L2025.1 Release Notes

Cloud Availability

This release is currently only available to cloud customers. It will be released shortly for on-premise availability as well.

As the content is still in progress, it is recommended that you check back here occasionally for the latest updates.

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.

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:

Connection Management Enablement

Deprecated Internal Endpoints

The following internal endpoints, which were removed from the Swagger API in 2020 but may still be used by some customers, are now deprecated:

/api/internal/connection

/api/internal/connection/{.*}

These legacy endpoints will now return a 410 Gone HTTP error with the following message:

"This connection endpoint has been deprecated and is no longer available. Please use the new Connections Management API endpoints."

Changes to the /api/v2/ecm Endpoint

This endpoint, which is a backend implementation responsible for handling all GraphQL queries, mutations, and subscriptions used by the Sisense Data Tab application, has been updated as follows:

New Optional Properties Added:
name, description, supportedModelTypes, lastModified, and connectionPermissions.

Changed Properties:
provider and parameters are now optional instead of mandatory.

Updates to the /api/v2/datamodels Endpoint

This endpoint will now return the complete connection structure, but all properties, except for oid and provider, will be set to null.

At the same time, /api/v2/datamodel-exports/schema will continue to return connection parameters as before.

Action Required

As Connection Management is now the unified approach for managing data source connections, ensure your custom solutions are updated to use the new /api/v2/connections endpoints.

For more information, refer to the documentation: "API and System Behavior Changes with Connection Management."

Release Overview

Release L2025.1 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 L2025.1 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
Dashboard AI Assistant (Beta)	This feature is currently in Beta. It is subject to changes as we make fixes and improvements. This feature is currently available to our managed cloud customers only. Note the limitations described here.
Widget Filters Indication	N/A
XFS as Default File System on EKS	N/A

Dashboard AI Assistant (Beta)

Note:

This feature is currently in Beta. As such, not all functionality has been added and finalized and is subject to change as fixes and improvements are made.
This feature is currently available to our managed cloud customers only.

Sisense now includes an AI Assistant for your dashboards, as part of the product, usable via the UI. This feature enables you to explore your data and generate queries through natural language questions powered by AI. The AI Assistant can suggest sample insights, provide narrative explanations in context, and produce data visualizations. The functionality is like that of the AI Assistant (a.k.a. the “Chatbot”) that we have already introduced via Compose SDK.

Enabling the Dashboard AI Assistant

In order to use the Dashboard AI Assistant, it must be enabled by an Admin, in the Admin tab, under App Configuration > Sisense Intelligence.

After an Admin has enabled the Dashboard AI Assistant globally, in order to use this feature for specific dashboards, it must be enabled for each dashboard by the Dashboard Designer. In the dashboard, open the three dots menu and toggle on the AI Assistant.

After it is enabled, the AI Assistant button appears in the dashboard menu.

Using the Dashboard AI Assistant

Click AI Assistant to use this feature.

In the AI Assistant, you can type your question in natural language, choose from suggested questions, or type “/” for ideas. After asking your question, an answer, along with an explanation and a chart, are provided.

The results pane provides some options:

Enable Dashboard filter to apply the dashboard filters to your results.
Click Download to download the results as an image or CSV file.
Click Add to Dashboard to add the generated chart as a widget to your dashboard.

Improving the AI Assistant's Results

The AI Assistant is powered by enhancements to the semantic layer, making it AI-ready. These enhancements ensure that the AI Assistant delivers more accurate insights and helps you extract value from your data more intuitively.

Column Descriptions

You can add descriptions to your columns to help the AI Assistant understand their semantic meaning. This is especially useful for columns with unclear names or unpredictable values.

To add a description to a column:

In the Data tab, in the relevant data model, for the relevant column, click > Description.
Type the description in the Add Description field and click.

AI Smart Matching

You can enable AI Smart Matching for specific columns, enabling users to query by value in a column, without needing to know its exact name.

To enable AI Smart Matching:

In the Data tab, in the relevant data model, for the relevant column, click > toggle on AI Smart Matching.

For columns which have AI Smart Matching enabled, the AI icon is displayed next to the column name.

Widget Filters Indication

When viewing a widget in a dashboard, until now, the Viewer would not see if widget filters that differ from the dashboard filters are applied. In order to check, the Viewer would have to view the widget in Full Screen mode.

This feature makes it easier for Viewers to know exactly which filters are affecting the widget results that they see on the dashboard by adding an indicator to the widget.

For example, there may be multiple widgets in a dashboard, each supposedly showing the same information, but with different results. In the dashboard below, there are three widgets, all of which display Total Revenue. However, the data displayed is different in each widget, and it is not immediately apparent as to why that is.

The reason is because two of the widgets either have additional filters applied or existing filters disabled. The dashboard owner can open the widget’s Edit mode and see this in the widget Filters panel. In the following widget, you can see that some of the dashboard filters are disabled, and there is an extra widget filter added on a Condition.

A Viewer would only be able to see that (though would not be able to make any changes) in Full Screen mode.

A configuration setting, “Widget filters indication”, has now been added to the dashboard menu which allows the dashboard owner to display an icon in the widget toolbar that indicates that the filters applied to the widget differ from the dashboard filters.

Note:

The indicator icon will be presented on dashboards embedded with iFrame or Embed SDK, but will not be presented on individually embedded widgets. If you are embedding a dashboard with the right filter panel disabled, it is recommended to keep the ‘Widget filters indication’ disabled for such dashboards.
Shared users with ‘Can design’ permission do not have this configuration setting available in their copy of a dashboard. It is only configurable by the dashboard owner.

This feature is disabled by default for backward compatibility with existing dashboards. Therefore, to use this feature, it must be enabled for each dashboard. When it is enabled, the icon appears on the widgets where the filters affecting the results are different from the dashboard filters.

You can click the icon to see more details about the additional and/or disabled filters.

If a widget has a filter on the same column as an existing dashboard filter, but with different values, it will be displayed in the first section as an added filter. If there are many added/disabled filters, a scrollbar is added to the details window, as well as expandable sections.

Republish to apply the change (to display the widget filters indicator) for the Viewers’ dashboard.

XFS as Default File System on EKS

XFS is now a default file system on EKS for new installations.

What's Improved

Area Map and Scatter Map

Three new API endpoints have been added to help you improve the accuracy of your search results in Area Maps and Scatter Maps:
- POST /geo/locations/search - Search only in your cache in your local Sisense instance.
  
  Sample use case: This type of search will limit the results to locations in your cache, and will not trigger an external geocaching search and caching like POST /geo/locations does, making it easier to review locations in your local cache. It is also useful to see if your local cache has any data cached for certain locations.
- PATCH /geo/locations - Update locations in your local cache.
  
  Sample use case: If you search a location, you can find and copy the correct coordinates and other properties, and use this endpoint to update the location by pasting the copied information into the location object, and removing any existing irrelevant/unwanted information (irrelevant location results that you want to remove). This will ensure that future searches in your cache for that location will return the desired result, and will not return the pre-existing undesired results.
- DELETE /geo/locations/remove - Delete locations from your local cache.
  
  Sample use case: If you know or observe that you have a location that incorrectly appears in your search results, you can use this endpoint to remove it.
Using these endpoints, users who manage Sisense instances can now fix geocoordinate issues, without requiring assistance from Support. These new endpoints are of course in addition to the two endpoints that already existed: GET /geo/geojson/{type} - Search the entire database for locations by type, and POST /geo/locations - Retrieve geocoordinates for specific locations.

Build To Destination (B2D)

You can now set a result limit and query timeout per each B2D model.

Connectors

The User Name field has been removed from the Databricks Connector page, as it is irrelevant for Databricks token authentication.

Data Models - Exporting/Importing

There is now a detailed confirmation message warning about some of the data security rules not being imported to the system in case there is no user on the target environment to which it should be applied.

Data Sources - Databases

The Default Database which an optional property in the connection to a data source, now acts as a starting point or shortcut to all Sisense user roles and managed connections permissions. It automatically selects a database during the Sisense data model creation flow to streamline user workflows. Previously, users with the connection permission "Can Use Connection" could select other databases, while users with the connection permission "Can Edit Connection" were limited to the one specified in the default database.

Important:

The Default Database is not a security feature. It does not restrict Sisense users from accessing other databases within the data source. Access should be regulated through user permissions in the database management system (for example, Redshift).

Export to Excel V2

Export to Excel V2 is now enabled by default as the exporting service for new deployments. When upgrading, existing customers retain their exporting service configuration (new or previous) for now, but should expect to switch to the new service upon the next upgrade. See the Upcoming Deprecation Notification below for more info.
When downloading Pivot tables to Excel using the new exporting service, the non-default fiscal year and first day of the week are now respected in the generated file.

Mobile

A “Return to server selection” button has been added, which allows users to return to the login screen without waiting until the login is complete.

What’s Fixed

Build

Previously, building B2D data models with custom tables included failed with the following error: "3005 | Custom table build error - Redshift: ERROR: relation already exists." It has now been fixed and works as expected.

Data Models

Previously, in cases with a large number of dependencies, deleting data models failed with the following error: "Network error: Unexpected token 'G', "Gateway Timeout" is not valid JSON". This has been fixed, and deleting data models now works as expected.

Email Reports

In previous versions, an extra dashboard report was sent for the reports scheduled on every ElastiCube update, with a limit to the number of emails per day. This has now been fixed, so that the number of daily reports corresponds to the defined schedule.

Export to Excel V2

Previously, subtotals were missing when downloading a Pivot widget to Excel with a specific configuration: a Pivot table containing two or more columns with the same subtotals.

This has now been fixed, ensuring that the exported file has the same structure as the Pivot table on the dashboard.

Filters

Previously, applying a filter with all values disabled (from the filter panel) on widgets with the GROWTH function resulted in "N/A". This has been fixed, and the results calculation is now aligned to the generic filters behavior; that is, disabling all filter values is considered as no filter applied.
Previously, if a background date/time filter was set, users could not select values of the same level in the foreground filter. For example, when a background filter was set to 'Last x Month', users could not select specific months in the filter. This has now been corrected, such that users are able to select values from those available according to the background filter.
Previously, filters created by selecting a point on a Scatter Map widget were not applied when there also existed cascading filters on the dashboard. This has now been corrected, such that the dashboard is filtered according to the value selected on the Scatter Map.

Git Integration

Drill hierarchies are now imported via the Git flow and are applied to the assets dashboards as expected. Previously, hierarchies were imported but not applied to the assets, leading to inconsistency after Git dev to prod migration.

Hierarchies

Exporting and importing a data model no longer creates duplicate hierarchies when the "Merge_New" option is selected.

Infra

Log generation from the MongoDB pod now works as expected. Previously, since version L2024.2, the MongoDB pod stopped producing logs related to the query execution and only generic startup info was recorded in the log.

Perspectives

There are no longer 404 errors for /api/v1/elasticubes/live/by_title/ requests when using a live perspective as a dashboard source. Previously, perspective based widgets would still return the data, but 404 errors appeared in the network.
Previously, in some cases, widgets created on Live-based perspectives failed with the following error: "Elasticube has not been found". This has been fixed, and they are now working as expected.

Session Management

Previously, in some instances, the session table was not cleaned out upon session inactivity timeout, continuing to display inactive sessions. This is now fixed, and the expired sessions are cleared from the session table.

Widgets

Previously, the null values in the Area Map were not handled correctly in the widget legend, resulting in empty lines or missing currency values. This has now been fixed such that no data is indicated in the legend with "#N/A".

What's Coming

Changing from RKE1 to RKE2 (for on-prem customers only)

Note:

This topic relates only to on-premise customers who chose to use the Sisense deployment script to deploy and manage your on-premise Kubernetes cluster via the RKE tool.

Rancher Kubernetes Engine (RKE) is a tool developed by Rancher, which is used for deploying and running Kubernetes clusters on your on-premise server(s).

RKE is reaching its End Of Life:

Copy

RKE uses Docker, which is no longer maintained as a container runtime by Kubernetes.
This is critical as Docker’s removal from the Kubernetes project (as of release 1.24) necessitates a shift.

RKE2 adopts containerd, providing a more secure and efficient environment.
This change not only enhances the stability of container workloads but also aligns with the latest industry standards for container management.
RKE2 and K3S offer a more secure, efficient, and future-proof environment for your Kubernetes needs.

Therefore, Sisense has updated our on-prem deployment process to deploy the Kubernetes cluster using the new RKE2.

The final Sisense version that will install/upgrade Kubernetes using RKE1 is L2025.1.0.

Subsequent Sisense versions will still be able to deploy over RKE1 (using only update: true and update_k8s_version: false).

However, for new installations for which deploying Kubernetes cluster via the Sisense deployment code is desired, RKE2 will be installed.

Upgrading from RKE1 to RKE2

Upgrading from RKE1 to RKE2 is not supported. This means that if you have RKE installed via a Sisense version <=L2025.1.0 and you are about to update to a newer version, you could run update: true, but you cannot run it with update_k8s_version: false.

Therefore, if you want to update to the later Kubernetes version, there are two options:

Note:

Whichever method you choose, you must first backup your Sisense data, and then restore your data in the new environment:

Recommended method: Launch a new server(s) and run a fresh install on it. This will ensure that you do not lose any data while migrating from the old environment to the new one.
Less preferred method: Completely uninstall (uninstall_cluster: true, uninstall_sisense: true, and remove_user_data: true) and then run a fresh reinstall.

Removing a Node

The remove_node feature is no longer supported, as RKE2 has deprecated this functionality.

If you want to remove a node from your existing Kubernetes cluster, you must do it manually (and update your config.yaml file accordingly).

Safely Drain a Node
Uninstall | RKE2 (uninstall RKE2 only inside the server/node you wish to remove)

NFS Storage Class Change

For on-premise customers who use NFS storage:

Once upgrading to RKE2 (whether installing on a new server(s) or uninstall+reinstall), the old storage class nfs-client will be replaced with nfs-csi.

The nfs-csi storageClass is the native way to work with your NFS.

See GitHub - kubernetes-csi/csi-driver-nfs: This driver allows Kubernetes to access NFS server on Linux node.

Containerd Installation Required

For the offline/air-gapped customers:

See Installing Sisense in an Offline Environment.

It is no longer necessary to have Docker pre-installed before running the installation. However, you must have Containerd v1.7.24 or newer installed on your server(s) before running the installation.

Note:

Containerd is included as part of Docker, so if you already have Docker installed, there is no need to separately install Containerd.

Copy

ubuntu@node1:~$ ctr --version
ctr containerd.io 1.7.24

In addition, running ./installer/offline/offline_installer.sh run <your_config_file>.yaml will automatically start the installation. This means that there is no need to cd sisense-${SISENSE_VERSION} and run ./sisense.sh <your_config_file>.yaml.

Note:

If you want to skip parameters validation, you can run ./installer/offline/offline_installer.sh run <your_config_file>.yaml -y.

Deprecations

AKS, EKS, GKE, and Kops Deployment Scripts

AKS, EKS, GKE, and Kops deployment scripts are no longer needed, and are therefore not supported.

Export to Excel - Upcoming Deprecation Notification

This notification pertains to the next version, and is only being included here in order to provide you with time to prepare.

Starting from Sisense version L2025.2, all deployments will be automatically switched to the New Export to Excel as their default service for downloading Pivot widgets to Excel. For a short transition period before the next version, it will still be possible to switch back to the legacy exporting service, so that you can adjust and test your integrations that use the exporting API.
Subsequently, starting from Sisense version L2025.3, the previous exporting service will be deprecated. That is, the configuration toggle located in Admin > System Configuration > Exporting > Export to Excel V2 will be removed and the legacy exporting API will no longer be available for use.

You may continue using the legacy endpoint when exporting via REST API until you upgrade to version L2025.3. However, make sure to switch to the new endpoint prior to upgrading to L2025.3 or newer.
- New exporting endpoint to be used:
  
  /api/v1/export/jaql/xlsx

Filters - Upcoming Deprecation Notification

This notification pertains to the next version, and is only being included here in order to provide you with time to prepare.

Starting from Sisense version L2025.2, all deployments will be automatically switched to use the default filters editor. For a limited time, it will still be possible to switch back to the legacy dashboard and widget filters, so that you can verify that the existing filters are not affected and make adjustments if necessary.
Subsequently, starting from Sisense version L2025.3, the legacy filters editor will be deprecated, and the configuration toggles Date/Time Filters, Numeric Filters, and Textual Filters located in Admin > Feature Management will be removed.