New Features

Completely rebuilt from scratch in a new language and development environment, this version of Catapult makes huge strides forward in terms of both stability and performance.

This chart (taken from the Upgrader's Guide) illustrates the performance difference between Catapult 6 and Catapult 7, showing the number of identical reports processed per minute. At 7 minutes, Catapult 7 had processed close to 5000 reports in the time that Catapult 6 processed under 350.

We have updated Catapult 7 with a new fresh look for the Console, and several new features, including:

• You no longer have to refresh the grab rule list after making changes: when you Add/Edit/Delete a rule or folder, it updates automatically.
• You can double-click a folder to open or close it.
• You can add, edit and delete folders directly in the console.
• The Poller Status, Request and History Lists are Dockable Windows
• We have added several new keyboard hotkeys.

The Catapult Grab Rule Editor is the most complicated interface in the software and in preparing this release we devoted particular attention to this area of the product.

The ‘basic’ and ‘advanced’ distinction is gone, replaced by 6 main branches which correspond to the various ‘stages’ a request goes through as Catapult executes the actions you’ve added. The categories mirror the flow of a request, and highlight the links between related sections.

One of the most common questions we’ve had over the years is “What are replacement values, and when can I use them?”. In Catapult 7 you can right-click any field, and if it supports a replacement value you will see an "Insert Replacement Value…" option. You can select this option to display a list of all the possible replacement values, including the default set and any extracted values or additional values you might have available.

The Catapult Launchpad replaces the Poller Monitor of previous releases. From the launchpad you can load all the other components, as well as monitor the poller status.

Once started, the launchpad lurks quietly in the corner of your screen. You can double-click the Catapult Launchpad to fire up the Catapult Console, or right-click the icon to choose from the options shown at left.

You can display the new spool file list (or selection) window from the console or from within a particular grab rule. In this window:

• The queue list is in a dropdown list, as part of the filter criteria.
• You can subset your list by any of the acquisition criteria fields.
• The list shows only spool files that would be hit in a polling cycle. Non-polled queues are greyed out in the list.
• The list does not show queues to which the user is not authorized.
• If you are inside a rule, you either select the file (all the values) or you can select the filter criteria (a subset).

The Catapult Launchpad replaces the Poller Monitor of previous releases. From the launchpad you can load all the other components, as well as monitor the poller status.

Once started, the launchpad lurks quietly in the corner of your screen. You can double-click the Catapult Launchpad to fire up the Catapult Console, or right-click the icon to choose from the options shown at left.

The most significant change for the Catapult 7 Poller is that it now runs only as a service. The Catapult Poller service requires a network account under which it logs on. This account requires all the same authorities as earlier versions of the software, and is defined at the service level.

In Catapult 7 pollers can be individually be scheduled to start up and end automatically, manually or at a scheduled time. This done via a new Poller Manager window, which you can start and configure from the Catapult Launchpad.