03 Feb Omniscope Rock Build – 2023.1

After months of anticipation, we are thrilled to unveil our latest treasure trove of features. From enhanced functionality to exciting new tools, there’s something for everyone.
Take a moment to explore what’s new and discover the features that will make a difference to your reporting.

Watch a brief video showing some of the highlights.
Send us your questions and feedback – let us know what you think!  (here is a Survey link)

Workflow: improved connectivity and data prep

You can now seamlessly integrate data from a wider range of sources into your workflows – our latest update includes support for the following data sources (and outputs):

• Google Cloud Storage, Amazon S3, Microsoft Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2 in the File Input and File Output blocks.
• Outlook PST files in the File block – users can now open, load email, messages, calendar events and other items.
• Google Drive in the File Input, File Output and Batch Append Folder blocks; support for shared drives in Google Drive file input and output.
• SalesForce connector is updated to the latest API version
• New experimental Google Sheets output block.
• New preparation block “Fill Down” replaces nulls in a field with the last non-null preceding value in the same field.
• The new Parse text block will help you parse the contents of a text field, containing JSON or XML, and output one or more records resulting from each cell. (Read more)
  
• Community Custom Scripts are folded into the main block picker categories such as Inputs, Connectors, Preparation and Analytics. The Community Blocks (and also the Library Blocks) now keep their category’s colour on the workflow.
  In the Admin section there is also an option to hide the Community blocks, if they are not relevant for the particular use case.
• For our users in Asia we’ve improved the “Simplified Chinese” translation, so they can interact with the translated menus and application components.
  We also support custom translations – you can find more information below and let us know if you need help to implement.
  (See article)

You can now pin the workflow blocks palette as a left collapsible panel, which makes it easier for you to locate and apply the desired blocks. This eliminates the need to repeatedly click on the Add Block menu. Keeping the sidebar menu readily accessible will save you time and effort when building complex workflows.

Managing date patterns has never been easier thanks to our latest update, which introduces new date format dropdowns in both the Field Organiser and Report field settings. With these drop-downs, you can quickly search for a specific pattern or add a new one to the list.

Drop files anywhere: you can simply drag a source file from your computer and drop it anywhere in the Omniscope interface, whether it’s on the projects page, within a workflow, or on a File source block. This streamlined process means you can easily upload new data without the need to browse to the file location.

Editing data

Table view’s ‘data edit mode’ turns the table into a rich editing experience, similar to a spreadsheet; with multi-cell selection, copy/paste, inserting/deleting records/fields, renaming fields, resizing columns, also cell edits with an undo/redo option.
Note: Requires the Report input to be a Data Table or Text Input block.

• Refill (only) action in the Data Table block: these blocks can now be “refilled” without refreshing the upstream workflow, by selecting just that block and clicking the Execute button with the Refill icon.
• Text Input block has a new UI making it easier to input and edit data.
• Editing dates now shows a date picker, while the Toolbar button is added to clear sorts.
• There is also a new edit behaviour option to disable/show toggle or always enable editing. Editing can be enabled for some columns and disabled for others (from the Report> Fields settings or the three dot menu on the Report’s Data tab).
• Read more here

New data visualisations and Report UI improvements

New charts on the block: Dumbbell and Lollipop are commonly used to represent changes in data over time or between different groups. Dumbbell charts are particularly useful for showing the difference or change between two data points. They consist of a pair of markers or dots connected by a line, with the length of the line representing the difference between the two data points. They are often used to compare before-and-after data, or to show the difference between two groups of data.  Lollipop charts, on the other hand, are useful for displaying individual data points or values within a dataset. They consist of a vertical line or “lollipop stick” with a circular marker at the end representing the data point. They are particularly effective for highlighting outliers or individual data points that are significantly different from the rest of the data.

• Improvements in Bar, Line and Candlestick charts – addition of technical indicators : Simple Moving Average, Exponential Moving Average and Bollinger Bands. These indicators are dynamic and will instantly be recalculated following filtering and selection.
• Multi-point tooltip support in Line, Area, Radar and Parallel Coordinate views (e.g. the user can display the state of multiple KPIs on a given day).
  
• Added option to reverse the split axis in the Bar, Line and Streamgraph views (e.g. the timeline on the X axis could be showing descending order).
• Scatter view quadrants: option to move X/Y axis to origin.
• Added vertical reference lines in the Line view.
  
• Pivot view improvements: support for copying cell data; showing gridlines in the corner of the Pivot view; plus an option to show column or row titles /headers.
• New “Custom HTML” custom view is available now in all app versions. It allows the user to embed either a static HTML snippet or to dynamically display HTML retrieved from the view input data. It can be used to embed HTML widgets (e.g. a Discord channel widget) or to display HTML content based on the filtering / selection happening in other views. You can see a demo on our sandbox.
  
  
  We have introduced a new navigation UI for the Explore and Design dashboard editing modes, to provide a clearer distinction between editing and viewing reports in Omniscope. The Explore mode allows you to quickly and easily interact with all views on the page, simultaneously exploring data and adding new charts. The Design mode, on the other hand, provides more advanced editing capabilities, with the data/settings sidebars and a more focused single chart edit mode.

We have made improvements to our tabs management system with:
– addition of visible vs hidden tabs
– tab layout : drop-down picker Vs visible tabs navigation
– new tab positioning options: on top/ right/ bottom/ left of the report page
– the tabs can be sorted using drag and drop

Report templates, automated diagnostics

Report Templates are pre-configured projects available from the Projects page, some of which contain stunning visualisations that can be simply dragged onto the workflow and used immediately. You can simply re-configure the source to connect to your account/credentials, check the block search criteria and reload the data. The template project contains a dashboard, which will be ready to go the moment you load the new data!

Diagnose fields dialog – We have introduced a new dialog that automatically appears when there are issues with the data sources, fields, or formulas in any of the views within the report. In cases where the data flowing into the report has changed, the dialog offers help with remapping fields to ensure that your data is correctly integrated into the report. This makes it easier to bookmark, reuse or share report templates.

Although the data is the most important element of your report, appearances can also make a significant impact, so why not take a few moments to polish your presentation? With the Report Styles section, you can transform your report with just two clicks. You now have the option to choose from a selection of pre-configured style Presets, or even create and share your own presets as report styles in XML format. This is a convenient way to preserve combinations of colours, fonts, backgrounds, and borders.

Report layouts: Perfect chart proportions are achieved easily in the Free form report editing mode. The new snap report views feature is a user-friendly way to manipulate the charts using the guidelines and create slick dashboard layouts, including the exposed pixel and % measurements . If you haven’t used the dashboard device optimisation feature – it is worth having a go… Read more

Projects page – welcome tour and banners

We wanted to revisit and improve the user experience – whether the user is an experienced analyst or a total novice. The app is more welcoming and offers help to discover the features, while at the same time facilitates a more intuitive interaction with different interfaces.

Our new users will appreciate the Omniscope application tour popup – a dismissible sequence of hints to guide them through the basics on the Welcome screen, in the workflow app and on the report pages. Not a paperclip in sight!

Even the Projects list page got a bit of a makeover, with the ability to add banners with text, images, gifs and links using Markdown syntax.
Simply add a banner.md file to the projects folder. You will be able to add instructions or display a welcome message for the report consumers when they find themselves facing a long report list…
Read more

Report publishing and Automation

•  “Chain repetitions counter” is a new scheduler feature which allows the user to repeat the action(s) a set number of times until finished, or a failure occurs.
• Dashboards can be saved as .IOR files and publishing can be automated with the new scheduler task “Create IOR file from Report”. Read more
• New chart options from three dot menu – report editors can choose to expose the chart’s underlying data to the viewer (and the source data) and make it downloadable, or decide to hide it (through the “Hide source data” option in Report sharing settings).
• Omniscope views can now be saved and downloaded as images from the same chart menu (in PNG format).
• Convert and publish Omniscope multi-tab report as PowerPoint presentation via the new custom Report to PowerPoint block (available on Business/Enterprise plans).

Advanced features

Report variable influencing a live SQL query. To use this feature, the database block must be configured for live query and you must tick “Enable live query injection” in the report variable configuration. This will allow you to use the variable name as a parameter in the Database block custom SQL option. See the article 

Omniscope File Drop facility: A new Custom view allows the report viewer to upload a data file by uploading it to a Report page and immediately trigger a data Workflow execution of specific blocks in one request (where the uploaded data file will become an input data block), optionally also refreshing the report which contains the ‘upload file’ view. See more

See also – relevant features already available:

Parameter passing – Custom views in the Report section allow the analyst to integrate a parameter-passing mechanism, so that the report viewer is able to make a choice or enter a new value to be passed to the workflow and trigger a re-execution.
See more

Performance improvements

When multiple users are requesting the same query Omniscope has an option to store and retrieve results of the first-executed query. Report queries are cached indefinitely, subject to a configurable cache memory capacity via an option in the Admin section, and do not otherwise expire until the server app is shut down. Manual report “warm-up” (after data refresh) can be useful on servers with complex reports and large numbers of viewers to facilitate dramatically improved load time and interaction time for common initial actions.

Important Note about the Omniscope Classic Mobile mode sunset – for the users who wish to share their reports as web links Evo is a superior web app – it is better positioned to deliver web based reports and share content. As of this Rock build we will remove support for the old Classic ‘mobile mode’. Please get in touch if you wish to discuss the migration options and licensing.

Let us know what you think, here is a Survey link

#TeamVisokio