Initializing help system before first use

Xpress Insight 5 Release Notes

New in Insight 5.7.0

  • Community Edition
    • Community Edition can be used for one year from date of release.
    • Additional users and workers cannot be created in Community Edition.
  • Fico Analytic Cloud
    • Suport for Java within mosel and python apps on FICO Analytic cloud
      • Using a declared dependency within the app's dynamic conda environment
    • Support for R within mosel and python apps on FICO Analytic Cloud
      • Using a declared dependency on r-base or r-essentials within the app's dynamic conda environment.
      • Optionally, specify a dependency on r-env and add a DESCRIPTION mode resource to use packages from CRAM
    • Import/Export of apps, folders, and scenarios via S3.
  • Updated the styling for all tables in Insight and VDL views.
  • VDL 5
    • Added new vdl-event "view-ready". This can be subscribed to by any component or element within a VDL view and is triggered when the VDL view has been loaded and components have been processed. It is only triggered on view ready, so any components that come into existence after the view is ready will not receive the event.
    • New vdl-chart-axis margin-autosize and label-autorotate attributes to control chart labels on the x-axis. margin-autosize will cause the chart to take up as much room as necessary to fit the x-axis labels, and will switch on text wrapping. label-autorotate will try and fit labels by rotating them rather than wrapping text.
    • Update vdl-chart to use Plotly 1.58.5.
    • New VDL Action, vdl-action-open-view. This opens a specified view, navigating away from the current view.
    • New VDL Action, vdl-action-scenario-manage. This triggers the scenario manager to open the view.
    • New functionality for the vdl-page component, allowing it to be used as a Drawer container element in the view. When specifying <vdl-page type="drawer"> the contents of the page component will be hidden until triggered to open. When opening it will slide open from the right of the view to reveal the contents.
    • New VDL Action, vdl-action-drawer. This action opens and closes vdl-page drawers.
    • Added a new attribute, cell-render, for vdl-datagrid, vdl-treegrid, and vdl-pivottable. This can be used to apply custom display formatting to any data cells in the table.
    • Updated the column-definition attribute for vdl-datagrid and vdl-treegrid, when using custom data, to accept the editable and editorOptions properties. These can be used to conditionally enable editing per cell in the defined column. editorOptions provides a list of dropdown options if needed. When a user edits a cell the vdl-event cell-edit is triggered and can be listened for on the vdl-datagrid or vdl-treegrid components to capture information about the edit made.
    • Updated the column-definition attribute for vdl-datagrid and vdl-treegrid, when using custom data, to accept the editorValidate property with a callback to apply custom validation to cells when they are rendered and edited.
  • Mosel interface
    • The 'dmp', 's3', and 'executor' modules can be used to access other resources on the FICO Analytic Cloud.
    • New functions insightgetsoldb and insightgetsoldbconnstr to return connection information for DMP solution database
    • A target directory can be specified when downloading attachments by tag.
  • Python interface
    • A separate local filename can be specified when uploading or downloading individual attachments.
    • New function get_solution_database to return connection information for the DMP solution database.
    • A target directory can be specified when downloading attachments by tag.

Fixed in Insight 5.7.0

  • VDL 5
    • Fixed an issue with vdl-field dropdown detaching from the input when within a scrollable container and the user scrolls.
    • Fixed a styling issue with disabled vdl-field multi-select.
    • Fixed an issue with vdl-datagrid so that it correctly filters entity columns using the formatted values by default, this is the documented behaviour for the vdl-datagrid-column filter-by-formatted attribute.
    • Fixed an issue with large scrollable vdl-datagrid tables where validation wasn't being applied to rows that scroll into view.
  • App Upgrade
    • Fixed an issue with app upgrade. Upgrade of an app failed to update the update_after_execution state of an entity.

New in Insight 5.6.0

  • With this release Insight 5 is available on the FICO Analytic Cloud.
    • Dynamic workers for execution capacity scaling on demand.
    • Support for deploying Python based apps.
    • Support for remote/live debugging of Python based apps from Xpress Workbench
    • Limited support for Mosel based apps (helper modules dmp, s3, trusteddsn, and executor are not supported yet). mminsightscenario/mminsightrestapi package login functions accept an authorization token.
    • Apps can define Conda and PyPi dependencies which will be dynamically installed and updated.
    • Deployment of apps to staging and production lifecycles is now via the platform lifecycle promotion mechanism. Direct app uploads to staging and production are not allowed. A user must have a solution admin or configurer platform role to promote apps.
    • Insight 5 is not an in-place upgrade from Insight 4 platform deployments. For compatibility requirements when upgrading from Insight 4, please see the migration guide. For assistance in migrating the data of an existing Insight 4 solution to Insight 5, please contact FICO support.
  • VDL4.x/JS API 4.x versions are no longer supported.
  • Support for Tableau 2023.3 (Tableau integration is on-premises only).
  • Python app developers can specify a 'default' value for a DataFrame column.
  • Simulation
    • Added the ability to generate a json-schema representing the BOM of the Decision Asset entrypoint that is being simulated.
  • VDL 5
    • Updated VDL to version 5.2 with new, non-breaking changes.
    • Added vdl-datagrid, a high performance data grid component.
    • Added vdl-pivottable, a new pivot table component.
    • Added vdl-treegrid, a new tree grid component.
    • Added the ability to fetch multiple entities using vdl-action-get-entity-data.
    • Added the ability to fetch data from multiple scenarios using vdl-action-get-entity-data.
    • New attribute "preserve-selection-order" for vdl-field which enables the preservation of the order in which options are selected in a multi-select dropdown.
    • Filtered and unfiltered versions of an entity can be used within separate ScenarioObservers within a view.

Fixed in Insight 5.6.0

  • Mosel & Python Interfaces
    • Fixed a performance issue where scenario data contains lots of NaN values.
  • Python interface
    • Fixed an issue when a script declares multiple app classes with a shared superclass.
  • VDL
    • vdl-field select input with a validation error now has the expected red border.
    • Fixed an issue where a vdl-field was not showing the empty string option.
    • An issue preventing arrow functions being used in VDL expressions has been fixed.
    • An issue with z-order of vdl-fields on modal dialogs has been fixed.
  • Mirroring
    • When multiple entities with the same name appear several times in a mirror table, each entity is now disambiguated from its namesake with an underscore and number identifier. This identifier is no longer shared and incremented across all conflicting entities in the table.
  • Attachments
    • Tagging a new or existing attachment (via REST api or VDL) with a single use tag when another attachment already had that tag results in both attachments being untagged. The updated attachment now has the tag as expected and it is also removed from the previous attachment.

New in Insight 5.5.0

  • Added support for Xpress 9.0.2.
  • The execution of Python app scenarios can now be debugged live from Xpress Workbench. For more information see the Workbench documentation.
  • VDL 5
    • Updated VDL to version 5.1 with new non-breaking changes
    • This release enhances the behavior of VDL versioning. You can now specify just the major version of VDL your views use, for example <vdl version="5">, or continue to specify the major and minor versions, for example <vdl version="5.1">. In both cases the latest version of VDL 5 will be provided to the view. However, in specifying the VDL minor version the server will consider that the minimum version your view is compatible with and show an error if it cannot satisfy that requirement.
    • Added the VDL action vdl -action-tableau-export that enable an export dialog to be triggered within a target visualization. This allows export as csv, pdf, image and crosstab.
    • Added the VDL action vdl-action-tableau-clear-global-filters that enables a user to clear all global filters or specific named global filters.
    • Added the new VDL component vdl-tableau-parameter. This enables parameters to be defined against a vdl-tableau component that corresponds to Tableau parameters defined in the workbook. A VDL expression can be used for each parameter and on change the updated parameter will be sent to the visualization. If any defiled vdl-tableau-parameter is unset (null or undefined) then an overlay message will be displayed instead of the visualization.
    • Enhancements to actions for data transformations
      • Updated <vdl-action-group-by>  to support grouping on multiple keys
  • mminsight 5.12.0
    • The behavior of the insight_verbose parameter has changed as follows:
      • The default value is now 1 instead of 0
      • The debugging lines previously output at level 1 are now output at level 2
      • Setting insight_verbose to 0 will suppress the output of the 'mminsight version' banner line.
  • Insight Python / xpressinsight 1.5.0
    • The "multiprocessing" package can now be used in Insight apps.
    • A Series or DataFrame can now be indexed multiple times using the same entity.

Fixed in Insight 5.5.0

  • VDL 5
    • Fixed an issue with vdl-chart-axis ignoring the min and max attributes if min is set to 0 via an expression.
    • Fixed an issue with the shelf and scenario pill layout when the JavaScript function scrollIntoView is called on an element within the view.
  • mminsight 5.12.0
    • Any trailing slash is ignored when the mminsightscenario / mminsightrestapi packages look for a matching Insight URL in the credentials manager.
  • A defect that prevented a cloned scenario from being executed or reported has been fixed.

New in Insight 5.4.0

This release brings support for Tableau to the improved Insight 5 architecture. Multiple Tableau views can now be embedded as VDL components into VDL views. The release also provides foundational functionality for embedding the reports of other BI software, and several other significant improvements.

Deprecated Functionality
  • VDL/JS API versions 4.x are deprecated in this release and will be removed in the next minor release. We strongly recommend upgrading to VDL 5 as part of your migration to Insight 5.
  • Companion file versions 3.x and earlier are deprecated in this release. We strongly recommend upgrading to CFile version 5 as part of your migration to Insight 5.
Tableau/BI Integration
  • New vdl-tableau component <vdl-tableau> which allows one or many Tableau views from an integrated Tableau Server to be embedded within VDL pages of an app.
  • Support for Tableau 2021.4 and 2022.1.
  • A MySQL schema is created dynamically and populated with the scenario data for Tableau to query. Each copy of an app has its own separate MySQL schema for its "mirror" database. Use of the table prefix attribute is no longer mandatory to avoid collisions.
  • The contents of the mirror database are managed with limit and eviction policies configured in application.properties.
  • The vdl-tableau component is configured with the tables it is dependent on in the mirror database.
  • Scenario data is mirrored (uncompressed into the mirror database) on demand when the view requires it. Post-execution mirroring is no longer supported.
  • Trusted Ticket authentication into Tableau for Insight users. (Tableau users are unmanaged by Insight and must match the Insight username.)
  • Workbooks are published to an insight-owned project in the configured site (or the default site).
  • Workbooks are discovered in the app archive, they are no longer declared in the companion file.
  • Tableau/BI system integration is configured in the application.properties file.
  • A new health check is available from the admin user interface.
  • Tableau view filters can be designated as "global". Insight persists global filter values per user, and a global filter will take the same value across all Tableau views.
  • Export options for the Tableau view are no longer available through the Web Client cog menu. A future release will enable this functionality via VDL actions.
  • The order of scenarios on the shelf and their type is available to the BI software query.
  • A new MirrorObserver object for the JS API supports the embedding of other BI software with insight.getView().withMirrorTables.
Xpress Support
  • Added support for Xpress 9.0.
    • Xpress Solver removes some deprecated controls and renames several others. Please consult the Xpress 9.0 Release Notes for the specific list.
Simulation App Development
  • Decisioning Asset Simulation (Decision Modeler)
    • The Decision Modeler DMP Function can be simulated with the provided plugin.
    • Supports JSONL and JSON-DM formats for batch rule service definition.
Import/Export and Migration Support
  • A new option, available from an app's tile menu on the home page, allows an empty app to be exported. The exported app does not contain any folders and scenarios.
  • Import app now offers the option of preserving the ownership of folders and scenarios as captured in the export file, where previously ownership would always be assigned to the importing user.
  • An Insight 4.59.1 exported repository can be imported by this release. This is the recommended process for migrating the data and configuration of an Insight 4 system to Insight 5. For more information, see the migration topic in the Insight 5 Installation Guide.
  • An Insight 4.59.1 folder export can be imported by this release.
  • An Insight 4.59.1 app export can be imported by this release.
  • When importing a scenario, the creation timestamp of the original exported scenario is persisted for the imported scenario. The creation timestamp is not overwritten by the time of import.
Mosel Apps
  • New packages mminsightscenario and mminsightrestapi allow a Mosel app or external model to invoke operations from the Insight 5 REST API.
  • The version number of the Insight server is available to the model via insightgetversion.
  • New overloads to the insightminimize and insightmaximize subroutines to support multi-objective optimization.
Python Apps
  • Added a new syntax for declaring entities using the xpressinsight.types package.
    • Apps using the new syntax are compatible with Python forward annotations (from __future__ import annotations ).
    • Apps using the new syntax may declare entities in a superclass of the application class.
    • The old syntax is deprecated but will remain supported in Python versions <=3.10
  • The version number of the Insight server is available to the model via insight.version.
Dashboards
View API
  • VDL 4.x is deprecated in this release and will be removed in a near-future release.
  • VDL 5
    • New vdl-tableau component which allows one or many Tableau Viz to be embedded within VDL pages with <vdl-tableau>.
    • VDL vars can now be configured to persist in local browser storage with <vdl-var name="myVar" persist=true>.
    • Enhancements to actions for data transformations:
      • Added <vdl-action-filter> for filtering data based on values or keys.
      • Updated <vdl-action-aggregate> to support min, max, average, count, and sum aggregation functions.
    • Removed the following vdl-attachment-button: "action" attribute options:
      • Removed manage-project-attachment which is replaced with manage-app-attachment
      • Removed upload-project-attachment which is replaced with upload-app-attachment
      • Removed create-project-attachment which is replaced with create-app-attachment
      • Removed edit-project-attachment which is replaced with edit-app-attachment
      • Removed edit-project-attachment-properties which is replaced with edit-app-attachment-properties
      • Removed download-project-attachment which is replaced with download-app-attachment
    • Removed user.userName from VDL expressions. This is no longer a unique identifier in Insight 5 and has been removed. For display purposes, use user.fullName, otherwise use user.id.
  • JS API 4.x is deprecated in this release and will be removed in a near-future release.
  • JS API 5
    • Deprecations from previous JS API versions have been removed .
    • Fixed View#addUnloadHandler. Callbacks are no longer called when moving to the Jobs or Admin areas as these do not unload the view.
    • Insight
      • Removed getClientType as there is only one client type now.
      • Removed insight.enums.ClientType as there is only one client type now.
      • Removed insight.enums.ObjectType.PROJECT which is replaced with insight.enums.ObjectType.APP.
    • App
      • Added getVisualization which provides visualization configuration and status information.
    • View
      • Removed uploadProjectAttachment which is replaced with uploadAppAttachment.
      • Removed createProjectAttachment which is replaced with createAppAttachment.
      • Removed openProjectAttachmentsDialog which is replaced with openAppAttachmentsDialog.
      • Removed isModified.
      • Removed isReadOnly.
      • Removed getProject which is replaced with getApp.
      • Removed getProjectId which is replaced with getAppId.
    • User
      • Removed getUsername which is no longer a unique identifier in Insight 5. For display purposes use getFullName, otherwise use getId.
    • Scenario
      • Removed getExecutionTime which is replaced with ScenarioSummaryData#getExecutionDuration.
      • Removed getLastExecutionDate which is replaced with ScenarioSummaryData#getExecutionFinishedDate.
      • Removed downloadProjectAttachments which is replaced with downloadAppAttachments.
      • Removed getTaggedProjectAttachments which is replaced with getTaggedAppAttachments.
      • Removed getProjectAttachment which is replaced with getAppAttachment.
      • Removed getProjectAttachments which is replaced with getAppAttachments.
    • ScenarioProperties
      • Removed getCurrentExecutionStatus which is replaced with Scenario#getExecutionStatus.
      • Removed getProjectId which is replaced with getAppId.
    • Removed ScenarioExecutionStatus#getExecutionTime which is replaced with ScenarioExecutionStatus#getExecutionDuration.
    • ModelSchema
      • Removed getProjectId which is replaced with getAppId.
    • ModelEntity
      • Removed getViolationCostEntity.
      • Removed getViolationUpperBoundEntity.
      • Removed isDisableable.
      • Removed isRelaxable.
      • Removed isIndexGrouping.
      • Removed getIndexGroupings.
    • SetSorter
      • Removed addSetSorter which is replaced with addSetComparator.
      • Removed removeSetSorter which is replaced with removeSetComparator.
      • Removed getSetSorter which is replaced with getSetComparator.
    • ScenarioObserver#withAttachments
      • "project: true" is no longer a valid option. Use "app: true".
    • MirrorObserver#withMirrorTables
      • Added in this version. Allows you to specify which scenarios and tables should be mirrored and to keep the mirror alive while the user remains on the view.
    • Removed ExecutionMode#getClearsInputData which is replaced with ExecutionMode#clearsInputData.

Companion File version 5.0

Tableau support in Insight 5.4 is configured differently to Insight 4.x with much of the configuration moved to the VDL Tableau component. For this reason a new version of the companion file has been introduced. In order to use mirroring and Tableau workbooks with Insight 5.4, you will need to update your app to use companion file version 5.0. These are the changes between companion file 3.1 and 5.0:
  • Removed
    • TableauWorkbook from ViewGroup. Replaced by the VDL Tableau component.
    • TableView from ViewGroup
    • CustomView from ViewGroup
    • Verb attribute from View
    • Tableau section (includes global filter and parameter subsections). These have been moved to the VDL Tableau component.
  • Modifications to database-mirror:
    • table-prefix removed
    • include-index-groupings removed
    • sync-after-execution removed
    • entity colName attribute renamed to column-name
    • entity dimension attribute removed
    • entity sync-for-tableau-view removed

New in Insight 5.3.1

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  • Security updates
  • Support for Xpress 8.14.2

Fixed in Insight 5.3.1

Fixed a defect preventing a user from setting the preferred execution service for an execution mode via the admin user interface.

New in Insight 5.3

This release brings custom interactive app support to the improved Insight 5 architecture. Some enhancements, which have been available in previous 5.x releases limited to the Compute Interface, are repeated here for the wider audience of interactive app users.

Migration

With a few notable exceptions documented in the "Previous features no longer supported in Insight 5.x" section below, Insight 5.3 replicates and extends the feature set of Insight 4. However, as a major release and a redesign of the Insight software, there are backwards compatibility considerations when migrating existing solutions to this version. Solution developers should review the release notes below and the chapter "Migrating from Xpress Insight 4 to Xpress Insight 5" in the Insight 5 Developers Guide for information on modifications needed to their solution implementation.

Importing a repository or app and retaining system configuration and user ownership information is not yet supported. Users who need to migrate over the historic scenarios for their apps from Insight 4 will require the next release. Insight 5.3 does not integrate with Tableau. Users with solutions that require Tableau visualization will require the next release.

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General

  • Supports a user-supplied MySQL 8 database for persistence. Support for PostgreSQL is discontinued.
  • A simple installation configuration is available for development and small scale usage which uses a file system based repository (not recommended for production use cases).
  • A deployment is now designated as production or non-production and the non-production lifecycle can have a custom display label e.g. QA, Staging which is shown as a watermark on the banner.
  • Support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
  • Single Sign On support (Service Provider initiated and IDP initiated SAML2). SSO is mandatory for production mode deployments, local account authentication is disabled.
  • REST API is now authenticated using client id/secret credential which can be generated by a logged-in user for their account via the user interface (drop-down menu under account name).
  • Silent/automated installation option.
  • System configuration is now edited in application.properties files for server and worker respectively.
  • Microsoft Edge is supported (replacing support for Internet Explorer 11).
  • Support for multiple browser tabs sharing the same session (previously, additional tabs did not receive events).
  • HTTP/2 support.
    • When HTTPS is enabled, Insight will use HTTP/2 over TLS (recommended for the best performance).
    • Without HTTPS, Insight will fall back to h2c (HTTP/2 over TCP).
    • If these cause problems on your infrastructure, you can configure Insight to use HTTP/1 instead.
  • Examples, offline documentation and authoring-time binaries are provided as a separate "Insight Developer Kit" download.
  • Support for app and scenario attachments up to 1gb (default configured limit is 300mb).
  • The run log for a scenario is now retained if results are cleared.
  • Bulk deletion is considerably more efficient. Deletion operations are performed in the background with apps, scenarios, folders etc are removed from the UI immediately and do not block further user actions. Nor do such operations lock the repository for other users.
  • Results data for a scenario is cleared on completion of a job, so if a job is cancelled its previous results will be retained.
  • Scenario operations that don't modify the scenario data are allowed while the scenario is queued or executing i.e. rename, clone, move, delete, share. Previous versions locked the scenario for execution such that no operations could be performed on the scenario by a user.
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Revised REST API
  • All endpoints of the REST API, including the interactive/scenario-centric operations, have now been revised to adhere as closely as possible to accepted REST/HTTP industry best practices. The revision includes major changes to the design of the API. Developers intending to integrate with the REST API or update an existing integration should read the "The Xpress Insight 5 REST API" chapter of the Insight 5 Developers Guide for foundation concepts and then use the live swagger documentation served from <INSIGHT_URL>/swagger-ui/, or the equivalent online reference docs, to understand the format of individual API requests. This applies to integrations with REST clients and also custom views and custom model code that make REST API calls to the Insight API.
    • The API is versioned using a major.minor versioning scheme.

      The current version is 2.1.

    • Callers must use content negotiation request headers which allow for the API major version to be specified in the request.
    • The API base has moved from /insightservices to /api.
    • The API uses standard HTTP status codes from RFC-7231 and RFC-4918 to indicate success or failure of a request.
    • Timestamps are in ISO-8601 format in accordance with RFC-3339 and are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
    • The API now uses pagination for collection-type responses.
    • The API supports the OpenTracing standard used for trace context propagation.
  • The API now includes public administration endpoints for manipulating users, authority groups and execution service configuration.
  • REST clients use JWT token authentication to improve security and avoid persisting user credentials.
Real-time progress reporting from an executing scenario
  • A scenario can provide arbitrary data updates for progress feedback to the user while it is executing.
  • The default overlay, which obscures a view while a scenario is executing, can be disabled.
  • Data entities can be denoted as updatable during execution and UI components bound to these entities will receive updated values from the running scenario.
  • Several new progress-related VDL components are provided e.g. spinner, progress bar.
  • For more information see the "View API changed" section below, the Insight 5 Developer Guide and the new progress examples in the Developer Kit.
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View API changes
  • VDL 4.8
    • Added <vdl-action-cancel-job> for cancelling a job.
    • Added <vdl-action-job-message> for sending a message to a running job.
    • Added the default-execution-overlay option on the vdl top-level tag so the execution overlay can be disabled either for all executions or just progress execution modes.
    • Added the progress option to the top-level vdl tag so a view can subscribe to receive data updates during progress execution modes.
    • Added a top-level getUser() lookup function to VDL expressions. You can use this to convert the executionUserId to a user object and get the full name, for example getUser(scenario.summaryData.executionUserId).fullName.
    • Added scenario.summaryData.executionUserId to get the id of the user who requested the execution for that scenario.
    • Added scenario.summaryData.executionStartedDate to get the timestamp of the start of the most recent execution.
    • Added scenario.summaryData.executionDuration to replace scenario.summaryData.executionDuration.
    • Added scenario.summaryData.reservedForJob to test when a scenario is in the execution pipeline (queued, executing, completing etc.)
    • Added scenario.summaryData.executionMode.sendsProgress to test for whether the execution mode the scenario is executing with, supports progress updates.
    • Added scenario.summaryData.state, which returns a new ScenarioDataStatus enum.
  • JS API 4.8
    • Added getExecutionMode to ScenarioSummaryData. This will return an ExecutionMode object with details of either the current execution, if there is one, or the last execution on the scenario, if there is one.
    • Added View.sendJobMessage(scenarioId, message) method to send messages to executing scenarios.
    • Added the ViewConfiguration.receivesProgress option so a view can subscribe to receive data updates during progress execution modes.
    • Added ScenarioSummaryData.getExecutionUserId to get the id of the user who requested the execution for that scenario.
    • Added ScenarioSummaryData.getState, which returns a new ScenarioDataStatus enum.
    • Added ScenarioSummaryData.getExecutionStartedDate to get the timestamp of the start of the most recent execution.
    • Added ScenarioExecutionStatus.isReservedForJob to test when a scenario is in the execution pipeline (queued, executing, completing etc.)
    • Added ExecutionMode.sendsProgress to test for whether the execution mode the scenario is executing with, supports progress updates.
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Administration
  • Usernames can now be modified for existing accounts.
  • Users can be deleted.
  • Username is now only used for login, a user's id is now a uuid to align with apps, scenarios, folders etc.
  • Admin area is now an integrated part of the web client, no second login required.
Improved sharing/access model
  • A folder owner now has effective ownership of all items in that folder. Hence a folder owner has read and write access to that folder and everything it contains.
  • Folders shared as Full Access allow all app members to modify the contents of that folder, e.g. create, delete or move scenario but only a folder owner can edit the folder itself such as its name, owner and share status.
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Import/Export
  • Files can be imported/exported via a file system location configured on the server/network with no limit on the file size other than available file system storage.
  • Import/export operations are now background tasks which do not lock the user interface.
  • A new "Tasks" dialog is available from the "Show Tasks" option in the home page. This dialog lists the background operations requested by the user.
  • Exporting an app is possible via the UI.
  • Exporting the whole repository is no longer supported.
  • When importing a scenario, previous releases used the id from the imported scenario if it didn't exist already. Insight 5 always assigns a new id on import. Developers cannot rely on persistence of scenario IDs when importing a scenario.
Job Queue
  • The system retains a persistent history of executed jobs (previously this was ephemeral), limited to 500 records.
  • A user can cancel any job they have effective write access to.
  • Users can cancel all their own jobs with one operation, and those with both PROJECT_ALL and SCENARIO_ALL authorities can cancel all jobs in the queue.
  • The system enforces a limit on the number of pending jobs in the queue. The default limit is 1000 jobs. This can be modified in the server's application.properties file with an ultimate limit of 10000 jobs. The jobs page will show the first 500 jobs in the queue.
  • Users can see (redacted) information about jobs they don't have read permission for to give a better understanding of relative position in the queue.
Worker environment configuration
  • Aside from the following exceptions, the running model no longer inherits the global environment of the worker:
    • LANG
    • XPRESSDIR
    • XPAUTH_PATH
    • LD_LIBRARY_PATH
    • XPRESS_INSIGHT_LIB
  • To configure the environment variables available to the model, add entries to the worker application.properties file of the form: insight.worker.execution.environment.<VARIABLE_NAME>=<VARIABLE_VALUE>.
  • Multiple configuration profiles are not supported.
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Previous features no longer supported in Insight 5.x
  • REST API version 1.
  • Multiple configuration profiles for worker environment.
  • PostgreSQL support for persistence.
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.
  • Custom authorities defined via the UI.
  • Using parameters not defined in the model (the system will accept requests to set unknown parameters but they will not be passed to the model).
  • LDAP integration (replaced by SSO).
  • Server logs can no longer be retrieved via the UI.
  • User report.
  • insightcmd command line tool for import/export of apps and backup/restore of repository. Import/export of apps can now be performed via the UI. Backup and restore should be performed with standard MySQL tools.

Fixed in Insight 5.3

  • App upgrades for systems with large numbers of scenarios should no longer encounter issues. App upgrade applies schema updates lazily instead of during the upgrade, resulting in near instantaneous upgrades.
  • App upgrade no longer impacted by changes to parameters.
  • The Compute REST API no longer accepts creation of compute jobs with an ID containing upper-case letters.
Fixed in VDL 4.8
  • Fixed an issue with sorting of numeric indexes for vdl-chart-series.
  • Fixed an issue with using vdl-tooltip on a vdl-field select input, causing the tooltip to persist whilst the select dropdown was open.

Fixed in JS API 4.8

Fixed an issue where ScenarioObservers would receive notify callbacks after events on scenarios they were not registered with.

New in Insight 5.2.1

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  • Browser support policy

    Microsoft has announced that Internet Explorer 11 will be officially retired by June 15, 2022. For upcoming releases, Xpress Insight will drop support for IE11. Going forward, Xpress Insight 4 and Xpress Insight 5 will support Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.

Maintenance
  • Various security updates.
  • When retrying a failed request, there is no longer a delay before the first retry.
  • The default value of the dmp_max_retries parameter has changed from 8 to 9.

New in Insight 5.2

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Revised Compute REST API
  • The Compute REST API has been revised to adhere as closely as possible to accepted REST/HTTP industry best practices. The revision includes major changes to the design of the API. Developers intending to integrate with the REST API or update an existing integration should read the Compute Interface REST API chapter of the Insight 5 Compute Interface Guide for foundation concepts and then use the live swagger documentation served from <INSIGHT_URL>/swagger-ui/, or the equivalent online reference docs, to understand the format of individual API requests.
  • The API is versioned using a major.minor versioning scheme.
  • The current version is 2.0.
  • Clients must use content negotiation request headers which allow for the API major version to be specified in the request.
  • The API base has moved from /insightservices to /api.
  • The API uses standard HTTP status codes from RFC-7231 and RFC-4918 to indicate success or failure of a request.
  • Timestamps are in ISO-8601 format in accordance with RFC-3339 and are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
  • The API now uses pagination for collection-type responses.
  • The API supports the OpenTracing standard used for trace context propagation.

New in Insight 5.1.1

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Maintenance
  • Various security updates.
  • Support for Xpress 8.12.

New in Insight 5.1

Job Queue
  • Users can cancel all their own jobs and those with both PROJECT_ALL and SCENARIO_ALL authorities can cancel all jobs in the queue.
  • System enforces a limit on the number of jobs in the queue. The default limit is 1000 jobs. This can be modified in the server's application.properties file with an ultimate limit of 10000 jobs.
Compute jobs
  • When submitting a compute job using the REST API, a priority can optionally be supplied. Jobs are then executed in the queue in priority order. The priority can range from -100 to 100 with 0 being the default
Execution services
  • An execution service can now be marked as requiring authorization. If it requires authorization, only users belonging to authority groups which grant access to the execution service can submit jobs to run on the service.

Worker Mosel environment

Aside from the following exceptions, Mosel no longer inherits the environment of the worker:
  • LANG
  • XPRESSDIR
  • XPAUTH_PATH
  • LD_LIBRARY_PATH

To configure Mosel environment variables, add entries to the worker application.properties file of the form: insight.worker.execution.environment.<VARIABLE_NAME>=<VARIABLE_VALUE>.

Insight 5.0

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General
Important: Version 5.0 is not yet a replacement for Insight 4 and uploading or migrating custom apps is not supported. Existing users of Insight 4 should upgrade to the latest minor release of 4.x.
  • A deployment is now designated as production or non-production and the non-production lifecycle can have a custom display label e.g. QA, Staging which is shown as a watermark on the banner.
  • Single Sign On support (Service Provider initiated and IDP initiated SAML2). SSO is mandatory for production mode deployments, local account authentication is disabled.
  • REST API is now authenticated using client id/secret credential which can be generated by a logged-in user for their account via the user interface (drop-down menu under account name).
  • Simple installation configuration is available for development and small scale usage which uses a file system based repository.
  • MySQL support for more demanding deployments (database server to user-supplied). PostgreSQL is no longer support on premises.
  • Silent/automated installation option.
Compute Interface
  • Implements an interface for solving LP/MPS/Mosel jobs. REST API for submitted LP/MPS optimization problems and Mosel models as jobs via web services.
  • Integrated with Xpress for remote solving via Optimizer, Mosel and Workbench tools.
  • Progress Events API for receiving job status updates and callback notifications.
  • Drag and drop interface for submitting jobs interactively.
  • Enhanced job queue view with persistent history.
  • LP/MPS jobs can include a basis and/or starting mip solution.
  • LP/MPS job results can include solution, final attribute values, basis, IIS, save file.
  • Jobs can have dependencies on common files that can be pre-uploaded.
  • Support for solver callbacks with the option of querying current attributes and solution, and deciding whether to continue the remote solve or interrupt it.
  • Integration with Credentials Manager (Windows), KeyChain (MacOS) and OpenSSL (Linux) for the secure management of client credentials
  • Jobs can specify a named execution service. An execution service is a logical sub-set of execution resources which can be configured via the Insight administration interface.
  • A clean up service can be scheduled to delete jobs older than a set age. This avoids the service performance being affected by the accrual of a very large number of historic jobs, and is an alternative to the client taking responsibility for deleting the jobs.
Parent Topic Release Notes

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