Release Notes 2022.12.0
Release Highlights
Incorta introduces several new features in the 2022.12.0 release that improve its capabilities for financial use cases and scalability and performance for large data sets.
Although the multi-schema load plans feature is still a preview feature in this release, Incorta adds new functionality to support it. You can now track and manage the load jobs related to schemas and load plans on the new Load Jobs and Load Job Details Viewer pages.
Incorta now supports decimal columns, which enables discovering, reading, storing, and managing decimal data from different data sources, ensuring high-precision calculations.
You’ll also find a new integration between Incorta and XLCubed. This integration enables querying Incorta business views through Microsoft Excel using XLCubed and embedding XLCubed reports in Incorta dashboards.
Incorta added two new data applications to the Marketplace: SAP S/4HANA Supply Chain (quickstart) and Oracle Cloud ERP Payables and Procurement (quickstart).
Additional enhancements include calculations of null values, business schema enhancements, and the tooltip tray in multiple visualizations.
The 2022.12.0 release is available for newly created clusters and new trial users. If you’re an existing customer upgrading from a prior release, please contact Incorta Support to schedule your upgrade.
This release uses the Data Agent version 6.0.0. Make sure you upgrade to the data agent version available on the Cloud Admin Portal.
Incorta has disabled the recently introduced feature, Parallel column reading, in this release. Incorta will reintroduce the feature in a future release after addressing some known issues.
After upgrading to the 2022.12.0 release, materialized views (MVs) with columns that are cast to decimal fail to validate or load with a mismatched types error. To avoid this failure, do one of the following:
- Cast the existing
castfunction to match the MV column data type in the Table Editor, resulting in saving the column with the original data type while reserving the defined precision and scale in the originalcastfunction. - Change the MV column data type to
decimalin the Table Editor and revalidate the MV definition. However, this solution may lead to some limitations when referencing the column in formulas, functions, and dashboards. For more details, refer to References → Decimal Data Support.
New Features
Architecture and Application Layer
Marketplace: new data applications and components
Integrations
Data Management Layer
- Business schema enhancements
- Encryption in BlackLine data destination
- Monitoring load jobs
- Dynamic form functions in Notebook
Dashboards, Visualizations, and Analytics
- Tooltip for donut, pie, and scatter visualizations
- Style formatting for dashboard KPIs
- Slicer component enhancements
In addition to these new features, there are other enhancements and fixes.
Refer to What's New in Incorta Cloud 2022.12.0 for more details and examples.
Support for decimal data types
Incorta Cloud can now discover, read, store, and manipulate decimal data from different data sources, ensuring high-precision calculations. Incorta supports decimal numbers with a precision of up to 18 while It discovers and stores decimal data with a precision higher than 18 as double. Formulas and functions also support the decimal data type.
For information about data sources, functions, and visualizations that support the decimal data type, refer to References → Decimal Data Support.
Handling null values
The Cluster Management Console (CMC) admins can now control how Incorta handles null values using the Server Configurations > Customizations > Null Handling option. This option is a preview feature that is disabled by default. The CMC admin can turn it on so that Incorta handles null values as null rather than real values, such as an empty string or zero. When null values are handled as real values, there is an inconsistency between function and formula results in Spark-based objects (such as materialized views) and Incorta-native objects (such as physical schema tables and Incorta SQL and Analyzer tables). The inconsistency also expands to other areas, such as filters, grouping, and subtotals.
When you enable Null Handling, Incorta differentiates between null values and real values in the following areas
- Aggregation functions:
SUM,MIN,MAX,AVERAGE,MEDIAN,COUNT, andDISTINCT - Aggregation formulas using
SUM,MIN,MAX,AVERAGE,MEDIAN,COUNT, andDISTINCT - Aggregation formulas using level-based measures
- Grouping dimensions based on physical columns
- Totals and subtotals
Enabling this feature may result in a different output for existing calculations.
New data applications
The data applications Marketplace includes two new quickstart applications. Quickstart applications are up and running in minutes, and contain sample data so you can try them out before installing the full, enterprise applications, which contain more features and functionality.
SAP S/4HANA Supply Chain (quickstart)
Ensure that your sales orders are no longer impacted by supplier delays with our customizable, prebuilt dashboards. Use the dashboards with your near real-time SAP S/4HANA data to quickly analyze and expedite supplier-delayed sales orders. With insights into purchase orders and materials from your top suppliers, you can be confident that your orders will arrive on time.
The enterprise application, SAP S/4HANA Financials and Supply Chain, is coming soon.
Oracle Cloud ERP Payables and Procurement (quickstart)
Optimize your cash management and payment timing with our customizable, prebuilt dashboards. The dashboards speed up your analysis of supplier purchase orders, invoices, and payments, providing a solid understanding of accounts payable. They'll even help you identify supplier discounts to take advantage of, problematic suppliers, and process improvements.
The enterprise application is Oracle Cloud ERP Financials and Supply Chain.
Component SDK Marketplace
Starting in this release, the component SDK is available in the Marketplace tab. The component SDK Marketplace tab is only available for Super Users to install visualizations.
Integration with XLCubed from Fluence
In this release, Incorta introduces a new integration with XLCubed. Using XLCubed for Microsoft Excel, you can query Incorta business views and embed XLCubed published reports into Incorta dashboards. The tight integration with XLCubed for Excel helps in building pixel-perfect planning and budgeting models.
For more information, refer to Integrations → XLCubed.
This feature is available only on Windows machines and for Incorta Cloud releases 2022.3.0 and later.
Incorta also has a data application, the XLCubed Excel plugin dashboards for Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS), that helps you perform advanced analytics on your Oracle EBS data with our customizable XLCubed dashboards.
For more information see, XLCubed Excel plugin dashboards for Oracle E-Business Suite.
Business schema enhancements
The enhancements to the Business Schema Manager and Business Schema Designer include keeping track of business schema versions and introducing additional columns and classifications of business schemas. Incorta now maintains business schema versions for better collaboration, business schema lifecycle management, and audit capabilities. The Business Schema Manager introduces additional columns in the business schema list, such as the Department, Modified by, and Last Modified columns. You can specify the displayed columns and sort the business schema list using the new columns.
Encryption in BlackLine data destination
In this release, Incorta enables you to send encrypted data files to BlackLine data destinations. For more information on how to enable the encryption, refer to Concepts → Data Destination.
Monitoring load jobs
To facilitate monitoring and tracking the load jobs of schemas and load plans with single or multiple schemas, Incorta introduces two new pages: the Load Jobs and Load Job Details Viewer.
The Schema > Load Jobs tab is now available for schema managers to monitor, search, view, and manage recent or current load jobs of schemas and load plans. This page allows schema managers to spot issues with running or recent load jobs. It lists load jobs, whether they are manually started for a specific physical schema or automatically started via scheduled load plans with one or more physical schemas. The Load Jobs tab displays only one record per schema or load plan. To view the details of the load job or the job history of a specific physical schema or load plan, select the related record.
By default, the new page, Load Job Details Viewer, shows the schemas, objects, and details of the load job you select on the Load Jobs tab. In addition, it lists the list of load jobs related to the selected one. You can select one of these jobs to show its details.
For more information, refer to Tools → Schema Manager → Load Jobs and Tools → Load Job Details Viewer.
Dynamic form functions in Notebook
The Incorta Notebook now includes dynamic forms, allowing analysts and data scientists to create interactive Python notebooks for demonstrations, presentations, and analysis. You can create statically or dynamically populated form controls, such as a dropdown menu, to quickly change desired fields for analysis. Learn more.
Tooltip tray for donut, pie, and scatter visualizations
The tooltip tray introduced in the Incorta Cloud 2022.8.0 release is now supported in donut, pie, and scatter visualizations. You can drag and drop any column type either measure or dimension to the tooltip tray.
Incorta treats all column types you add to the tooltip tray as measures.
Style formatting for dashboard KPIs
You can now format the style and appearance of KPIs in dashboards. This includes the font, font size, color, and alignment of values and labels. This helps you:
- Reduce white space and ensure details fit well in the KPI tile by adjusting the font size
- Distinguish sections by adjusting the KPI text colors
For more information, refer to the KPI documentation.
Slicer component enhancements
The Slicer (selector) component in the Marketplace now supports formulas that contain presentation variables. This makes it easy to filter selections for a presentation value, improving dashboard interactivity and what-if analysis.
Additional Enhancements and Fixes
In addition to the new features and major enhancements mentioned above, this release introduces some additional enhancements and fixes that help make Incorta more stable, engaging, and reliable.
Enhancements
| Enhancement | Area |
|---|---|
| The cloud admin can now enable the Machine Learning support toggle in CMC without contacting Incorta Support | Cluster Management Console |
| When synchronizing LDAP directory with Incorta, language, country, timezone, and calendar now have default values in case they are empty. The default values are as follows: ● Language: English ● Country: United States ● Timezone: GMT±00:00 ● Calendar: Gregorian | Dashboards |
| Counting tables in Business Views generated with errors | Inspector Tool |
Fixes
| Issue resolved | Area |
|---|---|
| Security session variables retrieving a list of users would not display all users intended in the query. | Analyzer |
| Security session variables retrieving a list of users would not display all users intended in the query. | Analyzer |
| No notifications when installing Python packages | Cloud Admin Portal |
| The Netsuite connector would freeze during load if chunking was enabled where only one batch exists. | Connectors |
| Freshservice v2 connector encountered sporadic failures during data load. | Connectors |
| An error occurred when the user attempted to edit the directory location in a data source’s settings. | Connectors |
| The Fusion connector would encounter an error when testing connection to a data source. | Connectors |
| Fusion connector hung in the first incrementation or full load during the extraction phase after restarting the loader service in GCS | Connectors |
| Insight names of an emailed dashboard in XLSX would have style tags displayed in the title. | Dashboards |
| Emailed dashboards did not respect Default to Display configurations. | Dashboards |
| When downloading an insight as a CSV file, the numbers in the exported file were rounded per the insight configurations. | Dashboards |
| Incorrect warning appears when saving an insight to another dashboard. | Dashboards |
| Data destinations could intermittently be displayed incorrectly when delivery of content was scheduled. | Dashboards |
| While loading the filters page of a dashboard, clicking the Done button would remove all filters from the dashboard. | Dashboards |
| Filters were not always from BlackLine to an Incorta Dashboard. | Dashboards |
| Dashboard load failure due to an aggregation failed error | Dashboards |
| When downloading an insight as a CSV file, the numbers in the exported file were rounded per the insight configurations. | Dashboards |
| Corrupted joins in installed data applications on 2022.11.0 | Data Applications |
| Welcome window could cause the user name to not display properly if users did not enter any information. | Miscellaneous |
| Shared schema via email broken link. | Physical Schema |
| Failure to load a table containing extremely long strings in a column resulted in a negative size error. | Physical Schemas |
| Schema load times with PK-index would take longer than expected. | Physical Schemas |
| Incorrect error message when trying to edit a derived table. | Physical Schemas |
| Multiple insights could result in an error until a restart of the Incorta service. | Physical Schemas |
| Materialized views would not properly extract records after multiple extractions. | Physical Schemas |
| Incremental loads will now log full stack traces in the event of an error. | Physical Schemas |
| Multiple session variables in an individual filter with an IN condition would result in an error while rendering the desired query. | Physical Schemas |
| Queries that included an alias and the physical schema could intermittently fail to evaluate properly. | Physical Schemas |
| Materialized views failed to load after version upgrade | Physical Schemas |
Schema update failure resulting in java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: -1 error when selecting the Done button | Physical Schemas |
| Scheduled dashboard jobs based on a Google Sheet data source would intermittently fail to send to recipients. | Scheduler |
| Empty next run timestamp for scheduled dashboards | Scheduler |
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException exception when creating a Min formula with Double input on Spark | SQLi |
| Chart display values were incorrectly rounded at too low of a value to be visually helpful. The threshold for rounding display values has been increased. | Visualizations |
| Aggregate values on a stacked column insight would not be removed when total values were disabled. | Visualizations |
| Resolved several issues where the average line on a column chart would incorrectly appear or disappear. | Visualizations |
| Presentation variable values were not displayed in the UI when used in combination with a between operator. | Visualizations |
| Blank totals at higher levels in aggregated table visualizations when enabling the “Merge column” option and sorted in descending order | Visualizations |
Known Issues
The following are known issues in 2022.12.0.
- A formula column that only references a physical column with null values shows wrong results as the Loader Service does not respect the null values when materializing the formula column.
- The
countanddistinctfunctions return null values instead of zeros when using them in a flat table or a session variable. - Applying an average aggregation on a decimal column with null values only throws an error and causes the insight to fail to render.
- Running total is not displayed correctly when the measure has null values.
For all of the known issues and workarounds in Incorta Cloud releases, refer to Known Issues in 2022 Releases.