Bold BI v5.1 On-Premises and Embedded Products Release Highlights
We are excited to announce that we have rolled out our latest product update, Bold BI v5.1, which includes releases on Windows, Docker, Linux, Kubernetes, and Azure. It’s a huge release, since it delivers many much-awaited features, enhancements, improvements, and breaking changes. These significant changes provide you with a great experience creating elegant dashboards with Bold BI.
You can download the latest version of Bold BI from your account page. If you are new to Bold BI, get started with Bold BI by signing up for a free 15-day trial and create more interactive business intelligence dashboards. Give it a try and let us know what you think! We are happy to assist you.
In this blog post, we’ll look at the key enhancements of this release:
- Data source enhancements
- Server enhancements
- Designer enhancements
- Widget enhancements
- Embedded enhancements
Data source enhancements
Major enhancements
New data source connectors
We added connectors for the following data sources: Decision Lens, Zuora, Avochato, QuickBase, and Yelp. Now users can use these data source connectors to import their data using various API endpoints and create dashboards to gain insights.
Web API-based data sources using our custom connector
Customers create connections for their own APIs by using the Add new connectors option in the custom connectors section without requesting support connectors. Users can define the default properties, like adding URLs and dropdown lists in the JSON file.
Custom query extract mode support for SQL data sources
Users can extract, group, or join the data based on the specified query. This custom query extract mode support helps the user to extract or group specific data. Instead of extracting all the data and selecting the required tables in the designer, users can save time using the custom query extract mode.
Option to connect specific data sets in Google BigQuery
Users can select a particular schema by using specific parameters. This support will be helpful for the users who have to extract specific data sets from large data sets.
Median function support
We have implemented median aggregation support in this version 5.1 release. Now, you can use the median function to choose the middle value of a given data set when it is arranged in a particular order.
Minor enhancements
- Firebird ODBC connector support.
- Relative date minutes support.
Data source improvements
- Provided the OR condition support in initial filter workflow.
- Added performance improvements in Oracle extract mode in initial data source creation.
- Provided the dynamic connection string support in SnowFlake connector.
- Improved the performance in dashboard rendering while SQL extract mode data sources refresh.
- Upgraded the FB backend APIs to version 12.
- Fixed the issue in connecting Jira on-premises version.
- Fixed the issue in importing custom fields in Jira.
- Fixed the issue in uploading 200 MB files in file connections.
- Fixed the issue in connecting data sources with data in Hebrew.
- Fixed the issue with column schema not displaying in PostgreSQL.
- Fixed the relative filter Today’s UI not working properly.
- Fixed the invalid column name issue while applying a relative date filter in grid widgets.
- Fixed the issue of SSAS drill down not working properly.
Web connection improvements
- Provided a preview dialog for live web connections.
- Improved performance of dashboards with live web connection in view mode.
- Included the join support for live web connections.
MongoDB improvements
- Fixed an issue in data refresh when expression included in MongoDB.
- Provided the support to filter collections in MongoDB.
Server enhancements
Major enhancements
Publish data sources between sites
Now, you can publish data sources between multiple tenants. Previously, in order to add a data source, you’d need to publish a dashboard on the other tenant. But with this update, you can easily publish the data sources on other tenants. This support will help users avoid repetitive work creating the same data sources multiple times.
Unlist dashboards from dashboard listing page
You can easily unlist a dashboard from the dashboard listing page. Use the Unlist dashboard from the listing option in access mode. Using this option, a dashboard owner can prevent others from viewing their dashboard.
Note: Using this option, you can unlist the dashboard from the listing page only. But if a user has the dashboard link, then they can still view the dashboard.
Track email delivery status
You can now track the email statuses from the tenant. This will let you know details such as event, date, recipient, initiated by, status, and actions. Owners can now resolve any confusions on the status of emails.
Turn on and off email notifications
You can now turn on or off the email notification feature. In the notifications panel, you can select or deselect it to send needed notifications or prevent sending unwanted emails to end users.
Minor enhancements
- Additional date format support in the settings page.
- Support to change the copyright information and powered-by logo from the settings page.
- Support to verify email credentials by sending test emails.
- Support to send dashboard exports to FTPS and SFTP locations.
- Support to extract the usage analytics data source by copying the usage analytics dashboard.
- Support to show a dependent dashboard of a particular data source.
Server improvements
- Implemented new, improved UX for user and group management, settings pages, permissions dialogs, and resource listing pages.
- Provided the support to export dashboards with a URL parameter using the REST API.
- Added support to use the REST API to update dashboard settings.
IDP and UMS
- Implemented new, improved UX for UMS administration, site management, and user management pages.
Server and UMS breaking changes
- We changed the content formation with dynamic words and local file paths for localization support. So, the already-generated PO files will not work anymore, and we need to generate the PO files again.
Designer enhancements
Major enhancements
Tab widget support
Tab widgets enable users to add multiple tabs in a single widget and add multiple widgets like charts and grids. Instead of creating a lengthy dashboard, you can easily reduce its size using tab widgets.
Custom date format support
Using the custom date format, users can change the desired data format for the date, year, quarter, month, and day. The yyyy and yy formats are added as default, and you can also change the format using the custom format option.
Note: Currently, only grid and chart widgets have the custom date format.
Date field auto hierarchy and custom hierarchy support
Using the date field auto hierarchy feature, users can automatically create a date hierarchy based on the order of importance by configuring the date-time. Users can display data more conveniently and intuitively.
Also, using custom hierarchy, users can create a new hierarchy for string data using the Create a new hierarchy option or add them into already created hierarchy using Add to hierarchy option.
Designer improvements
- Added the search option in the data source designer page.
- Added the corner radius and shadow options in combine widget.
- Added a message window after completing the dashboard or widget exporting.
- Added a total record count when viewing underlying data.
- Provided the label and dashboard parameter support in measure formatting and conditional formatting for widgets.
- Now, you can remove designer-related DOM elements from the body on destroy action.
- Provided the support for dashboard embedding inside a form.
- Provided the support to append ejWaitingPopup inside the desired element instead of the body directly.
- Improved responsiveness in the View Underlying Data pop-up for widget mode embedding with a minimum height and width.
- Added an API to restrict dashboard resize action.
- Added an API to customize the alert dialog under the actionBegin event.
- Fixed the issue on embedded dashboard rendering in view mode after rendering design mode.
- Removed an unwanted scrollbar shown on widget mode embedding.
- Fixed an issue on dashboard navigating to base URL of embed application during “Publish As” option.
- Fixed the dashboard preview not working the second time with design mode embedding.
- Fixed the dashboard menu pop-up being created with default space even though all the menu items were removed.
- Fixed the unwanted vertical split line on banner icon customization.
- Fixed the console error thrown on embedding dashboards configured with auto-refresh settings.
- Fixed a console error thrown while destroying a dashboard object immediately when it starts rendering.
- Fixed the dashboard refresh failure if dashboard contains text widgets.
- Fixed the widget background image opacity not properly changing in dark theme.
- Fixed the “Does Not Equal” option not being saved in the initial filter window.
- Fixed the same column not properly exporting to Excel format.
- Fixed the Conditional Formatting window not loading for the number card widget.
- Fixed the sorting not working after refreshing or publishing the dashboard in an SSAS connection.
- Fixed the console error that occurred while loading the dashboard.
- Fixed the string literal of date format being changed in dashboard parameters.
Designer breaking changes
- Changed the content formation with dynamic words and local file paths for localization support. So, the already-generated PO files will not work anymore, and we need to generate the PO files again.
- Provided Chromium-based engine support for image and PDF export functionalities and dropped the PhantomJS support. The Chromium-based engine doesn’t support Azure App Service or Linux ARMx64.
Widget enhancements
Major enhancements
Bubble scatter chart widget
We have implemented a new bubble scatter chart widget. This lets users create attractive data visualization in their dashboards to showcase the data in 3D to widen the scope of the analysis.
Note: It will act as scatter chart if x- and y-values alone are configured. It acts as a bubble chart if we configure the measures for bubble size.
Text filter widget
Now users can configure the text filter widget, which helps them perform filtering based on contains, start with, and end with by typing the values in the text box.
Relative date support for list box and combo box
Use the relative date support for the list box and combo box. Using this relative date support, users can filter the date period and create custom periods like last 6 months or last 3 months.
Legend support for map markers
Users can show a legend and toggle its visibility by applying marker color customization to map markers.
Index-based color customization for charts
Users can customize the colors based on a ranking system. So, users sort values based on some measure and display each color based on rank. Currently, we have only a data-based color option, which maintains the color even when the position changes based on data.
Alignment support for pivot grid Row, Column and Value
Now, users can align the row header, column header, and values using the right, left, and center options in the Alignment settings menu.
Text wrap support for Number Card Title:
Now, the users can wrap and trim the card title based on height using the text wrap support. So, that the user can see the content as much as possible.
Widget improvements
- Hidden column support for number cards and KPI cards.
- A formatting option for date columns in grids.
- Hidden column support for pivot grids.
Embedding
Embed a dashboard for external providers in Iframe-based embedding.
Now, users can easily embed a dashboard into any web application by copying and pasting the embed code. The administrators can easily embed dashboards using various authentication providers such as Windows Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, OAuth 2.0, and OpenID Connect.
Embedded improvements
- Embed a multitab dashboard or pinboard and create a data source in nonweb platforms.
- Use the save and save as view options in Iframe embedding.
- Customize the dashboard banner menu icon in mobile mode.
Conclusion
We hope this post was helpful to you in learning about the features and improvements of the Bold BI v5.1 release. To know more about the features and improvements, refer to our release page. You can download the latest version of Bold BI from your account page. If you are new to Bold BI, get started with Bold BI by signing up for a free 15-day trial and create more interactive business intelligence dashboards. You can also contact us by submitting your questions through the Bold BI website, or if you already have an account, you can log in.
Originally published at https://www.boldbi.com on April 11, 2022.
