February 2022 Dashboard Release Notes


Original Release Name - pi.2022-02-24

Patched Release Name - pi.2022-02-24.1

Original Release Date - Feb 24, 2022

Patched Release Date - Mar 23, 2022

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We are pleased to present our latest offering of pi - our February 2022 release! This page helps summarise and familiarise you with the changes we have made, and is supported (where applicable) with useful videos to help explain the changes we have delivered.

Mar 23, 2022 - patch release. Please refer to pi#1110 below for full details.

Before upgrading, we recommend taking a backup. You can find more information here.

Here’s what we’ll cover;

 


Added

Ability to share Category Objects (Zendesk#5883,5946,11711)

Category Objects

When a Category Object is added to a parent category it will now be shared by all child categories:

For example, in the screenshot below:

  • If Category Objects are defined on the ‘New Chart Types’ category, they will also be available on the ‘Chord Diagram’ and ‘Custom Maps’ categories

  • When navigating between ‘Chord Diagram’ and ‘Custom Maps’, the filters applied to the parent category ‘New Chart Types’ will be maintained

Additional information:

  • Category Objects from the parent level behave as if they were defined at child level

  • If the same Category Object is used on both the parent and child categories, the system shows an error in the Configuration screen on the child category

  • The ‘Display on Page Top’ and ‘Cascade Filters’ options respect the settings defined on the child category if parent and child are configured differently

Please see the following section in pi Documentation for further information.

 Video

We’ve created a short video to explain this in a bit more detail.

 

Specific Theme Configuration for Mobile Devices (Zendesk#12246,16569)

Styling

There is now a new section in Dashboard Configuration>Themes>Configuration, which allows users to apply very high level css specifically for small screen devices such as Mobiles.

 

User Privileges

Admin users can now customise the content that is shown on the Chart Information Tab, which is displayed when users click the ‘Chart information' icon under 'Chart Tools'. Two new user permissions have been added:

  • Can View Chart Info

  • Can View Chart Embedding Info

These permissions control whether a user can see the details of the chart (chart information) and the chart’s embedding link.

In the following example, the ‘Can View Chart Info’ and ‘Can View Chart Embedding Info’ have been removed. The user will still see the Chart Info tab however as ‘Help Text’ has been enabled on the selected chart.

The ‘Display Chart Info’ permission has also been renamed to ‘Display Chart Info Panel’ to better distinguish between them. You will not be able to select ‘Can View Chart Info’ and ‘Can View Chart Embedding Info’ if the ‘Display Chart Info Panel’ permission is not selected .

When ‘Display Chart Info’ is enabled, but there is no content for the info panel to show (including chart information, debug and notifications), the ‘Chart Information' icon will not be displayed (if 'Display Disabled Chart Buttons’ is not selected) or will be inactive. 

 

Variables in Scheduler (Zendesk#11269)

Scheduler

You can now reference dashboard variables within the scheduler. These can be added in:

  • Email subject

  • Email message

  • Replaced attachment name

  • S3Object location

  • Web service URL

In the February 2022 Dashboard Release you will not be able to reference Variables in the ‘Directory’ field

Please see the following section in pi Documentation for further information.

Video

We’ve created a short video to explain this in a bit more detail.


Changed

 

Y Axis Redesign (Zendesk#11938,12942,15224,15264,16834, 16838,17704,17770,18143)

Charts

The Y axis has been redesigned in order to address:

  • Extra gaps on the top/ bottom of the Y Axis that are not needed particularly on 100% Stacked Charts

  • A user defined Y Axis Max that was ignored in general or ignored when it was equal to the max data/target value

  • A user defined Y Axis Min that was ignored in general or ignored when it was equal to the min data/target value

  • Charts not displaying correctly in small sizes

The following screenshot shows how a user defined Y Axis min and max value will now be displayed:

The following screenshot shows how the Y axis will be displayed in smaller chart sizes. Please note that ‘Show Line Dots’ has been enabled in Dashboard Configuration>Themes>Configuration in this example.

This change will affect the way the Y-axis draws on the following chart types:

  • Bar

  • Stacked Bar

  • 100% Stacked Bar

  • Variable Width Bar

  • Column

  • Stacked Column

  • 100% Stacked Column

  • Area

  • Stacked Area

  • 100% Stacked Area

  • Spline Area

  • Step Area

  • Line

  • Spline

  • Step Line

  • Combined

  • Merged

  • Scatter

  • Bubble

  • Waterfall

  • Horizontal Waterfall

  • Column Range

  • Bar Range

  • Spider

  • Radar

  • Wind Rose

We advise checking if extra adjustments are needed to your chart's y-axis if changes had been added prior to this release. To do this, you can use the chart editor y-axis Min, Max and Interval fields.

 

Secure Variable Values Now Obscured in Variable Lists (Zendesk#14935)

Settings

The values for global, role and user variables will now be obscured when ‘Keep Secure’ is selected. This ensures that users cannot see passwords etc that are stored as variables in the dashboard.

 

Configuration

Some browser tools / browsers pre-fetch every link on a page. If there is a link to a logout URL it will also call that, which makes the session invalid.

To prevent this, the URL will now be called via javascript.

 

Bubble size in bubble charts now draw proportionally

Charts

The lower value for the bubble size, in bubble charts, will now be displayed proportionally. For example, if you have a bubble chart with two data points:

  • one with size 5

  • another with size 7

the size of the two bubbles will now be sized correctly. In the following example, the the size of the two bubbles representing 5% and 7% are now closer in size.

 

Dashboard

The default value for the carousel, found by clicking ‘More Options’ at the top-right of the Dashboard and choosing ‘Play Carousel’

will now have a default setting of 300 seconds (5 minutes).

Updated themes to improve the appearance of power ring and speedometer charts (Zendesk#19855)

Themes

A number of the default themes have been changed to improve the appearance of the power ring and gauge charts against their backgrounds. Changes include:

piBerry & piDaily - chart cell backgrounds are now set to white (#FFFFFF) by default to make the power ring more visible against the background.

pi-night & piNightly - data label and data titles will now be a paler colour from each theme to improve contrast and readability against their darker backgrounds.

All of these features can be changed in Dashboard Configuration>Themes should users wish to customise them.


Fixed

 

Renderer/ Dashboard

The renderer now communicates with the dashboard through the internal port again. The dashboard automatically reconfigures the cookie settings on the fly when requests go through the internal port.

 

Disabled users can be saved when the user limit in the dashboard is exceeded (Zendesk#19110)

User Settings

If the number of users in a licence is reduced and your current number of users exceeds your new licence limit, you will be able to switch enabled users to disabled users in order to bring down the number of active users.

You will also be able to make changes to users that were previously disabled prior to the licence change whilst keeping them disabled.

 

SQL errors when generating tables from a Snowflake data connection (Zendesk#19397)

Data Connections

The following error: Cannot perform SELECT. This session does not have a current database. Call 'USE DATABASE', or use a qualified name when generating a table from a Snowflake data connection where you have multiple databases in a collection will no longer be displayed. You will now be able to generate tables from any of the available data, regardless of whether you are connecting to a single database or a collection of multiple databases.

 

User permissions not respected when charts are embedded (Zendesk#20303)

Embedded Charts

When a chart has been added as an iframe and you have a user that only has the permission ‘Can Download PDF’, the chart tools menu will now be displayed with the ‘Can Download PDF’ button when the user views the embedded chart on the iframe.


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