Product Release Notes

3.6

August 20th, 2018

Platform

New Features:

  1. Data Center:
    1. Data Connectors integrated into this release are:
      1. SAS Data File
      2. Servicenow
      3. Salesforce
      4. Facebook Ads
      5. Google AdWords
      6. Snowflake
    2. SQL Query Builder is provided to create database queries
    3. Data download restrictions are added to show partial record information
  2. Admin- Predictive Settings: Re-set Queue option for workflow and scheduled jobs have been provided for R and Data Preparation workspaces
  3. Dockerization of containers is completed for seamless deployment
  4. UI Modularization for enhanced user experience
  5. JSON Web Token has been integrated for encoded data security
  6. Session control mechanism is introduced
  7. The ‘Document Migration’ tool is added for migrating Dashboard & Business Story (including Predictive flow)

Enhancements:

  1. Modifications in API connectors as per new URL configuration in BizViz data service property file
  2. Webservice modification is done for document migration tool
  3. The Shared Mobile Dashboards are supported for the Mobile Apps

Survey

Enhancements:

  1. Insecure calls are moved to a new plugin

Data Preparation

New Features:

A new feature for Data Cleansing is introduced to the Data Preparation plugin. The Data Cleansing option can allow users even with a non-technical background to view, profile, and cleanse data in a user-friendly interface.

Any input added to the data preparation pane will have a new tab ‘Data Preparation’ with the ‘Data Cleansing’ option by clicking which the user-friendly UI for data preparation will be launched as a new tab.

The ‘Data Cleansing’ tool comes with the following pre-loaded features:

  1. View data in familiar excel like tabular form with pagination and resizable grid
  2. The following actions can be performed on Data:
    1. Data Profiling
    2. Check for Data Type Accuracy
    3. Identification of mismatched Data Types
    4. Detection of anomalies Patterns
  3. The ‘Data Quality’ bar visually flags the presence of invalid or blank data in columns
  4. The ‘Info’ tab displays a common summary of the statistical quantities (like min, max, average) for all the columns
  5. Filter data anomalies and perform deeper investigation through one-click on the displayed bar chart
  6. Suitable Transformation actions for each column appears automatically
  7. The list of available transforms:
    1. Delete Columns
    2. Delete Rows with Invalid Cells
    3. Delete Rows with Empty Cells
    4. Change to Upper Case
    5. Change to Lower Case
    6. Change to Title Case
    7. Clear Cells with Negative Values
    8. Remove Fractional Part
    9. Clear Cells on the Matching Value
    10. Delete Rows on the Matching Value
    11. Fill Empty Cells with Text
    12. Concatenate Columns
    13. Round Value using Ceil Mode
    14. Round Value using Floor Mode
    15. Round Value using Down Mode
    16. Round Value using half-up Mode
    17. Remove Part of the Text
    18. Remove Trailing and Leading Characters
    19. Remove Consecutive Characters
    20. Search and Replace
    21. Add, multiply, subtract or divide
    22. Fill Cells with a value
    23. Format Numbers
    24. Rename Column
    25. Convert Duration
  8. All the performed transformations will be saved and displayed in order on the ‘Data Cleansing’ page
  9. Identifies the datatype of every column
  10. An ‘Export’ option is provided to export the performed transformations/cleansing back to the Data Preparation UI

Enhancements:

  1. Input component: Excel Sheet is integrated as a data source
Note: The ‘Data Cleansing’ tool is in Alpha.

Business Story

New Features:

  1. Dimension Profiling has been introduced
  2. Area chart: The ‘Style’ properties field are provided with the Overlaid, Stacked, and 100% options
  3. The animation is provided for Mixed, Column, Bar, Line, and Pie charts
  4. The Web pack Bundling has been introduced in the BI story
  5. NLQ
    1. NLP engine has been moved to Elastic search as plugin
      1. This improves the search performance by utilizing distributed computing feature of ES
      2. Synonyms data move DB to elastic to enable large data volume handling
    2. The NLQ charts come up with a description

Enhancements:

  1. The ‘Export’ option has been enhanced to improve the quality of images in PDF
  2. NLQ :
    1. The NLQ Result Page is provided with the following options:
      1. Switch chart types
      2. Switch between data stores
      3. Search on the same page

Dashboard Designer

Charting

New Features:

  1. The ‘Custom’ component has been added to import any 3rd party charting component into the dashboard
  2. Users have a provision to store, retrieve, and apply filter criteria on the dashboard
  3. The ‘Leaflet Map’ component has been added to plot Geospatial data
  4. The ‘Mito Plot’ component has been added
  5. Time Series: The ‘Overlaid’ chart type has been added
  6. Scatter Plot: the ‘Threshold’ line has been added for X and Y-axis
  7. The animation has been provided to the Group Bar, Pie, Bar, Heat Map, and Scatter Plot charts
  8. The ‘Action’ icon has been provided for charts to sort data and export at runtime

Enhancements:

  1. Combo Box Filter: A search bar is provided to search through a long list of options
  2. Time series: Drill updates for the entire underlying area for Area-view
  3. Repeater chart-
    1. A proper status message is displayed when chart does not have data
    2. Legends are hidden
  4. Indicator color will be applied in the tooltip and drill
  5. Base Zero on Axis: Updates in marker calculation for the very minute difference in measure values (Base Zero on Axis: Calculation markers will be updated for the minute difference in the measure values.
  6. Scaling: Single value components are in perfect alignment for different resolution machines
  7. The ‘Export’ option can display all components when the dashboard size is less
  8. BDB standalone chart can be configured with legends-with-checkbox
  9. Grids:
    1. Scorecard: The ‘Custom Aggregation’ option has been implemented
    2. Grid & Paging Grid: Formatter property support the aggregated row
    3. Opacity of rows/header/lines can be controlled in all the Grid components
  10. SDK Methods:
    1. getAggregatedDataset: Min/Max operations are provided with field information
    2. A status message with auto-hide is displayed after a given interval
  11. Funnel: Data labels are added

Designer

New Features:

  1. Tooltip properties block addition in the Property Palette to control its styling
  2. Users can refresh the chart/dashboard data in real-time by reloading a WebSocket connection
  3. Dashboards containing Predictive Service and Data Store as connections can be migrated
  4. Synchronization of Desktop, Tablet, Mobile views to quickly update changes in dashboard

Enhancements:

  1. Script Editor: It has been enhanced to hint about the possible error in syntax
  2. Calculated Field and Data Set Operations: support column names with spaces or special characters
  3. The Calculated field supports column name with space and special characters
  4. Data Set Operations: All types of column names are supported in filtering or sorting
  5. Formatter:
    1. The currency formatters like Lakh and Crore are supported for the auto unit
    2. By default, all charts contain international Number Formatter in axis and tooltip
  6. Theme: Roboto is the new default theme for components and font-family

Predictive Workbench

New Features:

  1. The Neural Network workspace has been integrated to the Predictive Workflow with the following features:
    1. Saved Workflows – All the saved NN workflows will be added to this node
    2. Data Sources
      1. CSV
      2. Data Service
      3. Data Store
    3. Prepackage Models
      1. Sentiment Analysis Models with related predefined scripts (other models can be added as per the requirements)
    4. NN Models
      1. Create New Model
      2. Saved NN Models
        1. Tensor-board for NN Model training visualization
    5. Custom Python Scripts
      1. Create New Script- The NN Workspace provides two options to be chosen for the Custom Python Scripts:
        1. Normal Python Script
        2. NN Model Object File Script
      2. Saved Script
    6. Model Training (and Retraining)
      1. Additional support for creating NumPy file creation script is provided
    7. Apply Model
      1. It supports NN Apply Model
    8. Data Writer
      1. Data Store Writer
      2. File Writer
        1. CSV
        2. JSON
      3. Data Base Writers
        1. Internal Data Writer (RDBMS Data Writer)
  2. The ‘Predefined Scripts’ node is provided for existing users and new users in the R and Python Workspaces
  3. The following predefined R scripts are added to the ‘Predefined Scripts’ node:
    1. Performance Metrics
    2. Prophet Forecasting
    3. Boruta Model Select
    4. Anomaly Detection
    5. ETS Forecast Model
    6. Weekly Forecasting
    7. SVM Models
    8. Random Forest
    9. Weekly Forecasting
    10. SVM Models
    11. Random Forest
  4. The ‘Predefined Scripts’ node in the R Workspace
    1. The predefined script node lists while creating a new space
    2. The script summary includes both model and performance accuracy summary
    3. Proper visualization is provided for the following scripts:
      1. The Boruta Script
      2. The Random Forest Script
  5. Process-based logging is provided in the R Workspace
  6. UI Modularization has been completed for all the Predictive Workspaces

Enhancements:

  1. The following enhancements are provided in the R and Data Preparation Workflows:
    1. Mechanism to auto kill the enqueued process has been provided to avoid chocking of PA Queue after a configured ideal timeout period
    2. Centralized WebSocket to Support Distributed deployment
    3. Centralized storage for Distributed deployment
    4. Improved Concurrency for workflows and scheduled jobs
  2. R Regression analysis (R Linear and R Multiple Linear) is provided with the ‘Intercept’ option
  3. The ‘XG Boosting’ option is provided for the R CNR Tree algorithm
  4. Spark Workspace:
    1. Spark components now support the JDBC reader and writer
    2. Spark version has been upgraded to 2.3
  5. NN Workspace:
    1. A new queue has been introduced in the ‘Celery Queue’ for NN Model training
    2. A saved NN Model is provided with ‘Delete’ and ‘View’ options
  6. Python Workspace:
    1. Python MySQL Library is updated to PyMySQL-0.8.1 for performance improvement
    2. Python server can utilize HTTP/HTTPS for services
  7. Data Source:
    1. The ‘Properties’ tab for CSV files is provided with a proper header.
    2. A backend validation has been added to check whether the Number of Headers and Columns are matching in the data extracted from a CSV file
  8. Master Settings will provide ‘Max Process Allowed Count,’ ‘Clear Cache Time,’ and ‘Process Timeout’ information.
  9. A centralized location has been provided for File upload, Cached files, Cached models, and Saved models
  10. Environment variables are provided for PA properties
  11. Clear Cache- Relevant modifications are done for a distributed environment

Notes:

  1. Users must provide the model variable name as ‘model’ for NN Model Structure Script. The users should create a Model Structure to compile parameters.
  2. Users should use ‘SHARED_PATH’ variable in their script for NN Model Script to use Pre-Package Models’ file. Moreover, to use the user-defined models’ supporting files, they should use ‘FAKE_PATH’ in their scripts.
  3. Users can access the supporting files for Normal Python Script by using, ‘FAKE_PATH’+ + ‘/’ +
  4. Connect an NN Model before the test data into ‘NN Apply Model’ while creating a Predictive Workflow.

Mobile Apps

iOS App:

New Features:

  1. The ‘Create Story’ feature has been provided in the iOS Mobile App
  2. Users can now annotate the charts in Business Story and Dashboards using the iOS Mobile App
  3. The ‘Share With’ feature has been provided to share the created business stories and dashboards with other users.

Enhancements:

  1. NLQ: UI expansions for enhanced user experience

Android App:

New Features:

  1. Android Version for BDB Mobile has been launched with the following features:
    1. View Dashboards
    2. View Business Story
    3. Add charts to Business Story using the integrated NLQ based voice search

Recommendations:

Product Description
Dashboard Designer
Wrap field names in the square bracket when used in calculated fields or in dataset filter script, which will improve data processing and allow to use fields with special characters.
When creating mobile View: If the script is written on labels required to be different then desktop mode, make sure ‘sync’ property is turned off in the Preference menu.
Do not override any charting/ framework method to make your script work for the temporary purpose. It may break your dashboard in the future with an updated version of the BDB Dashboard Designer.
Predictive Workbench Please ensure the CSV file as the reader follows the format given below:
  • The first row of the CSV file should contain the column headers.
  • The second row of the CSV file should contain the data under all the headers without any null, NA, etc.
  • CSV headers should not have space. It should be a single word or two words concatenated by an underscore (_).
  • CSV headers should not have any special characters. E.g., %, #, $, @, * etc.
  • CSV header should not use single or double quotes, dot, and brackets.
  • CSV header should not have just numerals in it. It should be with at least one alphabet.
  • CSV header should not exceed 50 characters.
  • All rows in a column should have a single data type.
  • CSV header should not use single or double quotes, dot, brackets, and hyphen.

Known Limitations:

Product Description
Platform Document Migration: Users can migrate only those dashboards based on the PA Workflows which are created using CSV or Data Service.
Business Story NLQ:
  • Count of dimension by dimension is not supported in the search query
  • Ambiguity resolution will not work if the dimension values used in the query are present in multiple dimension fields
Dashboard Designer
Export to PPT/PDF/PNG does not support google fonts such as Ubuntu, Raleway or Roboto, so there may be a mismatch in what you see on the browser and what is exported in pdf/ppt/png
The ‘Export’ feature may take 5-15 seconds in chrome, ~30 seconds in IE based on the size of the dashboard.
IE browser does not support Google fonts such as Roboto and Raleway
Datagrids should contain less than 500 records for the best loading experience
The ‘Export’ option does not support Leaflet and Map components at present. Excel/ CSV file with more than 3MB size is not supported
NN Workspace: Users should not use NN Model Object File Scripts with data writers
Users can’t use ‘Apply Model’ and ‘Performance’ with cached data
Predictive Workbench
Scheduler:
  • Non-admin users may not have workspace wise distinguished list of workflows
  • Users should use the MSSQL database writer in the workflow itself while scheduling
Users will not get appropriate visualization for R Logistic Regression
R Workspace: Users should not write date records with ‘AM’ or ‘PM’ in the RJDBC databases
Data Service: Users should avoid excessive use of quote and backquote while creating a query
Spark Workspace: Live job status will not be displayed for the spark workflows

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