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Flex4 Retirement

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Overview

The retirement of Flex4 is going to come in two stages. First, we plan to retire the Flex4 Flash application and following that, the Flex4 backend.

Stage One: Flex4 Flash Retirement

As most of our customers are aware, Adobe stopped supporting Flash in December 2020. In order to continue to give our customers access to Flex4 while Flex5 development continued, we licensed a Flash player for our Flex4 Flash Application from an Adobe partner. Our Flash license extends through the end of 2022 and once it expires, we are required to retire the Flex4 Flash application. We will continue to phase out features from Flex4 as they are ported over to Flex5.

If you still need to access Flex4 before the end of 2022, please see the Flex4 App Download Instructions.

Timeline

The following features are on our timeline for development in the coming months (before the retirement of Flex4 Flash).

Notable Features Coming to Flex5 Before Flex4 Flash Retirement

  • Various System Settings pages
    • Custom Reports
    • Static Reports
  • Sensitive Search Tokens
  • Partial Invoicing
  • Cheat Sheet Management
  • Email Templates
  • Project Element Settings pages
  • Workflow Configuration
  • Contact Types
  • Audit Trails (Inventory and Contact)
  • PO History
  • Inventory Utilization/Revenue Dashboard
  • Google Calendar Integration
  • QuickBooks Desktop Settings

Stage Two: Flex4 Backend Retirement

After Flex4 Flash is retired, there will still be some underlying APIs still running in the Flex4 Backend. These APIs are currently called from the Flex5 UI. This is not something that is visible to you as an end user, but it is important to note that porting these APIs to Flex5 will increase the performance of these areas significantly.

Timeline

The large remaining Flex4 API’s are as follows:

  • Availability API
  • Report Engine API
  • Workflow Processing APIs (e.g. Pull Sheet generation)

These APIs will be ported over throughout 2023. We expect to retire the Flex4 backend approximately around the end of 2023 (but there is not a hard date as of now).

If you run into any unexpected issues in Flex5 or if there is any reason you still need to access Flex4 Flash, please let us know by contacting Flex Support.

Features Coming to Flex5 in 2023

Additional features are on the timeline to be brought to Flex5 in 2023 (after the retirement of the Flex4 Flash application). 

  • Contact Bill Rates tab
  • Trucking functionality
  • Automated Functions
    • Please reach out to support if you need assistance adding or editing automated functions.
We want to hear from you! If there are any notable features or integrations that are important to you but not listed in this article, please fill out our Customer Feedback Form. 

Deprecated Features

While most functionality will be ported from Flex4 to Flex5, there are a few features that will be deprecated entirely during the transition. The decision to deprecate certain features has been based on extensive queries into usage data as well as customer feedback. Please see below for a list of features that will not be in Flex5:

  • Recurring Billing
  • Equipment Shortage Warning
  • "Sort Line Item" option
  • Contact Record
    • Relationships
    • Contact Image Gallery
    • Personal Details
  • Contacts Menu
    • Contact Relationships
    • Crew Schedule & Settings
  • Inventory Menu
    • ROI Dashboard (Global)
  • Systems Settings Menu
    • Business Rules
    • Email Blast
    • Labor Unions

 

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