What's New in Workbench?

What's New in Workbench 7.1

New for DiveTab

Starting with DiveTab 7.1(15), you can create a stamp page for DiveTab that allows users to add stamps for specific measures. Requires a Measure Factory license. See What is a Stamp Area?

Starting with DiveTab 7.1(21), there is new expanded Stamp grammar for DiveTab, including new stamp types and a timestamp. See What is a Stamp Area? and Stamp Anatomy.

New for Spectre

The Spectre graphical editor for building cBases has been recreated with a flow panel and properties panel similar to those found in Visual Integrator and Production. A Spectre build can include joins and rotates similar to the VI functionality.

See Working with the Spectre Build Editor, About Spectre Joins, and About Spectre Rotate.

You can dive on a date column as if it were a period column by describing the specific type within the dive script.

See Date Rollups in Dives.

You can access the detail from a cBase when using a dive script.

See Detail Windows.

Recent and rolling time series can include future periods.

See Time Series Ranges.

A new tunnel-input tag can be used in cBase builds, cPlans and Dives.

See Text, cBase, and Dive Input Build Tags, cPlan Tags, and Dive Tags.

Functions that accept dates and periods as arguments now accept datetimes too.

The conversion function fixed100() converts a numeric value to a fixed100, truncating precision if necessary.

The date and time function format_datetime() gives you presentation options for datetime data.

The predicate function bit_get() tests arbitrary bits in an integer.

The function on_previous_row() enables detail-level cumulative calculations.

The dimension function dimsum() adds functionality similar to dimmin() and dimmax().

You may also want to note two math functions added late to version 7.0:

The intercept() function calculates the point at which a line will intersect the y-axis by using existing x-values and y-values.

The slope() function computes the slope of the linear regression line through the specified data points.

See Alphabetized Functions for Spectre.

New options: --remove-with-predicate and --jobs.

See Spectre cache Options.

Combining cBases built with different locales can be done in Build scripts starting with version 7.1.

The internal structure of cBases for 7.1 has changed. You must use version 7.0(55) or later to open 7.1 cBases using version 7.0 tools.

The Dimensional Insight ODBC Driver (DI-ODBC) is an ODBC driver which can retrieve data from DiveLine. When installed, ODBC-capable applications can use the driver to make queries against a DiveLine server, as specified by a connection string or a configured DSN. The driver can be used to query a cBase, cPlan, or dive script. Queries are made using SQL.

See DI-ODBC Overview.

A duration tag can be used to format integer columns as h:mm:ss. See Spectre Format Conventions.

A zone tag can be used with datetime input to store time data in your cBase in GMT. See Text, cBase, and Dive Input Build Tags.

A tunnel-input tag can be used with Spectre Build. See Spectre Build Objects.

Spectre Build supports several new tags: file-list, prefix, and modified-column. See Text, cBase, and Dive Input Build Tags.

A hash function, blake2(), has been added to Spectre. See Miscellaneous Functions.

Spectre Build can process data from list-input. See About Spectre List Input.

The Spectre Build Flow Editor has two tabs at the bottom. The first tab is for the node UI, and the second tab is for test run results, similar to VI. See Working with the Spectre Build Editor.

In the Spectre Expression Editor, the auto completion for quotes and brackets is disabled by default. See Setting Workbench Preferences.

The Spectre Expression and Build Flow Editors have a right-click context menu to support copy, cut and paste. See Spectre Expressions Editor and Working with the Spectre Build Editor.

Added new system properties for Spectre Builds. See Spectre Properties.

A Spectre build can be configured to process dates prior to 1900 or after 2199 without warnings. See Text, cBase, and Dive Input Build Tags.

Spectre cPlans now support system and custom properties. See Spectre Properties.

There are more ways to examine the property metadata defined for a cBase or cPlan. See cPlan Metadata Samples.

The Build Flow Editor now includes a source column in data grids to help understand the data flow between nodes in a script. See Spectre Build Objects.

The Spectre Build Flow Editor (7.1(19.1) includes VI-like context menu items in the Test results grid. See Testing a Node in Working with the Spectre Build Editor.

Spectre Lookup and Join objects now resemble those in VI. See Spectre Build Join Object and Spectre Build Lookup Object.

Spectre QuickView sets now include a default-first-value attribute. See QuickView Set Tags.

The date and datetime format strings support double-quoting of literals in addition to backslashes. See Spectre Format Conventions.

The Spectre dive command has a new --delimiter argument. See Spectre dive Options.

Spectre format strings now handle custom formatting for null and unknown values. This applies to all Spectre data types and can be used on the command line, in ProDiver, in DivePort Chart, Indicator, Measures, and Marker portlets, and in DIAL. See Spectre Format Conventions.

Spectre build scripts now support squash and break build tags. See General Build Tags

The Spectre Build Flow Editor features an Alias node. See Spectre Build Alias Object

The Spectre Build Flow Editor features a Squash node. See Spectre Build Squash Object.

The Spectre Build Flow Editor features a Breaks node. See Spectre Build Breaks Object.

Spectre build scripts now support the expand build tag. See General Build Tags

When running Dive scripts, the results now open in a results file. See Using Dive Scripts.

New value_or calculation function added. See value_or

New string_agg calculation function added. See string_agg.

The Spectre Build Flow Editor features an Expand node. See Spectre Build Expand Object.

New for Workbench

The Workbench Connection Manager has new features. You have the option to configure quick connection buttons with various icons, to add comments, and to examine Last Connected information.

See Connections Overview.

Workbench allows you to switch between a script's graphical editor and text editor views in the same tab. Each different view of the file is available with a single click. Edits made in one view appear directly in the other view when you switch views.

See View Switcher.

Users can select a different font for use on text editor tabs. This applies to text files as well as script files.

See Setting Workbench Preferences.

There is a new sub-tab within Server Settings where you can view all running DI processes on the server via a new Process Manager.

See Processes Tab.

Project metadata includes the creator and creation time.

A tooltip displays the project name for an open script—useful when you have two scripts in different projects with the same name open in Workbench.

Workbench has a table editor where you can add and delete rows and filter data. Supported delimiters now include the pipe character.

See Using Table Editor.

Added Publish (Don't warn if existing file is open) to the When File Exists attribute in Copy Process nodes.

See Copy Process Node.

Dive Nodes can be set to output to a file instead of to the log.

See Dive Process Node.

dates perserved on winzips

params from DP?

The online Help system now includes basic How To videos for Workbench.

See Workbench How-to Videos.

There is a new context menu item for the Workbench Explorer pane. See Comparing Text Files.

You can now open a script from the Production Results view. See Show Results Mode.

Workbench 7.1(14) expands the Version Control functionality to include project cloning and pushing/pulling to a remote Git server. This supports DTAP style project management. See Managing Software Releases.

Users can have path settings for both non-Unicode and Unicode ProDiver executables. See Setting Workbench Preferences

You can export the Workbench connections from the Connection Manager to an encrypted file. See Exporting and Importing Connections.

Starting in Workbench 7.1(15) you can run DIAL in server mode from Workbench and Production. See DIAL Server Mode.

Workbench 7.1(16) adds a Git Console sub tab to the Main Window Space for Workbench. See Status Bar and Git Console for Advanced Users.

You can specify the end of record characters for text output. See VI Fileout Output Object and VI Split Output Object.

Production 7.1(17.5) has a Script Duration subcondition for control nodes. See Conditional Control Node.

Integrator now has a -parm_encoding command line argument. See Integrator from the Command Line.

Production scripts can select multiple attachments in email objects. See Creating Email Templates.

Opening a script on the Start Page opens the project if it is not already open. See Managing Start Page Schedules.

A new sub-conditional has been added for Production scripts. Normally, Trigger file sub-conditions are met if a file exists (and optionally, have certain text that appears in them). This feature adds a check box to cause the sub-condition to be met if a file doesn't exist. Using this sub-condition allows a Production script to wait for a file to exist before proceeding. See Conditional Control Node.

Production has a new process node. See Delay Process Node.

The Server Settings email test now allows you to specify the From address. See Email Notifications.

The search in VI now includes object names, not just properties. See Searching in Scripts.

More Production work files (.table-index) have been identified and moved to a project folder for better housekeeping. See Production Temp Files.

You can reset the language for display in Workbench, independent of Windows default settings. See Setting Workbench Preferences.

The Production End Node has expanded options for reporting the branch success state. See End Control Node.

The Project Contents display for a very large project can consume significant resources from both the client and server machines. To prevent such an occurrence, controls have been added. See Project Contents Tab.

Workbench 7.1(21) refines Git functionality to make integration with new and existing Workbench projects easier. See DTAP Using Workbench with Git.

The Workbench Git GUI allows checkout operations. See Using Git Checkout.

The Workbench Git GUI allows conflict resolution operations. See Resolving Conflicts.

SQL grammar for DI-ODBC now supports many more expressions. See DI-ODBC SQL Grammar Quick Reference.

Quickview sets have two new tags: keep and remove. See QuickView Set Tags.

The shortcut Ctrl + / now automatically comments and uncomments lines of code in the text editor.

Zip and Unzip nodes in Production now have a password option. See Zip Process Node and Unzip Process Node.

OpenID Connect authentication has been added. See Authentication Types.

The Integrator cBase input object now allows wildcard values in file names. See cBase Input Object

New for Measure Factory

There is a graphical tool for editing rules, measures, and data sets in a Factory configuration file.

See Measure Factory Editor.

You can create template files for DivePort stamps with assistance from the grammar-aware text editor.

See Factory Stamps Overview.

A new top-level tag in a factory configuration file allows parameters to be passed to a factory at time of query, for example, from a QuickView in DivePort.

See Run-Time Parameters Tags.

The view tag has been deprecated in favor of the scope tag.

The threshold tag has been deprecated in favor of the aux-measure tag.

Assisted Analytics adds a new mode to the DivePort Analysis Portlet, which performs automatic dives and summarizes the results, to give users ideas about where to go next in their data analysis. Settings are made in the factory configuration.

See What is Assisted Analytics?

Workbench 7.1(13) introduced significant updates. See Measure Factory Enhancements.

Additional testing options have been added to the Measure Factory configuration interface. See Running the Measure Factory.