9.5.0.sw Release Notes

ThoughtSpot version 9.5.0.sw.cu1 is now available.

These release notes include information about new and enhanced features.

To see our feature deprecation plans, please see Deprecation announcements.

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

9.5.0.sw.cu1 New Features and Functionality

For the Data Engineer

Key Pair authentication for Snowflake

We now support Key Pair authentication for Snowflake.

9.5.0.sw New Features and Functionality

For the Analyst

Custom comparison points for KPI charts

You can now set your KPI chart to display a percent change comparison between the most recent data point and a custom comparison point. For example, when searching for sales monthly, you can choose to see percent change between this month and the previous month, previous quarter, or previous year. For more information, see Custom comparison points.

Parameters

The Parameters feature is now GA. Any user can now create Parameters at the Answer level to optimize their data inquiries. Analysts can also create Worksheet Parameters that are available to all Worksheet users. Use Parameters to run different scenarios with adjustable values, without creating or modifying the constants in formulas for each new value. For example, easily adjust the attribute in an Answer to view your revenue by commit date or order date, as in the following image.
To try it out, navigate to any Answer, search, or Worksheet, and select the + button next to the Parameters section in the left panel. For more information, see Creating Parameters and Using Parameters.

Custom groups Beta

You can now create custom groups, which can be used to classify values in a list you can then reuse across multiple analyses. As an example, you can use custom groups to search for which products are most popular, and define them by sales volume as “gold”, “silver”, or “bronze” level products. Custom groups are community objects which remain when you navigate away from the Search Data page and can be viewed by any user with view access to the underlying Worksheet.

For more information, see Custom groups.

Liveboard note tiles

The Liveboard note tiles feature is now GA. Add notes to your Liveboards, so that viewers of your Liveboards can quickly understand how to use the data and visualizations you gathered. Note tiles can provide an overview of a Liveboard or visualization, company branding through images, definitions of terms used in the Liveboard, and so on. With the GA of the note tiles feature, you don’t need a specific privilege to upload images. See Liveboard note tiles.

Date picker enhancement in Search

We added support for rolling, fixed, and custom date filters when creating an Answer or filtering a Liveboard. Previously, when adding a date filter to a Search, ThoughtSpot supported the conditions ON (=), ON OR AFTER (>=), BEFORE (<), and BETWEEN. Now, you can additionally filter for ON OR BEFORE (<=), NOT BETWEEN, ON LAST, and ON NEXT.

To try it out, click the filter icon next to the Date column in the left side menu, or click the date filter below the Answer or Liveboard title. For more information, see Date filters for Answers and Liveboards.

Show timezone in scheduled Liveboards modal

When scheduling Liveboards, you can now specify your timezone.

Mandatory filters

Mandatory Liveboard filters are now GA. Mark certain filters in your Liveboard as mandatory. If you add mandatory filters to a Liveboard, the visualizations will only load after Liveboard viewers select values for the mandatory filters. Use mandatory filters for Liveboards that contain data that may not be relevant for everyone who must view and consume the Liveboard. Mandatory filters also lower query and performance costs. To try the feature out, select Mandatory filter when adding a filter to a Liveboard. For more information about mandatory filters, see Mandatory Liveboard filters.

Liveboard cross filters

Right-click any data point in your Liveboard and easily filter the entire Liveboard by that value. For example, if you right-click California in a geo chart on your Liveboard, and then select Filter, all the other visualizations only show data from California. A visualization for Total sales by city, for example, would only show sales for cities in California. This feature is also called brushing and linking. To try it out, select any data point(s) in a Liveboard visualization, and select Filter from the menu that appears. For more information, see Liveboard cross filters.

Single value selection for attribute filters

When creating a Liveboard, you can now designate attribute filters as single-select, in addition to multi-select. For example, you could choose to make a Country filter single-select, so users would only see data related to one country at a time.

Group aggregate enhancements: filters Beta

Previously, when using group_aggregate formulas, users could use query_filters to include filters entered in the search bar in the formula’s value, but it was difficult to write a formula that accepted filters from only a single column. Starting with this release, you can specify column names within the ‘filters’ section of a group_aggregate formula, and any filter in your search bar referencing that column will be added to the formula. Filters entered in the search bar that are not on columns specified in the third argument of the group_aggregate formula will be ignored.

For example: Say that you search for group formula color= ‘blue’ ship mode != ‘car’, where group formula = group_aggregate (sum(Revenue), {ship mode}, {color, quantity}). In this case, the formula will adopt the color = blue filter but ignore the ship mode filter, evaluating to group_aggregate(sum(Revenue), {ship mode}, {color = ‘blue’}). For details, see Group aggregation filters.

Group aggregate enhancement: reaggregation Beta

To reduce confusion when using aggregate formulas, the level of detail defined in group formulas is now respected at query level. For example, when trying to calculate the contribution of each store’s sales to the entire region, you might use a group_sum formula, where the sales at store level is divided by the sales at regional level. Your search would include the following columns: Revenue, Customer nation, Regional Revenue formula, and Customer region, where Regional Revenue formula = group_sum(Revenue, Customer Region).

According to the old reaggregation behavior, if a customer removed Customer region from the search bar, the level of detail in the formula would no longer be respected and the formula’s denominator would re-aggregate up to the total. In this case, the formula result would display revenue as a percentage of total revenue, rather than as a percentage of regional revenue.

Under the new aggregation behavior, the formula result will continue to display revenue as a percentage of each region, even if you remove Customer region from the search bar. Visualizations will also display the correct aggregation even if the grouping column is not added to the X-axis.

For more information, see Flexible aggregation functions.

Table column case definition Beta

We are introducing the ability to specify the case of a table column (for example, upper, lower, or mixed). Previously, SQL generated by ThoughtSpot was always wrapped in a LOWER function with no configuration options. Now, users will be able to define whether columns in tables are mixed case or lower case. To enable this feature, contact ThoughtSpot Support.

Delete table columns using TML

Remove columns from tables in ThoughtSpot by deleting them in the tables' TML files. To try it out, edit a table TML file, and delete a column’s name and properties. We support deleting a column from a TML file and removing that column’s dependencies in the same zip file import. Note that if the deletion of a column fails, the whole import will fail. For more information, see Deleting columns.

Text keywords enhancements

We improved the syntax of our text keywords, such as begins with and contains, to provide users with more flexibility. For example, the contains keyword now accepts expressions such as product name contains 'shoes' or 'snickers'. See the Keyword reference.
Additionally, if your query includes two or more contains phrases that modify the same column, ThoughtSpot now combines the phrases using or logic, instead of and. If you have existing Answers or visualizations using this and logic, ThoughtSpot will automatically update your queries after you upgrade, to ensure they return the same information. See the contains keyword.

For the Business User

Contextual change analysis

You can now identify the key change drivers for changes in your metrics in a KPI chart. Select the percent change label or select any two data points on the KPI sparkline to view change analysis on your top 5 columns by usage-based ranking (UBR) and identify the reason behind the observed change. You can view the changes in other columns by clicking Manage attributes and selecting the desired column(s).

For more information, see Contextual change analysis.

Liveboard header visible when you scroll down

When you scroll down in a Liveboard, the Liveboard name, menu options, and filter and tab bars remain visible. You don’t need to scroll back up to the top to edit the Liveboard or check if you’re filtering by a specific store. You can see the filters or parameters applied to the Liveboard, select the Edit button or more options more options menu icon menu, and view which tab you’re on from any spot in the Liveboard.

Mandatory Liveboard filters

Mandatory Liveboard filters are now GA. Mark certain filters in your Liveboard as mandatory. If you add mandatory filters to a Liveboard, the visualizations will only load after Liveboard viewers select values for the mandatory filters. Use mandatory filters for Liveboards that contain data that may not be relevant for everyone who must view and consume the Liveboard. Mandatory filters also lower query and performance costs.

For more information, see Mandatory Liveboard filters.

Keywords "of", "percentage of" Beta

To enable business users to answer questions related to mix, contribution, share of, percentage, and total ratios, we added the keywords “of” and “percentage of”. These keywords help answer questions such as “What is the share of a certain store’s sales as a percentage of the regional whole?” Previously, searches such as these required the use of a group aggregate formula, which presented a barrier to users. For more information, see Keywords: Of and Percentage of.

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

Verified Liveboards

Admin-assigned verifiers can now mark Liveboards as verified. Users can now request these verifiers to review their Liveboards, and verify if the information displayed is trusted content. Verified Liveboards carry a tag that signifies that they have been audited for correctness. For more information, see Verified Liveboards.

Editing in-use parameters

When using a parameter in a Search, Answer, or Liveboard, you can now change the allowed values type (for example, from List to Range). You can also add or delete values from a list parameter while it’s in use, or increase or decrease the minimum and maximum values in a range parameter. We do not support changing the data type of the parameter (for example, from INT to DATE). For more information, see Create parameters.

Pivot table enhancements

We made the following enhancements to pivot table charts:

  • When you download an xlsx version of a pivot table, the measure values are displayed as numbers instead of the general format.

  • When you download an xlsx version of a pivot table, row and column labels are shown as separate cells rather than as a column-separated list.

  • You can no longer add conditional formatting to a pivot table in heatmap mode.

  • Naming of subtotals and grand totals are now consistent in the chart and chart configuration dropdown.

  • We now support hyperlinks in pivot tables.

  • You can now choose to show or hide row and column summaries and subtotals, from the chart configuration menu. When summaries and subtotals are enabled, you can choose to display them at the top or bottom of the pivot table.

Liveboard tabs in Mobile app

We now display Liveboard tabs in the ThoughtSpot Mobile app. To create a Liveboard tab, you must access ThoughtSpot in a browser.

Mobile app Load More button

When using ThoughtSpot Mobile, you can now press the Load More button at the bottom of a table to see the next 100 rows of data.

ThoughtSpot for Google Sheets add-on

ThoughtSpot for Google Sheets is a free add-on that lets you use the power of ThoughtSpot to search, and create charts and visualizations from your spreadsheet data. See ThoughtSpot for Google Sheets.

New data panel GA

The new data panel experience is GA in this release. This is part of the Data Fluency feature. This feature is disabled by default. To enable it, go to your ThoughtSpot user profile and set the Answer data panel experience to New experience. See Choose a data source.

Column and data source overview in Search Data

With the new Answer data panel experience feature enabled, the Search data page displays a short description of your selected data source or column, which helps you understand the kinds of answers you can expect to get when searching. See Start a new search.

For the Data Engineer

Connections

You can now create connections from ThoughtSpot to the following Cloud data warehouses:

Redshift OAuth with Azure AD IDP

Redshift now supports external OAuth through Microsoft Azure AD. See Configure Azure AD external OAuth for a Redshift connection.

Connection error messaging improvements

If you run into an error while creating a connection, you can now click View details to see error details and add a comment for your administrator.

Certification of Amazon Aurora and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) for PostgreSQL

You can now connect to and query Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL databases.

Specify default connection for CSV uploads

Previously, when multiple database connections were configured to receive CSV uploads without a specified table or worksheet for collocation, the files were randomly uploaded to one of the connections. With this new enhancement, administrators and data managers now have the ability to specify a default target connection for such uploads.
To set the default target connection, navigate to Data > Connections, click the More menu icon menu icon, select Configure data upload, and click the Enable data upload toggle to on. Next, select the Set as default CSV upload destination toggle. By specifying a default connection, you ensure that CSV files without a designated destination will be uploaded to the chosen connection. This enhancement provides better control and organization of CSV uploads, making it easier to manage data in scenarios where end-users do not select a co-location for their uploaded files.

For the IT Ops Engineer

tscli command updates

We have updated the tscli command syntax to retrieve history. For more information, see tscli get history.

Parameter runtime overrides

Adjust Parameter values at runtime from Liveboard or Answer URLs, or using REST API v1 requests. For more information, see Runtime overrides for Parameters and Runtime Parameters.

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.

Supported Upgrade Paths

If you are running one of the following versions, you can upgrade to the 9.5.0.sw release directly:

  • 9.0.1.sw to 9.5.0.sw

  • 8.8.x to 9.5.0.sw

This includes any hotfixes or customer patches on these branches.

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

First, upgrade to version 9.0.1.sw or 8.8.x, and then to the 9.5.0.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.