelines, keeping other events. This way, you no longer need to delete all timelines and upload the corrected data set again. 

Accessibility statement 

The accessibility option was added in the Help section, the statement is displayed in the pop-up window. 

Task Mining 

Task complexity 

Task Ranking complexity calculation is improved. Giving more importance to the number of task instance variations and permutations inside them, paying more attention to the minimum and the maximum number of events, and involving controls elevate the accuracy of the results. The most essential parameters are embraced to assess the automation potential. 

Recorder & Recording Service: 

• Improved recording quality and precise screenshot selection. 
• JPG format supported for screenshots. 
• New security level in Recording Service 
  For sensitive data protection, now administrators can add Recording Service users to a separate group with restricted permissions. This way the users will have access only to obfuscated data or will not see any sensitive information at all. 

Fixes 

Timeline 

• X-axis value labels are correctly displayed in the tooltip.
• Timeline can connect to Salesforce. 
• Forecast and Deadline trainings are now working correctly. 
• SQL injection vulnerability fixed. 

Task Mining 

• Task definition functions now work correctly if the screenshots folder in a log is missing or empty. 

Known Vulnerabilities 

Angular Vulnerability 

A known vulnerability of Angularjs later than 1.7.0 is present in Timeline, which uses Angularjs 1.8.2. The vulnerability exposes Timeline to regular expression denial of service attacks by providing a custom locale that makes it possible to assign a very long string to a certain locale parameter, which in turn blocks the browser. More about the vulnerability here: https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-m2h2-264f-f486  

Timeline itself does not make use of the vulnerable custom locale, never configures the vulnerable parameter in any locales with any value, and certainly not with a user-provided string. It is still possible for the user to set this parameter, but not via Timeline, only via the developer console of the browser. Even if that happens, the effect is visible only in the user's browser and only in the actual session. It does not have any effect on any other user, or even the users own browser after refreshing the page. 

Since the impact of this vulnerability is negligible, we decided not to fix it, considering our ongoing work of phasing out Angularjs from Timeline altogether.