09/30/2021

v11.2 includes major features like: new charts, motion-charts, dashboard tile effects, and the all-new Knowledge Base, and much more!

Recorded Webinar

Service Releases

• v11.2a (09/30/2021)
• v11.2b (10/19/2021)
• v11.2c (12/21/2021)
• v11.2d (01/17/2022)

New Features

• Knowledge Base: This is a major feature, licensed separately from iDashboards. This will allow you to create articles and save valuable information so your end-users will be empowered to share and find various resources. Based on permissions, articles will all be viewable within the Knowledge Base to any licensed user of iDashboards. However, you can also embed an article into the frame of a dashboard for specifically sharing a piece of information along with your charts and graphs. Articles are saved in the hierarchy of your choice, supporting formatted text, images, dashboard links, and much more.
  • Article Panel: When designing a dashboard, you can now place an article into the frame of a dashboard! This option includes the ability to to link out to the actual article where additional features, like: Comments, Sharing, Searching, and more tasks can take place!
  • Article Comments: As an option, Articles can be open for comments to capture feedback or deepen the discussion on any given topic. When comments are posted, other users will be able to:
    • Enable per Article: Not all articles should allow comments. There is an Article property to enable/disable this option.
    • Flag: If a post seems inappropriate, you can flag it. The iDashboards Moderator can then see a collective list of flagged comments and make the best decision on how to move forward.
    • Share: This will allow easy sharing and reference to a comment.
    • Delete: If the user is a moderator, this option will allow for immediate removal of the comment.

• • Article Comment Moderation: We all know the type. Eventually, this person leaves a comment that raises suspicion. Well, Article Comments can be flagged and reviewed by a moderator to determine if the comment is allowed or if the comment should be deleted. Defining who can be a moderator is an administrative task that takes place when editing the user account. Any user account with the role of Builder or above can become an Article Comment Moderator. 
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  • Features Include: Web based application, Link to multiple dashboards, Tagging, Share, Pin Article, Restrict Commenting, Create/Edit/Delete/Move Article, Article Voting, Permissions, and more!
  • Knowledge Base Public: Through a premium license option, the Knowledge base can be used publicly where user-authentication is not required. This will allow you to host and share a massive amount of content for public consumption! 

• Dashboard Comments: This is a core-feature, licensed into iDashboards. As an option, Dashboards can be open for comments to capture feedback or deepen the discussion on any given topic. When comments are posted, other users will be able to:
  • Enable per Dashboard: Not all dashboards should allow comments. There is a Dashboard property to enable/disable this option.
  • Flag: If a post seems inappropriate, you can flag it. The iDashboards Moderator can then see a collective list of flagged comments and make the best decision on how to move forward.
  • Share: This will allow easy sharing and reference to a comment.
  • Delete: If the user is a moderator, this option will allow for immediate removal of the comment.
• Dashboard Comment Panel: When designing a dashboard, you can now place the dashboard comments into the frame of a dashboard! This option includes the ability to to link out to the actual comments window which may provide an improved viewing experience. If the Comments Panel is NOT added to a dashboard frame, viewers can open the Comments window from the menu.
• Dashboard Comment Moderation: We all know the type. Eventually, this person leaves a comment that raises suspicion. Well, Dashboard Comments can be flagged and reviewed by a moderator to determine if the comment is allowed or if the comment should be deleted. Defining who can be a moderator is an administrative task that takes place when editing the user account. Any user account with the role of Builder or above can become a Dashboard Comment Moderator. 
• Mobile Layout > Orientation Locking: For mobile dashboards, this ability will allow a mobile page to be locked into the portrait or landscape position when viewed on a mobile device. Using this feature will allow you to specifically design a mobile dashboard experience that always looks good and never distorts!
• Chart(s):

• • All New Menu Appearance: Based on valuable user feedback, we have improved the appearance of the menu buttons within the Desktop experience! Fade-in and fade-out, not-intrusive on the chart graphics, and a modern appearance will make your dashboards all the more effective yet clean looking. At first glance, you may not see any buttons at all, but hover the cursor above the chart frame and buttons will appear!
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  • New Pinwheel Radar Chart: This is a new chart that is a blend between the Stacked Radar and Column Chart. The shape is always circular and the graphics don't "blend" between data points.

• • New "Single-Slice" charts: A new Single-Slice Pie and Donut chart are now part of our library. These charts provide you an option to emphasis a single number using a single-slice of the graphic (while deactivating the other slice). Use this when you have only a single record in your data set. Because only 1x number is displayed, there are 3 options for comparing the number as a percentage:
    • • Against the number "100"
      • Against a number in the second Y-Axis
      • Against a custom number

• • New Gauge charts: As part of the Speedometer chart family, there are 4x new charts which have replaced the appearance of a needle in exchange for an arc-shaped gauge. 
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  • Tabular Charts: Improvements to the family of tabular charts allowing precision column width setting.
  • Updated Radar Charts: The family of Radar Charts have been updated with a new property "Transpose X/Y Axes". This will help you easily flip your data around to get the visuals you need without having to reformat your data.
  • New Pivot Features:
    • Pivot Retention Improvement: During the drilldown and drill-back process, pivot selections will be retained.
    • New Motion Pivot: The Bar chart will receive a new functionality to automatically cycle through the pivot values. Meanwhile, the graphics of the bar chart will animate between each pivot value. You can apply sorting on the X-Axis for a subtle effect or apply sorting on the Y-Axis for a dramatic effect!

Sorted on the X-Axis

Sorted on the Y-Axis

• • New Pivot Appearance: In addition to the current "Dropdown" appearance of a Pivot list, we've now added a Button Row and a Slider!

• • SVG Chart Improvements: New chart options include the ability to enable Zoom, allow Panning, Locking the Center Point, and more!

• • Chart Designer Live Preview Improvement: One improvement will allow you to permanently suppress the Live Chart Preview information window.  This window is essential for new users but not needed for those who are power-users!

• Dashboard/Builder interface
  • Tile Effects: This is an all-new technique for styling a dashboard to have the appearance of chart-tiles including the option to use tiles for grouping charts together!
    • Intelligently Split and Merge frames without distorting your tile effect!
    • Copy and Paste tile effects from Frame-to-Frame, Page-to-Page, and Dashboard-to-Dashboard! 
    • Margins can define the dimensions, color and transparency
    • Tile can define the color, radius and shadow - as well as the tile border (border style, border width and border color)
    • ...and so much more

• • Rename or Move items without having to first open them. Also, perform bulk rename or move tasks!

• • A new Right-Click menu exists when using the live preview within the dashboard Builder and within the Viewer experience. In addition to helping in general, this will be a significant improvement when a builder wants to edit a drilldown target chart or dashboard!

Administrative

• Improvements to Public Access Dashboards (guest user): After many years of tweaks and improvements, the ability to understand and construct your own, sharable, URL for a Public Access user has become complicated. We apologize! This improvement has implemented an interface to easily create a sharable URL - including new features like:
  • Create Multiple URLs: With just one guest user account, you can create an unlimited number of custom URLs, each providing a unique and custom experience! 
  • Expiration: Once this date arrives, the URL will no longer work! Use this feature if you want to share dashboards as part of a time-sensitive campaign and want the experience to end on a certain date!
  • Disablement: Manually enable and disable the URL. If you want to permanently disable a URL, you can delete it (and later re-create the same URL!)
  • Dashboard Access: View the accessible dashboards for the selected guest user to ensure you are sharing exactly what you intend to share.
  • Custom URL definition: You can enter any unique text you wish, like ".../salescampaign" or ".../2021 annual report". Or, use a non-descriptive option to entire hash the URL, like ".../99c3c2635..."
• View Access: This is a new dialog when creating/editing a user. When an administrator examines the assessible items for a specific user, a dialog will show the access to: Dashboards, Charts, Picklists and Forms. As usual, the groups and permissions will continue to be used for defining permissions.
• Import Export Improvements: Knowledge Base Articles are now included in the Import and Export process.
• Require User Email: The administrator can enable a System Setting to enforce the population of the email field when creating a new user account. *Note, this is in preparation of soon-to-come Multi-Factor Authentication.

Data Hub

• New Data Set: Text File
  • This feature allows text files to be used as a data set which can then be used within an ETL job!
    • Easy configuration to add server folder location which contain the text file(s)
    • Multiple folder paths can be configured!
    • Multiple files can be combined!
  • Files will not be 'locked out' while being processed by the Data Hub
• Improvements to the "Add Column" ETL Task: This task has been a long-time favorite for many ETL user. To improve the ability to populate a data column, you can now select from the new following options:
  • UUID: "UUID" stands for Universally Unique Identifier. This option will populate each record with it's own  UUID (a string of 32 hexadecimal digits). This is a great option for identifying a primary key!
  • Hostname From IP Address: This does a reverse DNS lookup for an IP address in a selected column of the data set. The result is the internet hostname that is associated with the IP address, if there is one. Otherwise, the result will be the IP address itself.
    • This is an 'Optimized' task - meaning, if an IP address appears multiple times, the hostname lookup will occur only once and the result will be used for all occurrences of that IP address.
• Improvements to "Load Data" ETL Task: 
  • A new option exists to allow, or not allow, the update of a Primary Key field. 
• ETL Task Disablement: The following tasks can now be disabled for the purpose of testing/previewing an ETL job prior to executing a task which can manipulate data:
  • Load Data
  • Delete Table Rows
• Improvement to Termination Button: When manually running an ETL job, the "Terminate" button will no longer wait for the current task to complete. Instead, the termination will be immediately executed.

Other

• Font Sizes: Within the Text editor, the number of font sizes have increased to the following sizes: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 68, 72

Upgrading

On-Premise

To upgrade use the Product Download Site to download the product media (for new clients, you will download the Production Installer.) If you have used the Product Download Site in the past, you will use the same credentials. If you have not, please contact your Client Success Manager and we can help you obtain your credentials. The credentials are often found in your license update emails, beneath the licensing information, you will see download URL, username, and password.

Hosted

If you have a hosted subscription with iDashboards, your instance will be updated in coordination with your Client Success Manager.