These release notes are for PhixFlow 7.0.0.
This release is for Oracle, SQL Server and MySQL.
Contents
Installation / Upgrade
To install a new PhixFlow instance, follow the standard installation instructions.
To upgrade an existing PhixFlow instance, follow the Standard Upgrade Instructions plus the special instructions for all intermediate releases.
This release has no special instructions.
Prerequisites
This PhixFlow release requires:
- Java 8
- Apache Tomcat 8.5
One of:
- Oracle 12c or later
- SQL Server 2012 or later
- MariaDB (MySQL) 10.0.14 or later
Features / Improvements
Installation
Actions
Forms
Views
Formatting rule expressions may now refer to _current (the current row) and _this (all rows). This allows you, for example, to compare values on the current and previous rows in order to determine the style.
Pipes
The warning message that was generated when a lookup pipe cache reached 90% full has been changed to report when a single read exceeds 90% of the cache size. This is an indication that the pipe cache is only just big enough, and you should consider making it bigger or restructuring your model to make the read return fewer records.
Connectivity
Database Collectors
Schema browsing is now enabled for all three database types: MySQL, SQL Server and Oracle.
Database Exporters
Email Accounts
File Collectors
Scripting
System Administration
System Configuration
In the System Configuration - Advanced tab - the 'Schema Version' field can display longer version numbers containing additional label information
Active Directory Integration
When logging into PhixFlow as a Active Directory (LDAP) user, the user groups for that user are used to determine which user groups are available in the application. Now exclude any groups provided by active directory if they don't exist in PhixFlow as there are too many user groups provided.
The Reset Password button on the login form is now disabled if any other domain than local is selected.
Email Integration
We have revised the layout of the Email Account form to make it more usable.
Diagnostics
Processing Statistics
Performance statistics are recorded in the 'STATS' table. Time duration statistics are now all standardized to be stored in seconds.
Statistics Data recorded by PhixFlow is stored in a table called Stats.
The start time (from_dtm field) and end time (to_dtm field) fields were populated with the current time of the Monitor Service for each period. However this period started at any number of seconds within a minute. We now schedule the start time to rounded time within a minute based on the DB stats reporting period set in the System Configuration.
Ie. if set to 15 seconds then stats are recorded at seconds 00 / 15 / 45 for each minute.
The STATS_RECORD table has been renamed STATS.
Reset Configuration
Performance
Stream Actions and Task Plans are now compiled the first time they are run, and the compiled versions are saved so that they can be re-used in subsequent runs. This can result in significant performance improvements, particularly for Actions that are run frequently.
Unprocessed
| To inform users of the transition from CenterView to PhixFlow, a messages can now be set on the PhixFlow home screen which is displayed prior to log in when the application starts up. The location of a file containing HTML can be specified in the SystemConfiguration. If this file is set then the contents will be displayed on the home screen. |
| The username is now included in a failed login attempt message for failed login using active directory. |
| Commit of DEV-3053 phone number, first name are now set correctly. first name is based on ldap 'givenName' and phone number on the order: 'telephoneNumber', then 'mobile', then 'ipPhone'. |
| PhixFlow generates processing statistics which are saved to the database. The Stream statistics now include the total time write time. |
| PhixFlow generates processing statistics which are saved to the database. Activity statistics collected now include - Actions/TaskPlans started, Actions/TaskPlans finished, Actions/TaskPlans still running and the total duration of Actions/TaskPlans. |
| PhixFlow generates processing statistics which are saved to the database. The table 'stats_records' has now be replaced by a new table 'statistics' which will allows for easier reporting. Records are created for each data type being reported. eg recordsRead, numRead for stream X. |
| PhixFlow generates processing statistics which are saved to the database. Pipe Lookup statistics are now recorded. These included the cache size count(records), cache records added(count), cache records removed(count), lookup - cache hits (count), lookups - cache misses (count), lookups - cache parallel misses (count). |
| PhixFlow generates processing statistics which are saved to the database. Pipe Queue statistics are now recorded which include the enqueue times (sum(time)), enqueue count, dequeue times(sum(time)) and dequeue count |
| PhixFlow generates processing statistics which are saved to the database. Pipe read statistics are now available. These include the read times ( total count, sum(time), max(time) ) and also read counts ( sum(records) ) |
| PhixFlow generates processing statistics which are saved to the database. The statistics recorded now store the full context information when they are written. and the process that initiated the activity. Eg. the Iniator could be "TaskPlan X", with a context of "stream A" with the statistical data recorded for "INSERT_COUNT" (Total count of records inserted for the Stream intiated by Task X). The Initiator context Id's and context Id's are stored should the original name of the Stream/object be modified since having recorded the statistics. |
| Change name of System Configuration parameter from 'Max Page/Chart Size' to 'Maximum Download Size' |
| DEV-2998, New checkbox has been added to system configuration window - 'restrict non admins only' . When ticked - it restricts login privileges from any non admin user. Only admin users will be able to login. Default value is set to false (unticked checkbox), this allows for every authorised user to login. |
| Renamed CenterView web application to PhixFlow |
| Active Directory integrations can now directly specify the rootDN within which to search for user records. |
| The built-in limit on the size of files that can be imported / uploaded has been increased to 1Gb to allow for larger exported configuration files. |
| PhixFlow now requires Java 1.8 on Tomcat 8. Existing environments will need to be updated to support this version. |
| PhixFlow now requires Java 1.8 on Tomcat 8. Existing environments will need to be updated to support this version. |
| New 'Standard App User' role has been added. |
| Changes for DEV-2921, now task initialisation failure message contains ore details about the failure itself and in case of stream attribute expressions failures - it contains the details of stream name which failed, stream attribute name which failed, as well as the actual expression that failed. |
| Analysis now applies limits on the number of items cached in in-memory streams in order to avoid grabbing too much memory (which causes excessive garbage collection and/or system failure). The Limits can be controlled on per stream basis or via a In memory cache size default in system configuration. Warnings are reported when in memory stream has reached 90% of its size. If limits are enforced, then analysis will stop when the limit is reached, otherwise only warning messages are reported in the console logs. |
| Attribute names returned by collector queries are now in the natural case for the database (previously they were forced to upper case). |
| It is no longer possible to create a new user without also setting a password, and this avoids a number of secondary issues arising from users that have no password set. |
| Way of ensureing client runs apropriate version of client appliction has been implemented now. |
| Streams used to wait for stream sets being generated by connected streams, even if type of pipe was "static" and "allow incomplete stream sets" flag was set.. This is now improved and streams in the newest version of the software do not need to wait for stream sets generation. |
| Perfomance of all analysis tasks in terms of their speed was effectively improved. |
| My User Details now records an Organisation for each user. For users logging into PhixFlow where Active Directory has been configured; when logging into a non local Domain the Organisation value is set to the Company / Department fields from the Active Directory record. |
| Report the current cache size when running analysis on In Memory Streams to the console logs. e.g. to detect cases where a very large number of items are loaded. |
| Report the current cache size when running analysis on In Memory Streams to the console logs. e.g. to detect cases where a very large number of items are loaded. |
Bug Fixes
Graphical User Interface
Dashboards
Importing a dashboard that had a background filter set to reference a driving view could cause the filter to fail at runtime.
Views
Streams
Filters
Filters that contained empty sub-clauses sometimes generated invalid sql.