What's New in Spotfire 12.1

TIBCO Spotfire® 12.1 introduces pre-built and customizable icons for data functions to help users find the data function they need at a glance, as well as administration improvements that help improving robustness for information services and improves user experience for user management.

Data Wrangling

Skip automatic columns matches

Prompts for column matches when replacing data can be switched off to avoid interruption of automated workflow when replacing multiple data tables in sequence.
Existing analyses are not affected. The new setting is available in the data table properties for a specific analysis, as a user level option, or as a group level preference set by an administrator.

For a specific data table in analysis (Data > Data table properties).


As a user option, for all data tables added to new analysis (Tools > Options).


As a group level preference (Tools > Administration Manager)

Insert hierarchy for web authors

Web authors can quickly change the level of details in a visualization or combine filters to more structured hierarchy filters by inserting data hierarchies when two or more columns relate to each other.

Data Science

New look for data functions

Icons for data functions enable faster identification and selection among several in the f(x) panel.
Data functions developers can assign an icon to a data function from a list of pre-defined, category-based icons with associated keywords, or using their own custom icon.

Data functions with icons in the f(x) panel.


Registering a data function with an icon.

Data Access

Amazon Redshift Serverless support

The Spotfire connector for Amazon Redshift now supports Amazon Redshift Serverless.

Administration

Split View to manage user details

When you select a username from the user list in the Web UI, you can now view the user details (such as Profile, Licenses, etc.) by splitting the view between the list of user names and the user's details. You can also switch between viewing the user's details in split view mode or full view mode.
This provides an easier overview and better workflow since it you can to now see and edit the user details while keeping the user list pane for quicker user switching.

Split View to manage group details

When you select a group from the group list in the Web UI, you can now view the group details (such as Members, Licenses, etc.) by splitting the view between the list of groups and the selected group's details. You can also switch between viewing the group's details in split view mode or full view mode.
This provides an easier overview and better workflow since it you can to now see and edit the group details while keeping the group list pane for quicker group switching.

New argument for config-encryption

The CLI command config-encryption has the new argument --username, which accepts the username of the library administrator.

Information Services runs in its own subprocess on the TIBCO Spotfire Server

Information Services, used for accessing data with JDBC, now runs in its own subprocess on the same computer as the TIBCO Spotfire Server.
The purpose of this change is, among other things, to improve the stability of the Spotfire Server and to facilitate troubleshooting.
For the end user, Information Services works the same way as before, and no action is required before upgrading. However, as an administrator, it is important to be aware of the following technical changes:

• The location for the log files has changed to logs/informationservices.
• The JDBC drivers should be placed in custom-ext-informationservices.
• A new configuration command config-information-services-process is available.
• The JMX monitoring workflow for information services has changed.
• The default information services communication port is 9444.

For more information about the changes to Information Services, refer to the corresponding user documentation in the Server - Installation and Administration Manual.

Improved robustness by creating new data source connections on separate threads

To work around issues with certain drivers that can become unresponsive, you can now create each Information Services data source connection on a separate thread.
To enable the feature, add a connection property with the name spotfire.pooling.data.source.connection-creation-on-separate-thread, with the value set to true.

Data source included in Information Services log file

The Information Services log file, sql.log, now includes information about which data sources are used in a query.
Example:

2022-07-27T11:10:16,103+0530 dat-job-thread-1, admin, #4, [ #Information-link-name | #4, #Information-link-name* ]: [data-source="oracle1"] 
SELECT
   O1."O_CUSTKEY" AS "OCUSTKEY2",
   O1."O_ORDERKEY" AS "OORDERKEY2",
   O1."O_ORDERPRIORITY" AS "OORDERPRIORITY2",
   O1."O_CUSTKEY" AS "SFTMPORDERSOCUSTKEY"
FROM
   "SPOTFIRE"."ORDERS" O1

Support for cobranding packages in zip format

Cobranding packages in .zip format are now unpacked on the Spotfire Server, in addition to the previously supported .cab format.