Today we are very excited to announce our latest product update, Bold BI Enterprise and Embedded v3.3, which brings more impressive features, enhancements, and improvements. These major changes provide you a great experience in creating elegant dashboards with Bold BI. We’ll look at each of them in this post.
To get the latest version of Bold BI, you can download it from your account page. If you are new to Bold BI, try an Enterprise edition trial download or Embedded edition trial download.
Features summary
Data source enhancements
New data connectors
We added support for more file-format, SQL, and Web API data sources including: EDI file format, SQLite, Influx DB, CData with MySQL endpoints, SAP HANA through ODBC, LinkedIn, Zoho Invoice, Zendesk CRM, Commvault, Xero, and Lessonly.
Toggle option
We have added toggle option support to enable or disable auto update for the data preview.
Enum data type support for MySQL
We have provided support for the enum data type to the MySQL data source.
Extract mode support for Snowflake connector
We have added extract mode support for the Snowflake data source.
Listing drivers on ODBC
List driver options in the ODBC data source.
Expression support in code view
We have enabled expression dialog support in code view for adding expression columns, calculated measures that can be configured to widgets as quantitative measures.
SSAS-supported expressions
We have added support for eight aggregation, four conditional, three logical, four date, and six string expressions in the SSAS data source: CHAR, LEFT, LEN, LTRIM, RTRIM, RIGHT, NOW, DATEADD, DATEPART, DAY, DATESUB, HOUR, DAY, MINUTE, MONTH, TODAY, YEAR, AND, OR, NOT, IF, IFNULL, ISNOTNULL, ISNULL, AVG, COUNT, COUNTD, MAX, MIN, STDEV, SUM, VAR.
SQL-supported expressions
We have added support for four numbers, one conditional, five date, and two string expressions in SQL data sources: Ceil, Coalesce, Cot, Current Month, Current Year, Floor, Mod, Replace, Trim, Previous Month, Previous Year, Yesterday.
Connect Azure SSAS with existing Microsoft SSAS
You can now connect Azure SSAS with the existing Microsoft SSAS connector.
Iterative mode support in dashboard parameters
In the dashboard parameters feature, iterate all sub-APIs when using a Web API data source in extract mode.
Select and deselect all fields support in data source designer
In the data source designer, we have provided support to select or deselect all fields for the columns available inside the data table.
Select All/Deselect All While Configuring Data Sources
Code view in live mode
We have added a code view option in live mode connections.
Designer enhancements
New Combine Widget
The combine widget allows you to add multiple widgets in one container for creating dashboards.
Export: Widgets inside combine widgets can also be exported into image, PDF, CSV, and Excel formats.
Pin combine widget: Pin the combine widget by using the pin icon in the container. The pinned widget will be available in pin boards.
Combine data sources
You can merge data sources, which allows you to create a new data source from existing extracted data sources and merge your data to combine two or more tables by appending values (rows) from one table to another.
Advanced dashboard URL linking support
We have added support for dashboard URL linking to navigate any external or internal links from the widgets. You can configure the target location to open the link using the options New Tab, Same Page, Current Frame, Parent Frame, Pop Up, and New Window.
New Tab: Configured link will open in new tab.
Same Page: Configured link will open in the same page.
Current Frame: If the link is configured in iframe, the link will open in the same frame.
Parent Frame: Configured link will open in the parent iframe.
Pop up: Configured URL will open within a new pop-up.
New Window: Option to open the URL in a separate new window.
User filter improvements with group name support
We have provided group name support for user-based filtering with row-level security. You can set auto mapping for groups based on the user email or full name in the server.
Widgets enhancements
Logarithmic axis
Use a logarithmic axis in charts and combo charts for both the primary and secondary axis.
Legend title
Add titles to the chart legend items.
Combo box filter widget
We have included an All option in the combo box filter widget.
Vertical Text Alignment
Use vertical text alignment in the RTE widget.
Server enhancements
Publish dashboard to other sites
Publish a dashboard from one server to other sites.
Isolation code
The isolation feature is row-level security for the site level that applies to all dashboards in the site. You can set the filter value in a specific column of the data source to filter data across tenants.
Custom attributes
A custom attribute, a data security feature, is a parameter that users can set from the server for filtering data across tenants. This will be used in the code view of the data source using the following syntax. A custom attribute can be defined in three levels:
- User level attribute: This attribute can be set by the site admin for a user in the user management profile page. Syntax: /site/site1/administration/user-management/users/view?email=demo@boldbi.com&tab=attributes
- Group level attribute: This attribute can be set by the site admin for a group in the group profile page. Syntax: /site/site1/administration/user-management/groups/view/1?tab=attributes
- Site level attribute: This attribute can be set by the UMS admin for a site in the site details page.
Hosting Bold BI as website
You can host Bold BI as a website in another website in IIS.
Localization
We have added support for localization for both applications and data.
Data alerts
Receive data-driven alerts through email to keep track of data changes in your dashboard. You can also be notified whenever the data reaches a certain threshold value.
Embedded enhancements
Embedding multiple designer instances in same page
Bold BI Embedded edition allows multiple dashboards to be embedded into the same page using our JavaScript-component-based dashboard embedding. Also, we support widget mode embedding under the dashboard instance, so that you can embed widgets from the same or related dashboards on same page.
Designer embedding
We have provided support to embed the Dashboard Designer for ad hoc reports creation using the Bold BI Embed SDK.
Improvements summary
Data sources improvements
UI improvements
We have improved the Data connection wizard UI for these data sources:
- SurveyMonkey
- Amazon MWS
- ClubReady
- Slack
- Stripe
- Shopify
- Bitly
- Facebook Ads
Increased file data source limit to 200 MB
We have increased the data source max file size to 200 MB for XML, CSV, Excel, and other file-format data sources.
Increased Web API max row limit to 1 million
We have increased the max row limit to 1 million for Web API data sources.
Designer improvements
Designer canvas improvements
We have provided support for more granular cells over the widget size in the Dashboard Designer, which helps users to create flexible dashboards.
Dashboard parameter improvements
Extract mode support
Users can now utilize parameters with an extract mode connection. In our previous releases, users could use parameters in live connections only.
Display and Value text support
The Display Field and Value Field for parameters allow the user control over the display field that needs to be listed in the parameter window.
First and last value support
We have added first and last value support for parameters. They will return only the first and last values from the list.
Date format support
Use date format in parameters, allowing the user to set the format for the date parameter without considering the current culture.
Widgets improvements
Grid widget improvements
Render the grid widget in HTML content.
Highlight alternative rows in the grid widget.
Align the columns and their headers in the grid widget.
Gauge improvements
Show or hide the actual and difference values in the gauge.
We have added support for a full circular gauge.
Map Improvements
Utilize multiple selection in the map widget.
Widget actions
We have improved widget interactives and made UX improvements for better usability. Also, you can use a context menu along with widget action in the Dashboard Designer.
For example: In the grid widget, you can see the URL linking and filtering options enabled in the context menu as in the following screenshot.
UX improvement for the dashboard and widgets
We have improved the UX for dashboards and widgets for fonts and colors.The dashboard elements have been improved for better visibility across different screen resolutions.
Embedded Improvements
We have added API token authentication for Embedded BI.
Bug fixes
- Fixed issue in connecting to Azure SQL Server Analysis Service.
- Fixed issue in saving Google BigQuery data source with public data sets in code view.
- Fixed URL validation for Web API in live connection.
New sample dashboards in demo gallery
Sample dashboards for the agile and marketing departments, and the construction industry have been added for showcasing real-world KPIs covering different business areas.
- Sprint Management in Agile
- Release Management in Agile
- Customer Satisfaction Dashboard
- Defect Management in Agile
- Team Management in Agile
- Google Ads Performance Dashboard
- Construction Quality Management Dashboard
Conclusion
We hope this post is helpful to you in learning about the new features and improvements in Bold BI Enterprise and Embedded v3.3. If you have any questions, please use the comments section available below or request a demo here. You can also contact us by submitting your questions on the Bold BI contact page or, if you already have an account, you can log in to submit your support question.
