Release Notes 4.12.0

Release 4.12.0

New Feature

  • Catalog Sets are now more powerful, granular, and useable. (So much so that we consider this a whole new feature.) it is now possible to set Custom Fields and Titles for all members of a Set and to define Sets over Columns using regular expressions. Previously Sets could only be defined with regexes over Schemas and Tables, and values could be set only for Flags, Tags, and Descriptions. We’ve also improved the interfaces for seeing the list of sets, for defining rules about set-membership, and for editing values for all members (the new interface shows a page-within-a-page widget so you’ll know exactly how your changes will appear on member pages). In short: With the new version, you can set any metadata (titles, descriptions, flags, tags, and custom fields) for any data objects (schemas, tables, and columns) matching a regex-defined naming convention, using a clean and clear interface. We’ve been beta-testing this functionality with a few intrepid customers and the feedback has been very positive.

    • Catalog Sets let you do speedy stewardship: quickly and consistently filling in large parts of the catalog. And the extensions in this release enable a particular application many customers are excited about, labeling fields with PII (for instance to comply with GDPR). For example, if your company has made a PII Custom Picker Field with different levels, you can apply the appropriate level to every single data column that represents First Name all at once (whether the physical name is ‘f_nm’ or ‘first_name’ or ‘fname’, and no matter what table, schema, and source the column resides in), and likewise for Phone Number, Address, or other relevant fields.

      Note

      In this version, only Admins can actually create or edit Catalog Sets, but often Stewards will define the rules for Admins to enter, and viewers of the Catalog will see the metadata values inherited by members of Sets, with clear indications of sourcing shown with the gear icon (which users can hover their cursors over to learn more about why values are showing up).

Bug Fixes

  • Conversations on an object are now searchable. Previously, in versions 4.5 - 4.11, generic conversations were searchable, but not conversations on an object (other than a query).

  • Microstrategy metrics and attributes are now properly extracted. Previously, those two categories got switched during extraction. Old fields will be removed from Catalog upon re-extraction.

  • It is now possible to copy-paste URLs for articles and conversations with titles written in non-ASCII characters (including non-Latin alphabets). Previously, the non-ASCII letters would not appear in the URL bar which could result in a broken links.

  • It is now safe to “profile” a table with no columns. Previously, attempting to do so would cause a crash.

Admin Release Notes

Improvement

  • Introducing our Flags API: Ultimately, every single field and property of every object in the Alation catalog should and will be editable via direct manipulation in our UI, indirect manipulation (through Sets or CSV/Data Dictionary upload), or remotely using our APIs, with users limited only by their permissions. As a major step along our journey to this goal, we’re announcing our Flags API with which admins can read, add, and edit Endorsements, Deprecations, and Warnings using the commands outlined here.

Bug Fixes

  • Clicking the ‘Skip this step’ button on the last screen of the data source deployment wizard no longer produces a tooltip that extends past the height of the screen which then displaces the position of the mouse away from the button.

  • It is now possible to use CSV/Data Dictionary upload to set numeric values for Custom Picker fields. Previously, an error would occur when the value consisted only of digits.