Feature Compatibility Matrix

Version 2.0

Alongside numerous internal bugfixes and performance work, this release brings two new major features:

• Licensing

• Compatibility with the M-Files 2018 Administration Configuration interface

Version 2.0 of the Vault Application Framework is compatible with M-Files 2015.3 upwards. Please see the note below regarding configuration compatibility with M-Files 2015.3.

Configuration compatibility

Version 2.0 of the Vault Application Framework introduces a new pattern for exposing application-specific configuration into the M-Files 2018 Admin interface. As M-Files 2015.3 (and earlier) do not contain this section within the M-Files Admin interface, it is recommended that the earlier configuration approach (which continues to work in Version 2.0) is used for compatibility with M-Files 2015.3 systems.

Version 1.0

Version 1.0 of the Vault Application Framework was released in early 2016. This release included a wide variety of functionality, including:

• Attribute-based automated installation of scripts into the M-Files vault, including workflow state actions, property calculations, event handlers and more.
• Background operations
• Helper objects to aid working with the M-Files vault and Microsoft Windows environment.
• Search helpers

M-Files have published to partners a Visual Studio 2015/2017 template for use when creating VAF 1.0 applications.

Name-Value Storage Configuration

The initial release of the framework supported configuration attributes that were used to mark up configuration objects used by each application. These configuration objects were serialised into Name-Value storage, and the Name-Value Storage Manager could be used to alter them at runtime.

The 2.0 release of the framework introduced another approach which integrates with the new configuration administration interface in M-Files 2018. It is recommended that applications that target M-Files 2018 and upwards migrate to the new version.

M-Files have published to partners a Visual Studio 2015/2017 template for use when creating VAF 1.0 applications.

Upgrading versions

From Version 1.0 to Version 2.0

New VAF 2.0 applications can be created using the M-Files 2018 Visual Studio template. To upgrade an existing VAF 1.0 application to 2.0, the following steps need to be taken.

• Create a blank VAF 2.0 application from the updated template.
  • From the new application, locate the MFiles.VAF.dll, MFiles.VAF.Configuration.dll and MFiles.Crypto.dll files.
• Open the existing VAF 1.0 application in Visual Studio:
  • Update the references
    • Expand the References node in Solution Explorer.
    • Locate and delete the existing MFiles.VAF.dll reference.
    • Add a reference to MFiles.VAF.dll, MFiles.VAF.Configuration.dll and MFiles.Crypto.dll from the VAF 2.0 release.
    • Use nuget to update the Newtonsoft.JSON reference from 6.0.x to 10.0.3.
  • Resolve any namespace issues, for example:
    • MFIdentifier (and other configuration attributes) have moved from MFiles.VAF.Common to MFiles.VAF.Configuration.

At this point the VAF application can be altered to support 2.0 features such as licensing and integration into the M-Files 2018 Administration Configuration interface.