MooD 17.006 fixes a number of issues and introduces new features described below. A repository upgrade is required; therefore this is not a simple hotfix release.
We aimed to address both important issues as well as minor niggles. Any reported issues have been tracked with Issue Numbers and can be found here. Many minor niggles have not been listed, but we will highlight some of them in this article, which we hope will delight you.
Quick links
Concatenate aggregator in aggregation facts
Variables in Email Synchronizers
Concatenate aggregator in aggregation facts
To facilitate smart columns or aggregations where you want to present a cell as a comma separated list of values, we have introduced a new top-level fact aggregator called CONCATENATE. This feature only works with SQL Server 2017 or above.
An example we can all relate to is below; where we start from a list of cars and group by manufacturer, and use the CONCATENATE aggregation on the Name of each car to make the grouping.
An alternative way of producing the same matrix is you can use CONCATENATE inside a query.
In this example, the source query are the manufacturers, and we show that on the dimension level. We then create a query to find models from a manufacturer.
The fact being:
Tip: The CONCATENATE feature can be useful to work out why values are not calculating as you expect, i.e. turn your existing SUM( <details> ) to CONCATENATE( <details> ) , and you'll see all the values in a comma separated list, without having to change the shape of your aggregation.
If required, you can also change the type of separator used, which applies to all CONCATENATE aggregators in this matrix:
Variables in Email Synchronizers
When users add queries or smart columns to the email body of a synchronizer, these variables are now exposed, and can be set both as hard coded values or used in the settings window when added to a button action.
Comments on query blocks
Currently MooD users can add a summary to a query to help describe the overall purpose or intent. However, this can be inadequate when you have a large and involved query, and need to describe more information about a particular block. A new multi-line comment feature has been added to a query block to address this.
Matrix Row Group By options extended
In MooD 17.005 and below, users could only select a few options to group rows by.
Now, users can use a full range of options:
Performance Improvements
New Caching Options for Queries, Smart Columns and Matrices
Queries, matrices and smart columns now support extra cache timing methods, One minute and Five minutes. These act differently to the existing options of Hourly (etc), in that the cache only lives for minutes after the cache has been built, rather than being reset upon the Hour end, Day end, etc.
This is useful when you identify that a query, matrix or smart column is slow, benefits from caching, but needs to feed off relatively new data.
For instance, if a query or fact is used multiple times on a page, it would benefit from a temporary cache, but it would be undesirable to cache it for an hour because data is likely to change, and you do not want to have to attach logic to clear caches via Button Actions.
Please remember, as of 17.005 MooD does not require smart columns to be cached in order for them to be utilized in aggregation facts, but it may be beneficial to do so.
Repository Validator/Integrator performance improvements
The validation engine has had some speedups, which indirectly improves MooD Integrator's repair stage. The improvements focused on the Checking Definition Simple Type stage, and the Recalculating measure states phase. For the latter, we no longer recalculate measures if a repository didn't use measures at all, but only used the fields as lists of data without Measure Threshold-Sets.
We also noticed that one repair stage could potentially touch all data points in the repository unnecessarily, causing bloat to transaction logs. This has also been fixed.
Dragging multiple elements into a single relationship field
We noticed that relationship fields which only permit one value allowed the user to drag multiple elements into it but instead of stopping at the first successful update, it continued to add and then remove all entries until the list of elements was exhausted. This could lock up Business Architect for quite some time if a user accidentally dragged a few thousand elements. Issue number 12589 now fixes this.
Improved Security
Administrators can then update hashes from their installation of Business Architect via the panel at the bottom of the Audit and Security Window.
- It can take about 1 second per user to increase the security of a hash.
- MooD makes use of all processor cores for this operation. This will affect the performance of an entire machine whilst processing is ongoing, so we recommend you close other programs where possible.
- The process can be safely and quickly cancelled and resumed later.
- When a user next logs in, their hash will be recalculated to the latest security standards, and this number should not increase until standards are increased again.
Other Improvements
Common Charts Rendering improvements
A setting is now available on the Common Chart's Advanced tab which allows the user to improve the fidelity of charts when a user zooms in to a web page by using Scalable Vector Graphics rendering.
Canvas (existing)
SVG (new)
Improvements Maps Marker Field configuration
The OpenStreetMap, GoogleMap and WorldMap panels have all had improvements made to the reporting of invalid configurations in the Settings pane to a Business Architect user.
Background
Each of these panel types allows configuration of the Marker Fields which allow assignment of field values of data points to properties such as Marker Latitude and Region Colour. The Business Architect user may wish to configure values for none, some or all of these properties depending on how they want the data to be displayed in the Map. Some of these properties only work as pairs or groups (i.e. Latitude and Longitude pairs).
Improvement
The settings panel has been enhanced to mark the panel as invalid if some but not all properties of such a pair or group have been configured. Groups of which no properties have been configured do not raise an invalid warning.
The reporting of the invalid configuration has also been enhanced to provide the Business Architect user with specific details on which properties should be configured to complete a group.
Configure a preferred initial zoom level for models
When a model is opened, MooD defaults to showing it in the Fit to Page zoom mode. For convenience, you can now change this default in File->Options and choose what zoom level you wish models to open at. This is useful, for example, if you often work with large page sizes and find yourself always zooming in after opening a model.
Matrices - Formatted Text Row Height has been increased
Addressed by issue IN:12541, the setting in the Matrix editor Maximum formatted text height has a new upper limit of 50000, up from 1000, allowing more data to be shown in a cell before scrollbars occur.
Business Integration Engine Manager Start Menu shortcut renamed
We have renamed the Start menu item for the Business Integration Manager to include "(BIE)", much like "Internet Information Services (IIS)". Whilst this sounds like a trivial change to mention, it was requested as a quality of life improvement so that users who use the BIE manager regularly can find it easily in the start menu by typing BIE. We aim to please!
Business Integration Engine Manager upgrade improvement
We discovered that when upgrading to a newer version of MooD, if BIE was installed before repositories were upgraded, then any repositories needing an upgrade would be removed from the configuration file. Users would then needed to re-enter all credentials for those repositories once upgraded. Some customers have many repositories connected to BIE, and this could be a significant burden.
As of MooD 17.006: if a repository was in the list that requires an upgrade, it will not immediately show in the BIE Manager list, but it is not removed from memory. If the user performs a subsequent upgrade of the repository, BIE will attempt to re-use the existing credentials and connect to the repository. However, if this should fail, BIE will not try again until the user manually enables BIE for the repository again (and enter the credentials), or restarts the service. Currently, this feature only works as a result of the BIE Manager being open.
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