8.4.sw Release Notes

ThoughtSpot version 8.4.1.sw.CU1 is now available.

For a complete list of issues that we fixed in this release, see Fixed issues.

To see our feature deprecation plans, please see Deprecated and removed features.

8.4.1.sw New Features and Functionality

For the Analyst

Table formatting for downloaded tables

When you download a table in XLSX format, the downloaded table now shows the same column width, number formatting based on the format pattern, and date formatting as the table in ThoughtSpot. Refer to Download your search.

For the Data Engineer

OAuth for Databricks

Databricks connections now support OAuth. For more information, see Configure OAuth for a Databricks connection.

Okta OAuth for Snowflake

Snowflake connections now support Okta OAuth. For more information, see Configure Okta OAuth for a Snowflake connection.

Data Workspace

The new Data Workspace is now GA and on by default. It redesigns the Data section of the product. To access it, select Data from the top navigation bar. The redesign introduces several new features, such as SQL-based views and dbt integration, and makes the UI more intuitive.

SQL-based views

SQL-based views are now GA and on by default. Users can create views based on custom SQL queries, and use those views as data sources. This type of view has the same functionality as a view based on searching your data.

See SQL views.

Integration with dbt

The dbt integration is now GA and on by default. You can provide your existing dbt models and automatically create worksheets in ThoughtSpot that you can use to perform searches on your data.

Query external tables

ThoughtSpot now supports querying external tables in data stores, after you create these tables in your Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, or Snowflake environments.

For more information, refer to the following articles:

For the IT Ops Engineer

Python 3.9 upgrade

For ThoughtSpot-managed CentOS clusters hosted on AWS, Azure, and GCP, Python 3.9 is now the default Python version. ThoughtSpot does not support downgrading to an earlier Python release for these clusters. For customer-managed RHEL, OEL, or Amazon Linux 2 clusters, and for ThoughtSpot-managed CentOS clusters hosted on VMware, SMC, and Dell, the default Python version is still either 3.6 or 3.7. For customer-managed RHEL and Amazon Linux 2 clusters, you can upgrade the cluster’s Python version to 3.9.

System information Liveboards

We moved several system monitoring Liveboards to new areas of the product. The System information and usage Liveboard is now in the Admin Console, under System Information. The Table status Liveboard is now in the Admin Console, under Table Status. The Connections Liveboard is now in the Data Workspace, under Usage statistics. For more information, see Admin Console and Data workspace.

VMware ESXi 7.0 support

ThoughtSpot now certifies VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) 7.0 for VMware deployments of the ThoughtSpot product. ThoughtSpot certifies VMware 7.0 only for ThoughtSpot version 8.4.1.sw. See VMware configuration overview.

For the Developer

Customers licensed to embed ThoughtSpot can use ThoughtSpot Everywhere features and Visual Embed SDK.

To enable ThoughtSpot Everywhere on your cluster, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

For information about ThoughtSpot Everywhere, refer to ThoughtSpot Everywhere Documentation.

8.4.0.sw New Features and Functionality

Inline Release 8.4.0.sw LA

8.4.0.sw is a Limited Availability (LA) release provided directly to select customers to test and provide feedback directly to ThoughtSpot, ensuring the 8.4.1.sw maintenance release is customer-tested, stable, and reliable.

8.4.1.sw will be generally available for all customers and is scheduled for release in August 2022.

For the Analyst

Date interval functions

In this release, we introduced new functions for computing time intervals between two dates. In addition to the existing diff_days and diff_time functions, you can now use diff_years, diff_quarters, diff_months diff_weeks, diff_hours, and diff_minutes to calculate time intervals at these additional granularities.

If your organization uses a custom calendar, which can specify a new starting date of a year, starting dates of quarters, a starting day of the month, and a starting day of the week, use the optional custom calendar argument with these functions to calculate the difference between the two dates.

Conditional and number formatting for downloaded tables

When you download a table in XLSX format, the downloaded table now shows the same conditional and number formatting as the table in ThoughtSpot. Refer to Download your search.

Liveboard schedule

ThoughtSpot now combines the Liveboard follow and Liveboard Schedule features into a single action called "Schedule." To create a new schedule to receive an email containing a pdf of your Liveboard, users now select the Schedule button to the left of the more options menu icon more 10px.

ThoughtSpot will migrate any existing Liveboard follows to Liveboard schedules. For users who followed a Liveboard in November Cloud or earlier, those Liveboard schedules appear in the list of Liveboard schedules as Migrated from follow (your display name).

New SpotIQ experience

The new SpotIQ experience is now available. The functionality remains the same, but we reorganized the UI to make it more intuitive. The new experience is off by default, but you can manage your individual SpotIQ experience from your profile. Note that the new SpotIQ experience is dependent on the new answer experience; to use the new SpotIQ experience, you must first enable the new answer experience. For more information, refer to SpotIQ.

New answer experience

The new answer experience is now available. It contains multiple new features and feature enhancements. It is part of ThoughtSpot’s move to a new stack. The new experience is off by default, but you can manage your individual answer experience from your profile. To learn more about the new answer experience, refer to New answer experience.

The new answer experience contains the following features:

  • Improved Formula Editor: The new formula editor has a larger editor window, allows new lines, and has a new layout with integrated help.

  • Table column summaries and headlines: Conditional and number formatting for table column summaries and headlines is now available. Column summaries are aligned with their respective columns and are part of the table, although you can configure their number and conditional formatting separately.

  • Table column summary configuration for admins: You can now enable or disable column summaries for users on the new answer experience, from the Search & SpotIQ section of the admin console. By default, table column summaries are on.

  • Table configuration: Conditional formatting for attributes is now available for tables. Conditional formatting is now part of the Table configuration panel instead of being a separate modal. You can now set the content density and theme (outline, row, or zebra) of your table.

  • Chart configuration: Conditional formatting for chart measures is now part of the Chart configuration panel instead of being a separate modal.

  • KPI chart type: You can now create visualizations of your data’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Using this feature, you can track the changes in important KPIs in your data.

  • Conditional formatting for pivot tables: You can now perform conditional formatting on measures in pivot tables.

  • Improved sorting for pivot tables: Pivot tables now support multiple sorts at a time. When you sort by a measure, you sort rows only, not columns. This change allows you to sort the rows by a measure and the columns by an attribute. When you save a pivot table that you sorted, the existing sorting saves as well.

  • Undo, redo, or reset button: Use the in-product undo, redo, and reset buttons to reset or go back or forward 1 step each time you make a change in a search or saved answer (for example, when you add a new column to the search, drill down, or sort). These buttons appear to the right of the search bar in a search or saved answer. Note that the reset button is only available for saved answers; it resets the answer to its last saved state.

  • Drill down by measures: You can now drill down on a data point by a measure. In the classic answer experience, you can only drill down on a data point by an attribute.

  • SpotIQ: Cleaner, more intuitive UI for the SpotIQ tab and SpotIQ analyze of Answer data points, surfacing the most useful workflows and allowing advanced customization.

  • Improved logic for showing chart elements in Liveboard visualizations: For all Liveboard visualization sizes except for the smallest size, ThoughtSpot now shows axis values, labels, and legends. Legends will always appear to the right of the chart. For the smallest visualization size, ThoughtSpot now shows axis values and labels, but not legends.

  • HTML for answer titles and descriptions: Use HTML in titles and descriptions for answers and visualizations within Liveboards. For example, you can add a clickable link to a word or phrase in a description, or italicize part of an answer title.

  • Answer download footer: Administrators can specify a standard footer to add to all answer downloads. Use this functionality to add a confidentiality disclaimer, for example.

New answer experience deprecations

The following features are not available with the new answer experience. The new answer experience is off by default, but the option to turn it on or off individually is on by default. If it is on in your environment, and you would like your company to be able to use these de-supported features, you can turn the new answer experience off for your company from the Admin Console. Alternatively, users can turn it on or off individually from their profile.

  • Browser back button: you can no longer use the browser back button to go back one step in a search or answer. Instead, use the new product back button to the left of an answer name.

  • Multiple join path resolution within the formula editor or a search: when you try to search on columns with more than one possible join path, the system no longer allows you to define the join path within the search. Similarly, when you try to create a formula with columns with more than one possible join path, the system does not allow you to define the join path. Instead, the system now prompts you to resolve this issue and avoid confusion or incorrect data by creating a Worksheet with the correct join path.

  • Send feedback: The option to send product feedback, from the more options menu more options menu icon on an Answer or search.

  • Client-side summaries for tables: We consolidated column summaries and headlines into one summary, called a headline summary. To calculate these headline summaries, ThoughtSpot executes a query against the underlying database. If you are connecting to your data in an external database, ThoughtSpot executes one query for each summary. If you store your data in ThoughtSpot’s in-memory database, ThoughtSpot executes one query for all summaries in the search. These headline summaries are integrated with the table columns. You can pin them to Liveboards. After you upgrade to the new answer experience, you must manually re-enable headline summaries on charts and tables in your Liveboards from the chart or table settings. ThoughtSpot won’t migrate them automatically, because of high query costs.

  • Granular access to Liveboards: A privilege limiting some users to Read only access on curated Liveboards. These users could view and explore; however, they could not copy, alter, download, or share the Liveboards.

  • R integration: R integration is not available in the new answer experience at this time. We plan to add support for R in the new answer experience in a future release.

    ThoughtSpot continues to support R for all customers who currently include R charts in their solutions on the ThoughtSpot Software deployments; please continue to use the classic Answer experience.

    We support R only in Falcon deployments (data imported into ThoughtSpot), and R integration is disabled by default. It is not available when creating connections and linking to external databases in real time.
Streamlined analyst setup

We simplified the steps to set up an analyst account on ThoughtSpot. Now, you can create a connection, create a worksheet to model your business use cases, immediately search your data, and automatically create Search visualizations. See Analyst Onboarding for further details.

This feature is specific to clusters based on connections to external data warehouses, not imported data (Falcon). To enable this feature for your cluster, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

For the Business User

Starting in May 2022, ThoughtSpot refers to Liveboards instead of pinboards. With Liveboards, you can have an interactive experience and get granular insights through live queries on cloud data, tailored for you. You can use Liveboards to iterate, explore, and drill into more insights, and tell a continuously evolving data story.
ThoughtSpot plans to support for several releases, and then retire, internal processes and external methods that use the older naming convention.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI) chart type

You can now create visualizations of your data’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). When you search for a measure with a time-related keyword (for example, Sales weekly), you can create sparkline visualizations of your data’s Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). ThoughtSpot also supports conditional formatting to add visual cues for KPIs or threshold metrics to easily show where you are falling short or exceeding targets. For more information, see KPI charts.

Auto-select search data source for new users

When a new user first uses Search, ThoughtSpot intelligently selects a data source for them to search on. ThoughtSpot chooses the most popular data source in the cluster that the user has access to. This allows users to begin to search data easily, without looking through all the existing data sources on their cluster.

Geo map support for France postcode

We now support more detailed geographic maps for France. You can now create maps based on postal codes, as well as region and city name. For more information, see Geo map reference.

For the Data Engineer

Data Workspace Beta

This release redesigns the Data section of the product. The new Data Workspace is still in the same place in the product. To access it, select Data from the top navigation bar. The redesign introduces several new features, such as SQL-based views, and makes the UI more intuitive.

This feature is in beta and off by default. To enable it, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

SQL-based views Beta

This release introduces beta support for SQL-based views. Users can create views based on custom SQL queries, and use those views as data sources. This type of view has the same functionality as a view based on searching your data.

This feature is in beta and off by default. It is part of the new Data Workspace, which is also in beta and off by default. To enable SQL-based views and the new Data Workspace, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

Integration with dbt Beta

ThoughtSpot now offers an integration with dbt. You can provide your existing dbt models and automatically create worksheets in ThoughtSpot that you can use to perform searches on your data.

This feature is in beta and off by default. It is part of the new Data Workspace, which is also in beta and off by default. To enable dbt integration and the Data tab redesign, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

OAuth for Databricks

Databricks connections now support OAuth. See Configure OAuth for a Databricks connection.

For the IT Ops Engineer

Python 3.9 upgrade

ThoughtSpot-managed CentOS deployments only: If you upgraded to Python 3.9 while on ThoughtSpot version 7.2.1, you must upgrade your Python version to 3.9 again after you upgrade to ThoughtSpot version 8.4.0.sw.

This does not apply to customer-managed Amazon Linux 2 or RHEL deployments. Amazon Linux 2 or RHEL deployments do not need to upgrade their Python version again.

For the Developer

Starting from the 8.4.0-sw release (Limited Availability), customers licensed to embed ThoughtSpot can use ThoughtSpot Everywhere features and Visual Embed SDK.

To enable ThoughtSpot Everywhere on your cluster, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

For information about ThoughtSpot Everywhere, refer to ThoughtSpot Everywhere Documentation.

Supported Upgrade Paths

If you are running one of the following versions, you can upgrade to the 8.4.1.sw release directly:

  • 7.1.x to 8.4.1.sw

  • 7.2.x to 8.4.1.sw

This includes any hotfixes or customer patches on these branches.

If you host your ThoughtSpot cluster on Amazon Linux 2, you can only upgrade to 8.4.1.sw from 7.2.1.x versions (7.2.1, 7.2.1.CU1, and so on).

If you are running a different version, you must do a multiple pass upgrade.

First, upgrade to version 7.1.x or 7.2.x (for clusters running on Amazon Linux 2, upgrade to 7.2.1.x), and then to the 8.4.1.sw release.

To successfully upgrade your ThoughtSpot cluster, all user profiles must include a valid email address. Without valid email addresses, the upgrade is blocked.

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