ART-DECOR® – Release 3.8.9

Release notes 21 March 2025

Introduction

We are happy to announce Release 3.8.9, another minor release with a number of additions, smaller new features and several improvements. 22 tasks were performed, partially based on client requests.

Due to major activities in the area of user feedback and controlled user interviews, collected test findings from various international sources and our own improved testing environment, this release also addressed 18 bugs that were fixed.

Thanks to all testers and people who submitted improvement suggestions! We are lucky to have you with us.

In total, 40 tickets were handled. This is the Release Note with more details.

General Remarks

As a summary, this release focuses on the following major topics: enhancements in the area of

• → Performance and stability,

• → Datasets,

• → Publications,

• → Templates,

• → Testing and Validation,

• → Project,

• → Terminology,

• → Software Development / Tools features,

• → Scenarios,

• → Questionnaires,

• → ADA.

In addition, we work closely with our eXist partners to test and deploy the new eXist Database Release v6.3.0 soon.

Areas of New Features and Improvements

Performance and stability

In the last few releases we moved code that was originally associated with the DECOR software branch into the API structure. We could observe that due to this reengineering the performance went down. We finally identified the problem of too large API functions files and moved most of the functionality into libraries called by the core API functions.

We started with templates and terminologies and found tremendously better performances on API calls. We continue with all other API functions.

• We increase performance of getting templates and terminologies [AD30-1713].
• We cleaned CADTS installations to not cause erroneous conversion requests (data sanitization) [AD30-1838].

Dataset

A problem was reported with diacritical characters on search for concepts. For example, it was impossible to search for strings like "Primärprävention".

Reason was that the lucene search preparations in utillib:getSimpleLuceneQuery did improper splits of the terms for use by lucene. This has been fixed [AD30-1825].

Another problem was that editing of dataset item comments with formatting leads to undesired duplication. This has also been fixed [AD30-1826].

Further Achievements in this Release for Datasets

• The issue that a Dataset concept name may overflow from the box has been fixed [AD30-1582].
• API 3.8.7 to API 3.8.9 AD2 regression test were performed on RetrieveDataSet [AD30-1929].

Publications

We added a feature to allow publication lists to be filtered [AD30-1148].

A Publication page now indicates for each tab which project and which release version it concerns [AD30-1895].

Our ART-DECOR Release and Archive Management System ADRAM now generates the publication landing page such as it shows all active publications on top (not in archive) [AD30-1917].

Further Achievements in this Release for Publications

• ADRAM now generates the publication landing page such as it shows status final when the main ART-DECOR server is down [AD30-1719].
• ADRAM: str_contains error [AD30-1927].
• Publication request “Add” is not selectable on parameters and filters tab [AD30-1753].

Templates

When creating Template associations for transactions, the list of templates on the right side showed all templates instead of only the ones belonging to that selected transaction. This problem has been fixed [AD30-1799].

Further Achievements in this Release for Templates

• Template Value Set Binding dialog now requires ADD before SAVE [AD30-1823].
• A frontend error on Value Set Binding without flexibility was fixed [AD30-1824].
• Behavior of query param treetype (get template list) [AD30-1832].
• Template Association Panel issues were fixed [AD30-1850].
• The "SAVE and CANCEL" button for Template edit dialog, a client wish, was added [AD30-1903].

Testing and Validation

The layout of the validation messages when Validating Instances has been renewed. It looks now like this example, with a “See more…” “See less…” button [AD30-1928].

Project

• A problem with adding authors twice was fixed [AD30-1845].
• Project license is now only editable for decor admins [AD30-1915].

Terminology

• FHIR CodeSystem.date and ValuesSet.date on exports are now populated with DECOR lastModifiedDate [AD30-1849].
• FHIR CodeSystem export now properly includes designations [AD30-1896].
• Patient friendly terms are now shown in the terminology browser [AD30-1901].
• FHIR dstu2 download was broken, this has been fixed [AD30-1910].
• Priority is given to explicit parents/children on FHIR R4 code system export, another error has been fixed [AD30-1923].
• Offering care and complete view for project index: icon [AD30-1830].

Software Development / Tools features

Several older project index calls in Release 2 style (utilizing DECOR services) have been replaced by proper API calls (Release 3)

• Replace RetrieveProject in the artefact management [AD30-1660].

• Replace all html projectindex calls with API [AD30-1661].

• Replace decor service with api extract links in valueset, codesystem and template view [AD30-1794].

• Replace RetrieveConceptMap by $extract and $view api's [AD30-1831].

• Hover on selected transaction group did not show the full text (in scenarios), this has been fixed [AD30-1505].

• HTTP proxy dependency updates were performed [AD30-1852].

• CSV download for codesystem and valueset acceptance https configuration [AD30-1911].

• A problem with the "See more" buttons has been fixed [AD30-1921].

• An Acceptance test release 3.8.9 was performed [AD30-1855].

Scenario

• Smart clone looks at inherited items only but not at relationships [AD30-1926].

Questionnaires

• A Questionnaire transform bug was fixed [AD30-1429].

ADA

ADA (ART-DECOR Application) is not widespreadly used, but some governance groups base a heavy infrastructure on this satellite feature. There have been some updates to the ADA feature listed here.

• ADA update introduces a function to update existing ADA definitions and deploy them [AD30-1781].
• ADA update frontend [AD30-1798].

Hints for Updating an ART-DECOR® Release for local installations

For all our hosted servers we do planned and annnounced updates of the server software regarding backend and frontend, comprised of ART-DECOR vue and ART-DECOR http-proxy.

TIP

When you have a local installation of ART-DECOR and want to update to this release, please consinder reading our Updating an ART-DECOR® Release documentation.

Thank you

A BIG thank you!

We are always thankful for any comments and suggestions.

Special thanks for the feedback regarding the Template Viewer and Editor to the colleagues from ELGA (Austria) and HL7 Italy / Ernst&Young (EY) and for Dataset and Questionnaire editor to the Berlin Institute of Health @ Charité team. Dataset and Scenario enhancements are also coming from the Professional Record Standards Body in the UK – PRSB.

Especially in the terminology and questionnaire sector we got great feedback from the Dutch ICT Institute in Health Care (Nictiz). Thanks to Gunter Haroske working for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pathologie / German Association of Pathology pointing to shortcomings and missing features in our Questionnaire functions and to the Dutch Uitkomstgerichte Zorg Program for contributions in the same area.

Special thanks also to the mio42 GmbH team, Agence du Numérique en Santé (ANS) and our partners at Kereval / IHE Europe for testing, feature suggestions and bug fix requests.

Please don't hesitate to write us with suggestions for improvements or feature requests to our email address provided for this purpose: feedback@art-decor.org, also easily reachable through the Services Card at our ART-DECOR landing page (the link with the bulb 😃).

Outlook

Current development is heading towards a next Minor Release 3.8.10 quickly, planned to be published in May 2024. One of the major aspects are more features and enhancements for the Questionnaire Management.

At the same time we are currently also working on the ART-DECOR Release 4 series. This will imply a big update on the frontend as we switch to Vue3, also the backend will make use of the new eXist Database Release v6.3.0.

As you can see: more on that to come. Thank you for your patience. Stay tuned.