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2020 R2

Release notes of items completed between Alpana 2020 R1 and 2020 R2
Alpana Server and Alpana Designer have been upgraded from 3.3.0.25 to 3.3.1.17
Alpana Update File Dependency has been upgraded from 1.1.0.2 to 1.1.1.0

Introduction

Version 2020 R2 is a minor release and includes mostly bugfixes and improvements.
As usual, the application is updated to the latest web technologies (Angular 9, .NET Core 3.1), with the latest security features and patches.

Upgrade Instructions

To upgrade your installation, please see the generic upgrading chapter.
Don’t forget to instruct all your users to clear their browser cache or do a hard refresh.

Alpana Server

License upgrade

This is a minor version, so it doesn’t require a valid support contract to upgrade, and you need not ask for a new license Activation to your support.

Enabling Webhooks

Following upgrade, to enable the new Webhooks feature on a tenant :

  • activate the Webhooks license feature at the Host level
  • add the Webhooks license feature to the desired tenants
  • add the Webhooks permission to the Admin Role of the tenant, and to all desired Users and Roles

Main Features

New Feature : Webhooks

A new feature has been added to trigger Webhooks upon Alpana Server events.
Developers can now configure Alpana Server to inform an external web API when an event happens on Alpana objects.

Thanks to this feature, Alpana Server can now be fully integrated in a two-way relationship with other web applications :

  • Alpana Server can send information to notify external web application through Webhooks without other application having to poll Alpana Server.
  • External applications can query Alpana Server through the Alpana Server API to get more information on-demand, or to create behaviors.

For example, you can :

  1. inform your users to post Dashboard Comments with the text #support in the content if they want to create a ticket to your support platform X
  2. program an external website Y with the following behavior : when they receive a HTTP request that informs of a new Dashboard Comment from Alpana Server, then query the Alpana Server API to get the comment content (and possibly other useful metadata like dashboard name and user e-mail), parse the comment content to look for the string #support, then automatically post a new Ticket to your support platform X, including the relevant metadata
  3. configure Alpana Server to trigger a Webhook and notify your website Y whenever a new Comment is posted in Alpana

⇒ Now your users can simply post a comment on any dashboard to create a Ticket !

Improvements to Layouts and PDF exports

Background properties have been moved from layouts to views.
This allows to have a different background color for Desktop and PDF for example.

To aid with composing a PDF export, editing the Pdf Export view of a Dashboard now displays with the same DPI as the final PDF export.
Improvements have also been made to the navigation between multiple pages.

Widget improvements

Chart improvements

Chart thickness now defaults to 2px and is configurable.
This allows for better readability of Line charts on bigger monitors or with higher DPI.

The Polar Chart now allows to force a min/max for the Y Axis scale.
This allows for example to display percent values that don’t go above 100%.

Grid improvements

The Grid Widget now allows paging with up to 5000 rows per page.
The Grid performance allows it, and this configurability allows to solve useful user cases.

Date Picker improvements

The Date Picker can now have a custom format for displaying the selected date.
This is particularly useful for avoiding confusion in displayed dates for users accustomed to the day/month/year format for example.

Input Grid improvements

The text of the Input Grid Header can now be configured.
This makes it easier to distinguish multiple Input Grids on the same dashboard.

Connectors improvements

Historian connector improvements

The data table returned by the Historian connector now include MinEU and MaxEU data.
This can be particularly useful with widgets that allow to configure a dynamic minimum and maximum, such as the Circular Gauge, Range Area, Linear Gauge, etc.

The Historian connector now allows to search tags by description.
This makes it easier for the developer to find the desired tags.

SQL connector improvements

Developers can now use the SQL Connector to access other SQL schemas than dbo to get data.

Server improvements

Social improvements

Views can have their own dedicated comment thread.
This allows to interact with other users around a specific “data slice”.

SSO improvements

External logins through SSO have been greatly improved and are easier to use.
Additionally, authentication through Twitter is now possible.

Known Issues and Incompatibilities

  • ALP-I2415 In some cases, when a Proportion Chart tries to display a large number of value labels in a small space, the Dashboard may become unresponsive and render the web browser unresponsive. As a workaround, you can disable the value labels display on the Proportion Chart of the impacted Dashboards.

Solved Issues

The following are the main bugs that were fixed between Alpana v3.3.0.25 and v3.3.1.17 :

  • ALP-I2336 – Fixed a display issue in the Export menu if the widget Header is not aligned Left
  • ALP-I2337 – Even when a Widget is hidden from the Pdf Export view, it may now be exported correctly if it has an own “Export” button
  • ALP-I2338 – Designer : Fixed issue when login to Server was incorrectly marked as success
  • ALP-I2340 – Tree View : unfolding a node now correctly leaves the filter value untouched
  • ALP-I2342 – Excel : sheets with parenthesis in their name can now correctly be used
  • ALP-I2343 – Improved the performance when many Card widgets exist in the same dashboard
  • ALP-I2344 – Fixed an error message that could happen when deleting a master widget
  • ALP-I2345 – Fixed an issue where in some cases Polar Charts could disappear when filtered
  • ALP-I2348 – RangeSlider now correctly displays “No Data” when the dataset is empty
  • ALP-I2349 – Numbers from formatted dates (like week numbers) can now include prefix/suffix from Measure Formatting
  • ALP-I2351 – Server : improved UX when uploading a Dashboard with an existing name
  • ALP-I2353 – Server : Fixed an issue where multiple dashboards with the same name can exist in the same category
  • ALP-I2360 – Server : Fixed an issue where a Schedule would fail if the Dashboard contained an Embed website that had Javascript errors
  • ALP-I2363 – Linear Gauge : Improved handling of axis labels overlap
  • ALP-I2364 – Server : Improved UX when accessing unauthorized dashboard or widget
  • ALP-I2367 – Designer : Fixed an issue where the function “Last” would incorrectly appear in Expression functions
  • ALP-I2368 – Improved the behavior of selected values when a View is loaded
  • ALP-I2369 – Fixed the display of Comments when the thread text is too long
  • ALP-I2372 – PDF exports : Fixed a case where the background color stops applying after the last widget
  • ALP-I2373 – PDF exports : Improved the behavior of margins when a header/footer is configured
  • ALP-I2374 – Server : Improved UX when editing the API Origins Whitelist
  • ALP-I2377 – Range Navigator : Improved the display of handles when the Parameter changes
  • ALP-I2379 – Range Slider : improved the way axes and ticks are displayed
  • ALP-I2380 – Fixed an issue when importing a Card widget from Alpana v2
  • ALP-I2381 – Improved the behavior of Buffer tables with Runtime Connections
  • ALP-I2382 – Improved the display of the Views pop-up in edge cases
  • ALP-I2385 – Proportion Chart : Fixed an issue where the widget was configured as Master and Clear filter would make the widget unresponsive to user actions.
  • ALP-I2387 – Fixed an issue when importing a Card widget from Alpana v2
  • ALP-I2388 – Fixed an issue where importing a dashboard from Alpana v2 would display a wrong layout in some configurations
  • ALP-I2389 – Proportion Chart : When the widget is Master, clicking on a selected slice now correctly removes the selection.
  • ALP-I2395 – Card, Energy Rating & Linear Gauge : Fixed a wrong behavior on clear filter
  • ALP-I2401 – Designer : Fixed a SQL error message in data preview when the SQL data contained the XML datatype.
  • ALP-I2406 – Designer : improved behavior on move/resize of the application window
  • ALP-I2407 – Now the background image of a Dashboard has the same layout in the PDF export.
  • ALP-I2409 – Banner : Widget now correctly handles null values
  • ALP-I2410 – Designer : SQL Server stored procedure from a schema other than dbo can now correctly be used
  • ALP-I2431 – Designer setup now informs better of missing pre-requisites.
Last modified: Dec 16, 2020

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