We have rolled out another release for 2022—it will be our final large release for the 6.x series (6.3.5, 6.3.6+ are expected to be much smaller) as we shift our efforts toward v7.0.
6.3.4 focuses on extending the capabilities of the content Import/Export Utility, Portal Pages (both UI and functional changes), and Publishing Workflows (now even easier to use and configure).
We've kept improving Glossary (released in 6.3.3), both from the UI and functional perspective. Aside from introducing three new Plugins, TIBCO WebFOCUS, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2019, and Amazon QuickSight, we have also been working on our major existing ones, such as MicroStrategy, IBM Cognos, and Tableau. Keep reading to learn more.
Major Features in 6.3.4 (released August 1, 2022)
- The main change for the
Plugin Improvements
MicroStrategy
- MicroStrategy Plugin now supports Object Prompts.
- There is a new Optional Parameters in MicroStrategy, Intelligence Server, which allows for specifying the iServer value.
- Previously collected as one type of object, Dossiers and Documents are now distinguished by MicroStrategy Plugin as separate ones.
- Beginning in this version, MicroStrategy objects will be using one universal URL template. This change won’t affect earlier versions of Metric Insights.
Microsoft Power BI
- The External Report Type Editor for Power BI now includes a setting that controls if the Action Bar will be displayed for embedding in Metric Insights.
- We have implemented the ability to refresh the External Report Viewer based on actual Power BI token expiration time, but not every 30 minutes as in earlier versions.
Tableau
- When collecting objects, Tableau Plugin skips objects from Personal Spaces.
- Users will be seeing warning messages while working with the Plugin in case they are using http URLs.
- By default, Tableau Server URL Template will be used when creating new External Reports.
New Plugins
- Metric Insights’ list of Plugins have been expanded with TIBCO WebFOCUS Plugin. The Plugin supports creating External Reports.
- We have created a new SharePoint Plugin, SharePoint 2019, that can connect to SharePoint 2019 Server to pull data and create External Content from it.
- The new Amazon QuickSight Plugin also provides the ability to create External Reports.
Other Plugin Improvements
- Both Microsoft SharePoint Plugin and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2019 can create Datasets from Excel Workbooks. The data will be pulled from the first sheet of the selected Workbook.
- IBM Cognos Plugin can filter objects by both Packages and Folders by using a single Parameter,Folder Filter. A user needs to specify the full name of a Package or Folder.
- There is now a separate IBM Cognos URL Template for clustered servers.
- The QlikView Plugin version can be found in logs.
- Metric Insights displays an extended error message in UI when a user does not have the required permissions to get the objects list for Dropbox Paper Plugin.
JDBC Drivers
SAP HANA JDBC driver has been added to Metric Insights.
Security
We have enabled Regular User "Use Access" to User Maps when access is performed from a Portal Page via our API. On the Sharing tab of the Portal Page Editor, the user must be added and also user must be in the User Map itself. If these conditions are satisfied, the Regular User is able to view the Portal Page's information about User Maps.
Bursts
- There is a new grid on the Subscription tab of the Burst Editor that lists Users who unsubscribed from receiving a Bursts. As long as a User is listed there, they won’t receive this Burst.
- We have expanded logging to show when a User is subscribed/unsubscribed from a Burst.
Access Request and Discoverability
- Other External Content, Metrics, Multi-Metrics, and Dataset Reports can now be set to be discoverable to users without access. The setting is under the Content Access section on the Advanced tab of the corresponding Editor.
- A new Config Variable, RESTRICT_DISCOVERABLE_CONTENT, allows for restriction of Discoverable content via the Category Editor. If enabled and configured correspondingly in the Category Editor, only Groups listed in the Category Editor will be able to see discoverable content for that Category.
Folders
- Editing of child Folders from the Homepage is no longer available. The edit gear has been removed to avoid confusion.
- There is a new section in Element Editors on the Associations tab, Folders, that lists Folders that include this Element and with how many users it is shared.
- Deleted Folders can now be restored by Admins from <hostname>/admin/foldertrash.
- We have improved the current Folder update logic to achieve better performance on high-volume instances.
Homepage
- Homepage Tiles can be grouped by "Content Last Updated" which can be helpful if there are numerous file-based Elements created from Microsoft SharePoint and Local Filesystem. For grouping, Metric Insights will rely on the “File Last Modified” timestamp.
- On Tile Hover and Tile Preview, Tags, Glossary Terms, and Custom Fields can display a tooltip with their full name. This can come in handy for long ones.
API
- Tokens from Microsoft Power BI Cloud can be received using a new endpoint
api/data_source_pluginin the API toolkit. - Elements from Favorites can be accessed, updated or deleted using two new API endpoints:
<MI hostname>/api/favorite_element/- returns all Favorites<MI hostname>/api/favorite/id/<Favorite element ID>- returns an element from Favorites by ID
- A response from API endpoint
<MI hostname>/api/external_report/id/<Element ID>now includesdata_last_refreshedparameter containing information about last element refresh. - Tile information can be accessed via API using two new methods:
MI.PortalPageView.openPreview(info_id)renders a preview of a tile with ID =info_idMI.PortalPageView.buildElementInfoPopup(info_id)returns the HTML of tile info for a tile with ID =info_id
DevOps & Installation
- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is supported by Metric Insights installer.
- Custom user and group attributes can be synced from Okta via
mi-okta-usersyncscript. Corresponding Custom Attributes must be created in MI where External ID matches the attribute's variable name in Okta. Three new parameters have been added to the installer:--custom-user-attribute: provide a comma-separated list of custom attributes for user sync--custom-group-attribute: provide a comma-separated list of custom attributes for group sync--map-attr-to-group: provide a user attribute. Each User who has this attribute is put into a Group whose name exactly matches this attribute's value. If the Group does not exist in MI, use the--auto-create allparameter to create it. Note:--map-attr-to-groupcannot be used with--target-groupparameter
- ECS infrastructure is now flexibly autoscaled by ECS capacity providers.
- Users from subgroups can be synced via
mi-o365-usersyncby providing the--process-child-groupsparameter. - Two new parameters
--remove-orphansand--disable-orphanshave been added tomi-ldap-usersync provisionscript to remove or disable users that are not attached to any LDAP group. - Metric Insights can now be deployed on Google Kubernetes Engine.
- Bash history now displays date and time for each executed command.
- The Patcher can be used to install features that expand MI functionality. To apply a feature put it into the
/opt/mi/featuresdirectory and restart the container. The logs are stored in/opt/mi/log/features.log.
Other Improvements
- If there are Filter Defaults set for a Report and Sticky Filters are also enabled, the system will respect both, with the Filter Defaults prioritized.
- To avoid Element duplication in the system upon restore, we wipe out the source_system_name and source_system_element_id fields from the database.
- From now on, users will see a success/fail message when changing storage for a Dataset.
- Selenium has been upgraded to version 4.1.3.
Issues Fixed
- The issue with failed aliases applied to columns when running DAX queries has been fixed.
- Errors with bind variables :measurement_time and :last_measurement_time are no longer occurring in the system.
- Dimensioned Elements can be migrated even if their Dimensions do not exist on a target system.
- The Import Details popup had been failing to show the list of the exported objects while Import History had been displaying all of these objects. This inconsistency has been fixed and records about the imported Elements are present at both locations.
- Problems with duplicate Elements and updating Data Collection Triggers upon import/export have been fixed. Data Collection Triggers won’t be updated if they exist on a target system, but will mirror their state from a source system. If they do not exist on the target system, they will be created.
- Issues with updating Datasets after successful import and validation has been fixed. We have modified the Import/Export logic to make this possible.
- Import/Export Utility now supports including static images in External Content and External Report migration.
- Content Center loading performance has been improved for shorter loading times.
- The image generation issue for Power BI External Reports has been fixed by upgrading Chromium and the Chrome driver.
- The Qlik Sense Dataset column type mismatch causing the "column not found" error has been fixed. We have reverted some previous changes that were not properly supported by Qlik Sense.
- From now on, RDP can be installed on any given disk, not just the default disk C.
- Downloading large files from Viewers no longer locks up the UI. Previously, the system had been locking the UI until the file download was completed. Now, before downloading the file, the application closes the user session, which allows users to continue working with the UI while downloading the file.
- The Bulk Add External Reports feature works as expected for MicroStrategy.
- Users were receiving the 504 gateway time-out errors because .xml files were not supposed to generate .pdf files. This issue is fixed and .xml files are being displayed as unavailable for download.
- Broken Power BI user tokens will be auto-refreshed so that they do not cause issues with Data Sources and External Reports.
- Special characters, such as apostrophes, in particular, are now supported in names of CSV files to be used as Dataset sources.
- Conditional Filter Values do not break the rendering of Dataset Report in Bursts. Burst Previews and emails are displaying without issues.