FOIAXpress Release Notes 26.3.2.0

Product Enhancements

Background Job Generation for Billing and Operational Reports

#ID 1514091

Building on the background job report generation introduced for custom request reports, FOIAXpress now extends the same asynchronous processing to a wide range of billing and operational reports. When you run one of these reports, many of which span multiple years and include a large number of selected fields, FOIAXpress produces it as a background job instead of building it directly in your active session. This keeps the application responsive for you and for other users while a large report is compiled, and removes the performance slowdowns that previously occurred when heavy reports were generated in-session.

The following reports are now generated as background jobs:

   • Billing reports — Payment, Delinquent Requester, Invoice Details, Pending Fees, Request – Processed Cost – Fees, and Work Hours

   • Custom request reports — Declassification, Document, Reading Room Documents, Request for Documents Actions, User Actions, and User Logins

For each report you can choose the output format, decide whether to generate it immediately or schedule it for a later date and time, and follow its progress and status from Jobs.

To generate a report as a background job:

   1. Navigate to Reports and open the report you want to run.

   2. Select a saved criteria and click Next. Alternatively, simply click Next to create a new criteria.

   3. Configure the report criteria — for example, the reporting period and the fields to include — as you normally would.

   4. Click Generate in Background.

   5. Select the report format you want.

   6. Choose a Schedule option:

       ◦ Select Now to run the report immediately, or

       ◦ Select Later and specify the date and time for the report to run later.

   7. Click Export to submit the report. FOIAXpress queues the report as a background job.

   8. Navigate to Administration > Jobs > All Jobs. Locate your report job and click the status to monitor the job.

   9. When the status shows Completed, click Download to download the generated report in the format you selected.

NOTE: Since these reports now run as background jobs, you can continue working in FOIAXpress, or log out, while a report is being generated. Scheduled reports run automatically at the date and time you specify.

Configurable Group Assignments Display on the Home Page

#ID 1549268

We have substantially improved the performance and stability of the Annual Report. You can now control which requests appear in the Group Assignments section of the Home Page. A new system configuration lets an administrator choose whether the Group Assignments queue shows only requests where the group is the primary assignee, or both primary and secondary assigned requests. Existing environments keep their current behavior (both primary and secondary) until the setting is changed.

To configure the Group Assignments display:

   1. Navigate to Administration > System Configuration > General Configuration.

   2. Locate for Group Queue Assignments under Dashboard Configuration.

   3. Select Primary to show only requests where the group is the primary assignee, Secondary to show only requests where the group is the secondary assignee, or Both to show both.

   4. When you’re done, click Save.

The Home Page Group Assignments section updates to match.

Annual Report Performance Improvements

#ID 1550104

The FOIAXpress Annual Report has been optimized to generate faster and place less load on the system, particularly for agencies with large data volumes. The report logic and underlying queries were streamlined to reduce processing time, with no change to the report's content or output.

Redesigned SAML SSO Configuration Wizard

#ID 1458483, 1458487

FOIAXpress now provides a guided, step-by-step wizard for configuring SAML single sign-on (SSO), replacing the previous single, densely packed configuration form. From Administration > Security > Sign On Mode, selecting SAML SSO opens a wizard that walks you through the configuration in clearly separated steps — Service Provider, Identity Provider, IDP Certificate, and Review & Save.

Each step keeps routine setup simple by showing only the fields most administrators need, while less common options are grouped in a collapsible Advanced Settings panel within each section. You can move between steps using Back and Next, download the service-provider metadata and certificate, upload identity-provider metadata to auto-populate fields, run Test Connection, and confirm every configured value on a read-only summary before saving.

To configure SAML SSO:

Navigate to Administration > Security.

1. Select Sign On Mode.

2. In the Sign On Mode dialog, select SAML SSO from the FOIAXpress Sign On Mode dropdown. The SAML SSO Configuration wizard opens.

3. On the Service Provider step, enter the Issuer/Entity ID and Assertion Service URL, expand Advanced Settings to configure certificate options if required, and click Next.

4. On the Identity Provider step, upload the identity provider's metadata XML to auto-populate the fields (or enter them manually), click Test Connection to verify connectivity, and click Next.

5. On the IDP Certificate step, provide the identity provider certificate details, and click Next.

6. On the Review & Save step, review all configured values, then click Save.

Guided Validation and Certificate Safeguards for SAML SSO

#ID 1458491

The redesigned SAML SSO wizard now provides clearer feedback and built-in safeguards that help prevent common configuration mistakes.

Metadata validation: When you upload an identity provider metadata file, FOIAXpress checks it before applying any values. A malformed or non-SAML file is rejected with an inline error and no fields are changed. A valid file that is missing or contains unrecognized values fills in the fields it can and displays a warning identifying the fields you still need to complete — without overwriting anything you have already entered.

Certificate file-type restrictions: Certificate uploads are limited to the correct formats so unsupported files cannot be selected — the service-provider signature certificate accepts .pfx files only, and the identity provider certificate accepts .cer, .crt, or .pem files.

Context-aware fields: When the service-provider Certificate option is set to None, the certificate fields — along with the Sign Authentication Request and Want Assertion Encrypted options — are hidden, because they do not apply without a certificate. Similarly, the Want Assertion Signed and Want SAML Response Signed options in the IDP Certificate advanced settings stay hidden until a valid identity provider certificate is provided, preventing sign-in failures caused by enabling assertion verification with no certificate configured.

SAML Settings Managed Within the Application

#ID 1535479, 1590944

SAML SSO settings are now stored and managed entirely within the application. Configuration values that previously depended on a server-side file are now read from and saved to the database through the SAML SSO configuration screens, so all SAML setup happens in one place under Administration > Security > Sign On Mode.

As part of this change, the SAML Identity Provider (IDP) and Service Provider (SP) fields have been removed from the Database Management Tool. Editing these values directly in the tool while a user was signing in could overwrite them mid-authentication; they are now maintained only through the SAML SSO configuration wizard. This is an administrative change and does not affect the single sign-on experience for end users.

Security Updates

We’ve made the following security updates in this version of FOIAXpress:

Bug Fixes

We’ve addressed the following bug in this version of FOIAXpress: