L2022.10 Release Notes

For a list of release dates and Sisense's end of support schedule, see Sisense Life Cycle.

Release Overview

Release L2022.10 provides a number of new features and significant improvements to Sisense for Linux.

What's New

This release contains several new features. The following table lists the high-level impact (or potential impact, if any) of each of these features, and how to handle it if upgrading to this version. Continue reading the Release Notes below the table for a detailed explanation of each feature.

Amazon Athena Live Data Connector

Amazon Athena powered by the Analytical Engine is a new live data connector.

Sisense enables easy and quick access to databases, tables and views contained within Athena. To connect to your Athena, you need to provide a connection string that identifies the Athena that you are connecting to, and that database's credentials. You can then import your data into a Sisense ElastiCube or connect your data to a Sisense Live model.

See Connecting to Amazon Athena.

Assign Draft Cube to Data Group

There is a new supported ability to pre-assign an ElastiCube to a data group, so as to better allow resource allocation in the system. This feature is only available through the API.

There is no change in API parameters.

See Using Sisense CLI Commands for more information.

Base64 Encoding to Encrypt Connections

Base64 encoding over AES encryption has been added to the connection parameters.

Export Data Model with Assets

This feature enables you to export a data model with additional related assets.

These assets include:

• Data Security
• Hierarchies
• Formulas

For all three additional assets:

• If the security rule/drill hierarchy/formula already exists, it will not be overwritten.
• If it is new, it will be added.

For Data Security:

• Checking by the user (email and not its OID) - if a user does not exist on the machine that is imported into, it will not add the user and will not apply the security rule on that user.

All Data Security rules and emails are encrypted.

This is only available in model export (sModel).

For more information, see Exporting and Importing Data Models.

Formula Validation

The Analytical Engine provides dashboard designers with improved formula validation error messages, eliminating false positives due to formula definitions, resulting in a high correlation between valid formulas and valid widgets.

For more information, see Dashboard Functions Reference.

Git Integration

The new Sisense Git Integration brings the powerful source control technology of Git to Sisense. Now Git can be used to provide version control for the development of Sisense assets such as dashboards, widgets and data models, as well as allow the integration of Sisense into existing customer CI/CD pipelines. For more information, see Introduction to Sisense Git Integration.

Key features:

• Now Sisense projects ("local" repositories) can be synchronized across Sisense deployments (Dev, Staging, Production) by means of a central remote repository
• A rich, standard Git GUI that is built into the Sisense application
• Natural Git experience that uses common terminology. Teams already using Git should have no trouble integrating Sisense into their daily operations.
• Supports remote Git repositories that support HTTPS authentication (such as Github.com, Gitlab.com, Azure, etc.) and privately hosted Git servers.
• REST APIs endpoints essential for CI/CD flows.

Infusion Apps View Management

View Management allows users to see the Views that have been created for use with Infusion Apps in one place. View Management reduces the time to find a View, streamlines the View editing process by taking the user directly to the widget, and displays View metadata to the user without the need to find and edit a widget.

For more information, see Managing Views.

RKE Installation Using a Specified UID

When installing Sisense, the default installation user is UID 1000. Sometimes, due to security restrictions, it is not possible to use UID 1000. The installation process now enables you to specify a different UID for the installation process.

Widget Design

No Code Widget Header Styles for Dashboard Designers

If an Administrator enables the Admin > Feature Management > Widget Design Styling option, dashboard designers can set customized styles of individual widgets, including widget header styles. By default, the option is off for upgrades and on for new installations.

The following items are available for widget header style customization:

• Title Text - The color of the widget's title.
• Title Alignment - Determines whether the widget's title should be left- or center-aligned.
• Divider Line - Determines whether there will be a line between the widget's header and the widget's contents, and its color.
• Background - The background color of the widget's header.

See Setting Widget Style for more information.

BloX Attributes

New BloX widget design attributes were added for Widget Title Style and the Border.

The new options were added to the snippets for quick access:

Attributes > Widget Title Style

1{
2  "titleStyle": [
3    {
4      "backgroundColor": "",
5      "backgroundImage": "",
6      "fontColor": "",
7      "dividerColor": "" - NEW for Header Divider Line
8    }
9  ]
10}

Attributes > Border

1{
2  "spaceAround": "none|small|medium|large", - NEW Space Around
3  "cornerRadius": "none|small|medium|large", - NEW Corner Radius
4  "borderColor": "", - NEW Border
5  "shadow": "none|light|medium|dark" - NEW Shadow
6}

Configuration Parameter Changes

What's Improved

Dashboards and Widgets

Easier to share dashboards that use multiple data sources

All of the dashboard's data sources will be automatically shared if approved in the "Data Sources Access Rights" check when sharing the dashboard with new users. For more information, seeSharing Dashboards.

REST API deprecations and updated APIs

Several REST APIs endpoints for exporting Dashboard and Widgets as PDF and PNG have been deprecated and replaced with updated APIs. It is no longer possible to manually switch back to the legacy exporting services.

The deprecated REST APIs:

• As of L2022.9 they are no longer supported in any flows initiated from the Sisense UI.
• Can still be used when triggered directly by the API in versions L2022.9 and L2022.10.
• Will no longer be available for use in any form beginning from version L2022.11.

You may continue using the legacy endpoints when exporting via REST API until you upgrade to version L2022.11. However, make sure to switch to the new endpoints prior to upgrading to L2022.11 or any version after that.

Simply Ask (Natural Language Query (NLQ)) Functional Improvements

• Improved filtering capabilities based on semantic similarity between the member and the column name, without the need to index the fields.
  For example: "Show me the Revenue for female" will return an option for a filter of 'female' in 'Gender' without mentioning the column name 'Gender'.
  
• Expanded the use of 'Total' to count the unique members of textual fields ('Total' for textual columns will now suggest two count aggregation methods - count all [rows] and count unique [members]).
  
• Attempts to match a member to a column without stating its name.
• Supports fuzzy matching for indexed members. For example:
  • Input of "AMCE inc." will be recognized as "ACME Inc."
  • Input of "mael" will be recognized as "male"
• Improved ambiguity suggestions for keywords such as 'forecast' and 'unique'.

For more information about Simply Ask (NLQ), see Querying Your Data with Simply Ask (NLQ).

ElastiCube Configuration

The EC-Build default configuration value of the ec_copy_into_chunk_size parameter has been changed from 100000 to 500000. This affects the Elasticube Build chunk size by increasing it to 500000.

Infusion Apps

Added welcome messages for Teams app installation and login.

Installation Changes

• When using Kubernetes EKS v1.23 or higher with Amazon FSX, you need to configure a few management and security updates. See Creating a Service Account for the EBS CSI Driver on EKS.
• The cni_plugin parameter that enables the user to set their preferred CNI (Container Network Interface) while deploying a new Kubernetes was added to the relevant YAML files in Installing Sisense on Linux.

Notebooks

Notebooks improvements include:

• New connectors for:
  • Data Bricks
  • SQL Server
• Code and SQL cells can now be dragged and dropped to be above or below other cells.
• For rows with multiple cells placed side by side, all of the cells can now be expanded and collapsed together using the arrow in the leftmost cell.

What's Fixed

BloX

• Action type “Filters” in BloX-based widgets are working as expected and filtering the data according to the filter values.
• Now users with edit permissions are able to modify BloX-based widgets.

Build

• Creating scheduled jobs with explicit cron expressions is now possible via CLI and API.

Build

• The Pending Republish flag is now displayed correctly in accordance with the dashboard state.

Dashboard Reporting

• Dashboard reporting settings (subscriptions) are no longer being overwritten when an owner republishes a dashboard after they make changes.

Embedding Sisense

• Fixed problems loading BloX-based widgets using Sisense.js.

Filters

• Filters that use the new filters interface are now saved as expected when they include the Top function.
• The new modal filters (DateTime, Numeric and Text) are opening correctly when filtering rows or values for Pivot widgets.
• Fixed 'From-To' Date filters in BloX.
• Fixed problem which occurred when applying BloX dropdown filters on assets with dependent filters.

Infusion Apps

Plugins

• Tabber plugin - Clicking away from a dashboard with the Tabber plugin no longer results in errors appearing in the developer console.
• SwitchDimension plugin - This plugin is now working as expected after a Sisense upgrade.

Reports

• Fixed scheduled email reports.

User Interface (UI)

• The Sign Out button UI is displayed when switching between the Data and Analytics tabs.

Version Upgrade

• The skipCompilation flag was added to the plugin.json file for plugins. This flag can be set to true to prevent the recompilation of pre-compiled plugins during the upgrade process. For more information, see Upgrading Sisense.

Web Access Token

• The /api/widgets/${widgetId} endpoint now works as expected for Sisense.js in the WAT flow.

Widgets

• Widgets now trigger the 'initialized' event as expected.
• Fixed 'Uncaught Error: Highcharts error' for Sisense JS v1.

Limitations

When exporting Live models, "Include Data Security" is not available in this version. It is expected to be enabled in the upcoming version. It is currently enabled for ElastiCubes.

Video

Watch this video for an overview of selected features from this release: