Bold BI v5.2 Release Highlights for Self-Hosting and Embedding!

We are excited to announce that we have rolled out our latest product update, Bold BI v5.2, which includes releases on Windows, Docker, Linux, Kubernetes, and Azure. It’s a huge release, since it delivers many much-awaited features, improvements, and breaking changes. These significant changes provide you with a great experience creating elegant dashboards with Bold BI.

You can download the latest version of Bold BI from your account page. If you are new to Bold BI, get started with Bold BI by signing up for a free 15-day trial and see how you can create more interactive business intelligence dashboards.

In this blog post, we’ll look at the key enhancements this release:

• Data source enhancements
• Server enhancements
• IDP and UMS enhancements
• Designer enhancements
• Widget enhancements
• Embedded BI enhancements

Data source enhancements

New data source connectors

We added connectors for the ClickHouse and BoldDesk data sources. Now you can use these data source connectors to import data using various API endpoints.

Service account authentication support for Google BigQuery

We added support to use service account authentication in the Google BigQuery data source.  

View raw data in grids

Now, view raw data in a grid widget. You can enable or disable the Show Raw Data option in a grid’s Properties panel.

Create live web data sources using REST API

Create live web data sources using a REST API. Users can create a live web data source from third-party tools like Postman. In a live mode web data source, only 5,000 records are allowed by default.

Distinct aggregation expression support

We have implemented Distinct aggregation expression support for sums and averages. Now, you can get the sum and average for just a distinct value of a given data set.

Join the tables based on the expression column

Users can join tables based on an expression column. This support will be helpful for users who have to modify the column name in the database and then use join. Now they can rename the column and use it for joining.

Data source improvements

• 4x performance improved in the SQL data source extract mode initial creation. 
• Fixed date variable filter issue in SSAS data source. 
• Fixed data refresh issues in MySQL extract mode with PostgreSQL as data store. 
• Fixed filter issue in expression date column in PostgreSQL data source. 
• Fixed string-to-date conversion in which a column contains empty string/null values in PostgreSQL data source. 
• Added support for Snowflake date-time display based on client time zone.  
• Added support for Elasticsearch version 6.8.  
• Fixed issue with sequence containing no matching element in PostgreSQL data source. 
• Fixed task cancellation issue in Elasticsearch data source. 
• Fixed data source edit issue in PostgreSQL data source. 
• Fixed issue with data types not being maintained in tables. 
• Fixed edit connection issue while changing the server with the same schema in MySQL data source. 
• Fixed issue in casting the data types in Snowflake data source. 
• Fixed Top N Filtering bug in Google BigQuery data source. 
• Fixed issue with the table grid search function not working in SSAS. 
• 10x performance improved in live web data sources in the dashboard design mode. 
• Fixed inability to connect pagination without total page and data integrator fields on Web API data source. 
• Fixed Freshdesk pagination not working. 
• Fixed issue with lookup table creation if Bold BI is configured with MYSQL. 
• Fixed issue with missing custom fields in Jira. 
• Fixed error while filtering through URL in Web API live. 

Server enhancements

Support for MySQL as data store

Use MySQL as a data store. Users can configure their MySQL database in the data store settings as an intermediate data source.

Setting up CORS headers

We have implemented support to set up CORS headers on the settings page. Previously, all origins, methods, and headers were allowed. Now, users can configure and customize CORS setting based on policy. With this update, they can easily handle security by allowing and restricting specific origins, methods, and headers.

Webhook support

Create webhooks to deliver data alerts and for standard dashboard export. You can enable authentication and signing for your webhook and receive webhook content in JSON, XML, and X-FormUrl-Encoded formats. You can view webhook lists and statuses in the webhooks log.

Avoid SSRF attacks

Configure the known domain list to avoid SSRF attacks. Using this option, you can easily prevent a Bold BI request from being sent out to unknown domains.

Manage custom and predefined widgets

We have provided support to upload and manage custom and predefined widgets on the settings page. With this support, you can enable and disable custom and predefined widgets on the Widget tab on the Settings page. Disabling widget will hide it in Dashboard Designer. Users can configure any number of widgets for their application.

Minor enhancements  

• A REST API to update the CORS settings.  
• A REST API to check whether a pinboard name exists.  
• A REST API to update email settings.
• A REST API to update AzureAD settings.  
• A REST API to update AzureAD schedule synchronization settings.
• A REST API to manage account settings.  

Server improvements

• Fixed issue in Azure AD user synchronization.  
• Fixed issue in user-based filter by converting emails to lower case.  
• Fixed internal server errors when accessing multitab dashboards in the same page preview.  
• Fixed the duplicate left panel issue when editing the dashboard in the same page preview.   
• Fixed issue in using tab widgets in multitab dashboards.  
• Fixed random issue in daily dashboard export.  
• Added support to customize author name visibility, sorting order, and multitab labels on dashboard listing page.   
• Added support to add URL filter parameters while calling dashboard export REST API.  

IDP and UMS enhancements

Lock accounts support

Now, users can lock accounts if a password is entered incorrectly five times or more. Users can enable and disable the User Account Lockout option in the security settings page. A user will need to reset their password or ask an admin unlock their account if the account was locked.

Customizing password policies

Users can customize the password policies to match their organization’s IT policies. Users can set a maximum length and enable or disable requirements for at least one lowercase, uppercase letter, number, and special character. This password policy will work wherever passwords are required in the site.

Note: Users can set a minimum of 6 and a maximum of 64 character limits for the length policy.

IDP and UMS improvements

• Support to provide license key in Kubernetes and Docker via environment variables. 

Designer enhancements

Data caching support

We have implemented data caching support. You can turn the data cache in the designer on or off. The data cache result will be refreshed based on the set expiration minimum. The dashboard will render from the data cache when the data cache is enabled. The data cache feature allows users to improve dashboard performance by caching the widget results at initial widget rendering.

Interwidget linking support

We have added interlinking support in tab widgets. You can switch tabs based on index value. Using this support, you can configure default and custom actions for each tab widget in the Properties panel. When a default action is configured, the tab will switch based on the index value in the current widget. Custom actions allow you to switch to a specific tab index so that any value selected in the current widget will switch the tab to the configured tab. Users can view the tabs in view mode, even when a tab was hidden in the Designer.

Designer improvements:   

• Added dashboard parameter support in SSAS data source. 
• 1.5x performance improved in the dashboard rendering. 
• Added support to render a dashboard without setting the item details during initialization from embedding. 
• Fixed the issue with the widget action context menu not being shown while maximizing the dashboard in embedding. 
• Fixed widget menu pop-up rendering with default height when all the menu items are removed on customization. 
• Fixed the issue with custom widgets not loading while configuring preconfigured widgets API in designer embedding. 
• Fixed URL linking not working for multitab dashboard issue. 
• Fixed dynamic connection string not working after publishing a dashboard issue. 
• Fixed dashboard not being published to another site with more than three tables. 
• Fixed Excel exporting ignoring the applied filter issue. 
• Fixed widget data being discarded after updating the dashboard parameter value issue. 
• Fixed dashboard not being published to another site with disabled tables issue. 
• Fixed tab widget not properly aligning in multitab dashboard issue. 
• Fixed comment option not showing in tabbed widget issue. 
• Fixed slave widgets not filtering based on master widget values issue. 
• Fixed refreshing dashboard content issue in mobile view. 
• Added support to customize the custom widget container size in mobile mode. 

Widget enhancements

Major enhancements

Grid summary row support

We have implemented grid summary row support. You can enable or disable the Enable Summary Row option in the Properties panel. You can easily customize the grid summary configuration.

POP filtering for grids

You can enable POP filtering for a grid widget. With this support, you can view period-over-period primary and secondary values for the actual configured measure column in a grid. You can easily customize POP configuration settings.

POP filtering for KPI card

Enable POP filtering for KPI cards. When the enabled KPI card is a slave for a period-over-period widget and the user tries to configure target values in the KPI card, the user will get an alert message to ignore the configuration. The period-over-period secondary value will act as the target value in the KPI card, so there’s no need to configure a target value.

Widget improvements

• Provided support to adjust widget container padding.   
• Added support to apply chart filtering from axis labels.   
• Provided option to modify the pie and doughnut chart radius.   
• Provided option to modify the line and spline chart’s line width.   
• Provided option to enable a fixed layout for a KPI card.   
• Provided option to perform responsive margins in a KPI card.   
• Provided support to enable map zooming into marker plotted regions.   
• Provided support to enable a value tooltip for 100% stacked charts.   
• Enabled RTE server font family support.   
• Provided option to enable fixed rows and columns for proportional charts.  
• Enabled image widget tooltip.  
• Provided support for a description tooltip in the range navigator’s assign data section.  

Widget breaking changes

The custom widget folder placement and file format has been changed. We provided a utility to migrate custom widgets created in the lower version, as we have made changes in publishing the custom widgets. 

Embedded BI enhancements

Major enhancements

Embed a Dashboard Designer for external providers in iframe-based embedding.  

Embed a data source designer for external providers in iframe-based embedding.  

Now, users can easily embed a dashboard into any web application by copying and pasting the embed code. The administrators can easily embed the Dashboard Designer and a data source designer using various authentication providers such as Windows Active Directory, Azure Active Directory, OAuth 2.0, and OpenID Connect.

Minor enhancements

• Option to update widget filters (text field only) while dashboard is rendering.
• Option to programmatically publish through an  API
• Option to customize the existing widget item panel.  
• API to show or hide the data source configuration in a designer.  
• API to show or hide all the columns by default when viewing underlying data.  
• API to show or hide the preview as an option in a designer.  
• Option to customize the toolbar buttons in a designer.  

Embedded BI improvements

• Option to get the embed code for the data source designer from the data source listing page.  
• Option to customize the header in AJAX calls.  

Conclusion

We hope this post was helpful to you in learning about the new features and improvements in the Bold BI v5.2 release. To learn more, refer to our release page.

For questions, you can contact us through the Bold BI website, or if you already have an account, you can log in.