L2024.3 Release Notes - Pre-Release
These release notes are being provided in advance of the release, for your preparation and evaluation of the upcoming version. This version will be released for Cloud Availability shortly.
For a list of release dates and Sisense's end of support schedule, see Sisense Version Release and Support Schedule.
IMPORTANT NOTE - Regarding Upgrading:
Customers currently running Sisense versions older than L2023.11 cannot directly upgrade to versions L2024.2.0.79 or newer. You must first upgrade your Sisense installation to version L2023.11, or L2024.1, or L2024.2.0.78. Only after completing this intermediate upgrade can you proceed to versions L2024.2.0.79 or newer.
This important change is due to Sisense upgrading to MongoDB 6 starting from Sisense version L2024.2.0.79.
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To download the latest Sisense version, or to upgrade to an older version, see that version’s Release Notes and contact your Sisense Customer Success Manager for the version package.
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To upgrade to this version of Sisense:
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Read the Release Notes of all the versions following your current version, up to and including the version to which you are upgrading.
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Run a system backup before upgrading. See Backing up and Restoring Sisense.
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Follow the upgrade procedure in Upgrading Sisense.
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Privacy and Security Information
This release contains several security related updates. We highly recommend upgrading to this latest release to take advantage of any security-related updates and benefit from the Sisense support and warranty. In addition, Sisense strongly recommends regularly testing and auditing your environment after upgrading, and periodically during your subscription term, to ensure all privacy and security settings remain in place.
Customers are responsible for controlling and monitoring your environments and are therefore in the best position to ensure the correct security settings are in place for how you use Sisense products.
Due to the complexity of Sisense products, we strongly suggest that all customers ensure that you understand how all of the privacy and security settings within Sisense work.
If you use Sisense to store/process sensitive data, it is your responsibility to review and test your implementation to ensure you are not inadvertently sharing data with unauthorized third parties. For more information on data security rules, see Data Access Security.
BREAKING CHANGES - WARNING!
The following is a cumulative list of potentially breaking changes from approximately the past 12 months, and may also include warnings about upcoming changes:
As of version L2024.1, Sisense has implemented an expiration date for Security Bearer Tokens. The default setting (enabled/disabled) depends on the type of installation/upgrade performed; see Default Setting Per Installation/Upgrade Type. After upgrading to this version or newer of Sisense, if this feature is enabled, all tokens that are currently in use and do not have an expiration date set will expire immediately. This means that custom integrations with your apps (such as embedding) which use tokens with no expiration, after upgrading Sisense, will no longer work until new tokens are created or the existing tokens are renewed. Post-upgrade, if this feature is enabled, the expirations will depend on cookie or session settings in Session Management. Adjust your implementation to be based on a new approach to prevent future breaking changes when the toggle will be ON by default. See Security Bearer Tokens for more information.
It is no longer possible to create a folder with a specified oid via POST /folders API (the oid is a system property assigned automatically).
Only the current owner or administrator can change the folder's owner via PATCH /folders/{id} API.
An incompatibility issue has been identified which causes freezing in single-node environments due to high CPU usage reaching 100% (CPU Soft lock crash). Instances running on Ubuntu 20/22 with kernel versions >= 5.15 and < 6.7 were found to be affected. This issue can lead to system freezes and Sisense upgrade failures. To resolve this, upgrading the Linux kernel to version 6.7 on your on-prem instances is critical before upgrading Sisense. See this Sisense Community article for instructions on upgrading the kernel.
This release introduces a significant change to the location where Sisense audit logs are stored. Read below carefully if you rely on accessing audit logs directly.
Audit logs were previously stored in a single location: /opt/sisense/storage/audit. Starting with version L2023.11, audit logs are now stored within individual tenant directories for enhanced security and organization. They are now stored in: /opt/sisense/storage/tenants/<tenant_id>/audit.
Impact: This change is considered breaking for users who access audit logs directly at the old location. Your existing scripts or processes must be updated to reflect the new path.
Google Chrome is planning to disable third-party cookies during 2024. Other browsers may potentially do the same. This deprecation may cause a breaking change in your solutions with embedded Sisense analytics, such as the user being redirected to the login page and the embedded solution not being loaded. To avoid this breaking change:
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Use the same domain for the different apps and put it behind a specific path - this will make Sisense cookies not be third-party cookies.
For more information, see Third-Party Cookies.
Due to significant architectural changes required to deliver Viewpoints, after upgrading to version 2023.11 or newer, customers using Infusion Apps may experience unexpected behaviors, such as Views not able to be published from dashboards, Views not working within the Infusion Apps, etc.
To avoid or mitigate these issues requires additional upgrade steps specific to Infusion Apps. Contact Support for assistance.
As of November 2023, the Quest add-on no longer supports displaying Narratives as part of the Quest widget header information. Make sure to redesign and validate your implementation with the use of the native Narratives capabilities by that time.
Release Overview
Release L2024.3 provides a number of new features, improvements, and fixes to Sisense for Linux.
What's New
The following table lists the high-level impact (or potential impact, if any) of new features, and how to handle it if upgrading to version L2024.3 or newer. Continue reading the Release Notes below the table for a detailed explanation of these features, as well as improvements and fixes.
Feature | Issues and Actions to Consider |
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See the release notes below for a lot of important information about this major new feature. |
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There are no specific actions to consider - this is an optional capability. |
Connection Management (GA)
With the L2024.3 release, Connection Management moves from Beta to General Availability (GA), becoming the unified solution for managing data source connections. This feature enhances governance, security, and efficiency in managing connections across assets such as ElastiCubes, Live Models, and Notebooks.
Key Use Cases
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Reuse Across Multiple Assets: A single connection can be reused across multiple data models and asset types (ElastiCubes, Live Models, Notebooks), streamlining connection management.
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Secure Sharing: Connections can be shared without the need to expose sensitive data, such as login credentials or passwords, ensuring security across teams and users.
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Centralized Management: Centralized management and governance enable administrators to control and monitor all connections from a single location, simplifying oversight.
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Instant Updates: Any changes made to a connection are instantly applied to all dependent assets, eliminating the need for manual updates and ensuring consistency across the system.
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Encourages Connection Sharing: The system encourages the sharing of existing connections to reduce duplication and maintain a streamlined connection structure.
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Visibility and Dependency Management: Gain visibility into all assets that depend on a connection, with the ability to manage dependencies, ensuring that any connection changes are carefully handled.
Migration Details
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Conversion of Old Connections: All legacy connections are converted into the new managed connections format.
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Setting “supportedModelTypes”: The connection type is determined by the asset it was converted from:
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NOTEBOOK: If the connection was converted from a Notebook
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EXTRACT/LIVE: If the connection was converted from a Data Model
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Deduplication of Connections: Keeping only unique connections aiming to prevent duplicates. If there were multiple connections with identical connection details but owned by different users, they are converted into two separate managed connections.
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Ensuring Backward Compatibility: All assets that previously used these connections will continue to function seamlessly, maintaining full backward compatibility.
When working with Git projects, the following actions should be taken into consideration:
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Commit the Converted Connections: After migration, each converted connection is assigned a new OID, which appears in the Uncommitted section of your Git project. It is important for users to commit these changes rather than discard them, ensuring proper tracking of the converted connections and maintaining the consistency of the data models.
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Handling Merge Conflicts Across Environments: Since migration occurs independently in each environment (e.g., Dev, Stage, Prod), the same data model may have different managed connection OIDs across environments. This will likely result in a merge conflict when pulling changes from one environment to another. Users must resolve this conflict one time by selecting the connection that should be used with the data model across all environments.
This migration process ensures a smooth transition to the new Connection Management system without disrupting existing workflows or assets.
SRV Connection String Support in MongoDB Connector
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The MongoDB connector for ElastiCubes now supports the SRV connection string (see https://www.mongodb.com/resources/products/fundamentals/mongodb-connection-string ). When the “Use Svr Connection” checkbox is marked, the input field for “Port“ is hidden and the provided SRV connection will be used.
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The MongoDB connector has been updated and now supports MongoDB versions 5.0 & 7.0.
What's Improved
Audit Log
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The Audit log is now always enabled. This is non-configurable.
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Password changes will now be audited in the audit log.
Build
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Now, in ElastiCubes with failed builds, the latest build logs are displayed each time a user opens such a data model. This simplifies accessing data required for fixing the issue by the user.
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The build flow has been extended with additional validations to proactively inform users about potential issues and prevent usage of corrupted data in dependent assets.
The following validations have been added:
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"DataIndexingValidation" - Validates that all keys and values in dimension tables are unique
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"RelationDimTablesValidation" - Validates that all dimension tables that were created for relations between tables include all of the possible keys and values
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"IndexingDimTablesValidation" - Validates that all dimension tables that were created for indexing include all of the possible keys and values
All of the validations are included and enabled by default in the build flow and fail the build with corresponding messages displayed in the build logs. In most cases, rebuilding fixes the issue.
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Database
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Several database optimizations have been implemented, including: refining complex queries, adding new indexes, and removing unused indexes. These improvements have led to performance gains in API response times, particularly in Sisense instances with large numbers of users, dashboards, and widgets.
Data Models
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It is now possible to easily access the OID of data models’ entities, such as Model OID, Dataset OID, and Table OID.
Export to Excel V2
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When exporting a Pivot widget to Excel, you can now choose between repeating rows (displays repeating row values in each cell) and merging rows (merges cells with repeating row values).
Git
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Previously, creating a Git project on an instance with a large number of users and assets may have been very slow. The performance of loading assets available to be added to the project by relevant users and the overall project creation flow have been improved.
Infra
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Due to the deprecation of the component, the deployment of model-logspersistence has been removed from the application.
Mobile
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Important - Session inactivity flow:
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In case of session inactivity when the session is revoked, the token is still valid.
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The token will expire only on inactivity timeout, which is by design.
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In case of activity in the mobile app, the token expiration timeout will be extended (only activity with bearer token requests - menu, elements, dashboard, and filters will not take effect).
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Logout after the token expiration timeout will be performed only in case of re-rendering.
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What’s Fixed
Add-ons
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Report Manager - Previously, CSV files generated by the Report Manager were limited to 50K rows. This has now been fixed, and will contain the same number of rows as when downloaded directly from a dashboard UI, even if more than 50k.
Data Models
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Previously, if an .sdata file was renamed, attempting to import it failed with the following error: "java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot read the array length because "dbs" is null". Importing .sdata files now works as expected.
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Previously, when the same column of the data model was renamed in different tabs of the same browser, it returned the following error: "Validation error: Invalid table schema. The table contains duplicate column names.". Now, it works as expected, using the latest updated name of the column.
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Previously, duplicated custom import queries would still point to the table ID of the original import query, which resulted in query errors and failed widgets. Now, logic for identifying tables works as expected.
Email Reports
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Previously, upon transferring ownership of a dashboard, the new owner was not able to modify and save the report schedule, since their changes would be lost after republishing. This has now been corrected, so that the reporting schedule configured by the user is saved after republishing.
Export to PDF
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In earlier versions, the PDF formatting configuration in the PDF report settings was sometimes not being saved after a user had saved it successfully several times. This has now been fixed, so that the selected PDF format is saved upon every attempt.
Git
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Previously, the color palette of dashboards tracked in Git projects reverted to ‘Vivid’ and created unintended uncommitted changes. This has been fixed, and now works as expected.
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Previously, pulling commits that included deletion of the asset from the project was not reflected in the target environment. Now, the asset is deleted from the list of tracked assets of the project. Note that in such cases the asset is not deleted from the actual DB, which is by design.
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Previously, when the owner of a Git project was deleted from the system, the project was not accessible. Now, ownership automatically moves to the system admin, and the project's accessibility remains the same.
Multitenancy
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Previously, white-labeled organization tenant logos were redirecting to the system tenant home page. This has now been fixed, such that clicking an organization tenant logo leads to the tenant's home page.
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Previously, it was possible to assign a Tenant Admin role to a system tenant user by editing their role. The Tenant Admin role would then be locked without the possibility to revert the change. This has now been corrected, such that the Tenant Admin role cannot be assigned to users in the system tenant.
Perspectives
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Previously, when there were a lot of tables in the perspective, or a table expanded to see all columns, the layout of the Apply/Cancel buttons got corrupted, making it hard to design such perspectives. Now, the layout of the buttons is correct regardless of the amount of tables or columns in the perspective.
Simply Ask (NLQ)
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Simply Ask now displays an error message when a query fails to run.
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Previously, table names were not hidden properly when the hide table name configuration was enabled. This has now been fixed and works as expected.
Usage Analytics
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In earlier versions, exporting widget to image was not recorded in Usage Analytics. This has been fixed, and widget export to image now appears in the Usage Analytics data.
Web Access Token
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Previously, when viewing Sisense assets via Web Access Token (WAT), the Notebooks tab was available to users. Since Notebooks are intended for writing ad-hoc queries and easily transforming them into visualizations, this tab is not relevant for the WAT end-users, and therefore it has now been removed from WAT.
Widgets
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In earlier versions, after using the zoom bar on charts, the browser menu sometimes overlapped the right-click menu on value points. This has now been fixed.
Widget Script Customizations
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In earlier versions, modifying a query limit via a widget script was ignored during query execution, thus having no effect on the widget results. The implementation has now been changed so that it is possible to override a query limit per widget by changing the 'query.count' property.