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We are pleased to present our latest offering of pi - our May 2021 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.

Here’s what we’ll cover;

Added

Fields for Catalog Name and Schema Name have been added to the Import Manual Data Table and to Data Table Details. This allows users to see and edit these fields manually.

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If these fields are not correct the system would not be able to get a list of columns of this table. The correct value is set at the time this table is imported using the table import tool.

• Catelog Name - This is set when creating a new table. If the field is empty, you can use the table import tool to import a new table and find out what this is

• Schema Name - This is set when creating a new table, and will generally be prefixed on the table name

The text ‘Total’ now appears on the first column of a table if that column doesn’t have a total already configured (for example, if the last column is numeric and has a Sum total). Please have a look at this section for more information.

If required, the text can be customised by changing the ‘Alternate Column Total Title’ field on the ‘Attributes’ screen.

As before, if no columns have a total configured, the total row does not appear and therefore neither does the total text.

Video

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

Added API endpoints to allow directly getting columns without providing connection id, which includes:

GET /columns

GET /columns/{id}

In the ‘Edit Chart’ screen, you can now disable the warning message that normally appears when a user clicks on an undefined drill condition.

To disable this message, select the drill level in the ‘Edit Chart’ screen and untick the box on the ‘Data’ tab. By default, the checkbox will be ticked on new drill to levels. You can find full information in this section.

The following screenshot shows how the message will be displayed if the box is ticked.

Video

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

When drilling from a chart to a category using the Drill to Category feature, filters will be passed to the destination category, just like how a normal drill down works. The destination category must have Category Objects enabled, the passed filters are then used to fill in these Category Objects.

Please see this section in pi Documentation for more information.

Video

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

A new chart type, Chord Diagram, has been added to the list of available chart types. A Chord Diagram is a chart type that’s used to display the flow of data from one node to another in a multidirectional representation. The things being connected are referred to as nodes, in our diagram below the nodes are ‘Employee Names’, and the lines running from one node to another are referred to as links (or Arcs). The thickness of a link is proportional to the amount of data it represents, the thickest line in our example runs from Leah to Jon and from this we can see that the largest number of tickets connect these two employees. You can also create drill down levels from a Chord Diagram, please refer to the supporting documentation for more information.

Screenshots

The following screenshot shows the general view of a Chord Diagram i.e. displaying all links.

Please see this section in pi Documentation for more information on creating, formatting and using Chord Diagrams.

Video

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

Making a GET request for the elements below no longer require admin permissions. The logged in user needs to have access to view these elements to get them, otherwise they get a 403 (Access Denied) response:

GET /charts, /charts/{id}

GET /categories, /categories/{id}

GET /dataConnections, /dataConnections/{id}

GET /columns, /columns/{id}

GET /roles, /roles/{id}

In addition to the export to Word and PDF options we’ve now introduced a new export option - PowerPoint. Users with the relevant permissions will now be able to download charts, tables and reports as PowerPoint (.pptx) files.

Screenshots

When a table is exported to PowerPoint, users will be able to customise it further using PowerPoint’s Table Design toolbar.

When a chart is exported, it will be exported as an image. This means that you will be unable to customise it any further except for resizing and positioning on a slide. This screenshot shows a slide with a resized image and bullet points.

Please see this section in pi Documentation for more information on how to use Chord Diagrams.

Video

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

Changed

Tomcat web application server has been updated to 8.5.65. Other libraries have also been updated. We will be increasing the speed we integrate many kinds of updates into future releases to provide the best protection for customers.

Out-of-date DynamoDB and Salesforce drivers have been removed from the product. If you were using them contact support for assistance with a way forward.

Fixed

When a user saves a schedule and the dashboard server is in a different timezone to the browser being used then the schedule will now be sent out at the local time chosen by the user.

When using a bar chart that has a Legend, a Dimension on the X Axis and a Measure on the Y Axis and a ‘Top’ filter has been applied to the Measure, the X Axis will be filtered to only show the values that relate to the ‘Top’ filter.

The following screenshot shows that only 3 values are displayed on the X Axis when the Y Axis has been filtered to show the ‘Top’ 5 Employee Count. Have a look at this section in pi Documentation for full details.

Card Charts viewed on a mobile will now fill the entire screen in the same way that other chart types do.

Tables that contain two objects with ‘order by’ conditions specified for both will now be displayed correctly.

Minute scheduling now runs at the correct time. For example, if you create a schedule that is set to run at 5 minute intervals between certain hours the schedule will only run every 5 minutes.

When using MariaDB, obtaining a list of roles from API v1, no longer gives you a 404 error.

Known Issues

When using data labels as html on the chord diagram the user should be able to see the labels in a arc outside the chart. Unfortunately, due to a bug in highcharts we can not implement that functionality and our labels show on the top of the nodes.

There is a known issue in the May release which is preventing the licence being installed automatically when the dashboard is installed from the same directory as the licence. The workaround for this is to manually install the licence using the config tool. If you need a reminder on how to install a licence, please click here.

There is a known issue in regards to downloading large reports as Word or PowerPoint file types. This is an issue with downloading a report as a Word document or PowerPoint file if the report has a logo image. The workaround for this is to remove any logos/images from the report and it will download.

Keeping An Eye On pi