Version: 1.1.1
Deployment Date: July 11th, 2009
Release 1.1.1 introduces several new exciting features and fixes a handful of application bugs. The application upgrade will be applied to production servers during scheduled maintenance hours on Saturday, July 11th, 2009.
New Features:
Slicing:
You’ve been requesting this feature since the day Bluyah launched — and it’s finally here! Slicing is just our fancy name for the ability to apply filtering, sorting, and mathematical functions (COUNT(), SUM(), AVG(), etc.) to your data sets.
- To enable slicing capabilities, you need to first create your “Report”. This will ensure that the structure of the data source is fully understood by Bluyah so that we can accurately enable the proper type of slicing.
- Once your Report has been created, go back into the report (via the Edit link) and click on the “Slice Data” link to the right of the report title input field. This will bring up the Slicing Control Panel where you can define each of the filters, sorts, or functions to apply to your data set.
- A screencast further explaining Slicing will be coming soon.
- [Tickets #9, #331]
Sharing:
We’ve elevated the functionality of sharing several notches. Now you have complete control over every aspect of how you share your Connectors with other users in your account.
- If you created a database connection and you want to only share two tables and three database views with the guy sitting at the desk next to you, the intuitive drag-n-drop interface we’ve introduces will let you do just that.
- The sharing management interface is reached through several places in the application. Or you can simply click on the “Sharing” link under the My Account section of the application.
- A screencast further explaining Sharing will be coming soon.
- [Tickets #26, #203, #204, #337]
Online Invoices:
You can now get access to every invoice you’ve received from Bluyah through the application. Simply navigate to the My Account section of the website, then click on the “Invoice” link in the top navigation bar.
- This feature is only available to account “admins”. This is usually the person who created the Bluyah account.
- [Ticket #305]
Better Feedback Loop:
You’ve given us your feedback about needing a better way to … well … give us feedback — and we’ve heard you! Thanks to the great folks at GetSatisfaction, and the wonderful drop-in feedback form they’ve created, we now offer a community-driven knowledge base that is powered by you.
- Ask a question; Answer a question. Report a bug; Offer praise. You can now do it all by simply clicking on the “Feedback” tab conveniently located on the left-hand of the screen.
- [Ticket #273]
- Remember: we always love hearing about how folks are using Bluyah to solve new and interesting data transformation problems. So if you have done something particularly useful with Bluyah, please use the Feedback tab to share your solution with other users. You never know who might be out there trying to figure out how to do exactly the same thing.
Bug Fixes:
- #267 - Report Title reset when dropping column from Report Edit screen : Fixed problem where the custom report title would ‘reset’ to the previous value if you removed from (or added a column back to) your report in the Report Edit screen.
- #276 - NoMethodError (private method `format’ called for nil:NilClass) : Fixed problem where a generic (and completely unhelpful) error message would be displayed in the browser if a user attempted to view an Export for which the underlying Report had been deleted. The error message now informs the user that the export is no longer valid and that they should contact the report owner if they feel they erroneously received this error.
- #285 - Handle behavior of deleted exports in Presentation : Related to #276 above, this fixes some bad behavior that would occur within the application if a Bluyah user deleted an export (eg: a map) that had been embedded in a Presentation.
- #286 - Generic Xml Reports/Exports only show one line of data : Occasionally, reports based upon the “XML” connector type would only display the first row of data when rendered. It was a wily little bug, but we tracked it down and squashed it.
- #310 - Source RSS parse error : There is a known (and still open bug) when attempting to parse RSS feeds that contain multi-byte characters. Given the usage of Bluyah to-date, we are not going to solve the multi-byte issue at this time.
If you have a compelling need to build reports/exports off of data sets containing multi-byte characters, please submit a request through the Feedback tab so we can discuss this further.
- #308 - DB Hostname field (create/edit) is too short : It was brought to our attention that users attempting to connect to databases hosted on Amazon’s EC2 service could not make a connection because we didn’t allow enough characters for the hostname field within the DB create/edit form. This has been resolved. Build all of the EC2 databases you want - and connect to them via Bluyah!
- #322 - Google Spreadsheets not creating data sample : Google Docs connectors would on occasion not grab a data sample from the spreadsheet when first creating a report. This would cause the application to throw an error when users went back into the Edit the Report (though it did not affect any of the Report’s Exports.) This has now been resolved. If you load a Report in the Edit screen and do not see any data displayed, click on the “Refresh Data” button to re-fetch the data sample.
Oh yeah — you will notice that the look and feel of our homepage has been updated as well with this release.
Tell us what you think by logging in and clicking on the Feedback tab on the left of the screen. We’d love to hear from you!
Version 1.1.0 will launch on Saturday, May 16th, 2009, during the 8:00 - 9:00 PM (PSD) maintenance window.
This release introduces a major new feature: Presentation exports. More details, as well as a screencast, detailing how to use Presentations will be coming shortly.
Contents of the release are as follows:
- Sharees are no longer allowed to disable a database view from being used by all users in the account when that connector is shared to them. [Ticket #205]
- Sharers can now limit sharing to specific database views or Google Docs spreadsheets, without the need to share the connector itself. In addition, connector sharing has been moved from the Connector Edit screen to the DB Views/ Google Spreadsheets Details page, in order to be more intuitive. [Ticket #203]
- Enhanced the Professional and Enterprise accounts so that all communications with Bluyah are over SSL for these account levels. [Ticket #40]
- XML Connectors now allow optional username and password. So if you wanted to connect to your Twitter account timelime, you could do so with Bluyah, then export that data into any export format you choose. [Ticket #224]
- Fixed bug in Map Export that would prevent 1st item in pop-up bubble from being displayed if the element name contained a space. [Ticket #268]
Version 1.0.2 of the Bluyah application has been pushed to the production server. Changes in the application include:
- Generic XML Connectors (I can hear the applause). This has been our most-requested connector type for the past 3 months and we can say it’s finally a reality. To walk you through how you connect to an XML feed and configure it for reporting, please see the excellent video tutorial Mike has posted. It should answer all of your questions.
- Report against Database Tables. Up until this release, DB Connectors only discovered pre-defined database views. Now we’ll show you any tables you have in your database as well. Report away! [Ticket #216]
- Fixed an issue where charts would time-out if non-numeric data was encountered. [Ticket #84]
- Column sorting has been added to Connector, Report and Export lists. This allows you to more quickly find the item you’re looking for via sorting by name, date, or source. [Ticket #125]
- Better visibility to default Exports. Did you know every report you create can, by default, be exported to html, xml or csv format? No? Well, not to worry, we’ve now made the URLs for each of those formats easier to find. Just navigate to the Export tab and you’ll see what we mean. [Ticket #179]
Version 1.0.1 of the Bluyah app was released today. The following bug fixes and enhancements are included:
- Fixed a problem where creating a new Marquee could throw a fatal error if created against an RSS feed that contained no data. [Ticket #198]
- Fixed an issue with charts where IE users (gotta love IE!!) were not able to view or edit any charts. [Ticket #212]
- Hardened all of the Exports to better inform the user if they were attempting to render an export against a deactivated (or deleted) report. [Ticket #85]
- In a related issue, changed the list display for Reports and Exports to highlight those items where the underlying data Connector had been invalidated. This should make it easier for users to know when a connection to their data source can not be made (Feed went away, or DB password is no longer valid, etc.). [Ticket #208]
- Added logic to the Report create/edit screen to prevent users from creating a report with a name that is already in use. [Ticket #187]
- All exports in the Export list now contain a direct link to their underlying report. This should make it easier for you to make tweaks to the right report, if needed. [Ticket #126]
- Added better messaging to the Google Docs parser to inform users if their underlying spreadsheet is in a format that can not be understood by Bluyah (hint: All reportable columns MUST have a column name in row 1). [Ticket #214]
- Added support for Microsoft SQL Server database Connector. This has been a much-requested feature - so have at it. [Ticket #111]
Just to keep everyone up to date: DB2 and PostgreSQL database support is coming soon. We’re still running through all of the test cases, so thanks for your continued patience. We will let everyone know via Twitter when we have settled on the actual launch date. You are following us on Twitter, right?
Yes - you read that correctly. We’re out of Beta!
Thanks so much to all of our great Beta Testers (you know who you are). They kept us on our toes, made insightful suggestions, and let us know when the application was not doing what they expected it to do. Without them we would not have made it this far this quickly.
In terms of features, very little has been introduced with this release, as we’ve been concentrating on hardening the app for launch. One key thing that has been introduced, however, is Account Sharing.
If you have several people on your team who need to use Bluyah, go to My Account > Account Settings and invite them to participate. At the bottom of the screen you will see a button title ‘Invite Users’. Clicking on this button will allow you to create new user accounts under your account sub-domain.
In release 1.0.3 we will introduce Shared Connectors and Reports [details to follow], which will allow users to create connections (or reports) and share them to all users - or to specific users - under the sub-domain.
If you have suggestions for how Sharing should work - send us your ideas.
Version 0.4.6 of the Bluyah application has been released. As we get ready for our official launch on March 6th, you’ll see these next few releases contain minor fixes to the existing services as we polish up the app. This release in particular contains several back-end fixes that will make your experience with Bluyah more enjoyable. They include:
- A more coherent approach to DNS management [Ticket #119]. The end result is that users should no longer experience lag when going from their sub-domain to www.bluyah.com (or back again). All primary and sub-domains are now running fully on EC2.
- Problems logging out in IE7 [Ticket #172]. We realize that one of the most-appealing features of Bluyah is its ability to help you get things done quickly. You log in, do what you need to do, then log out and get on with your other work. IE had other ideas about how you should be spending your time - so we’ve squashed it’s attempts at workload domination.
- Letting you know when something goes heinously wrong. [Ticket #69]. We don’t expect it to happen - but half of being prepared is expecting the unexpected. We’ve enhanced error messaging so if in the off-chance something goes wrong in a big way, you won’t be left staring at a blank screen, clutching your coffee mug and wondering what just happened.
- Google Docs Connector now enabled for hosted accounts. [Ticket #127]. If you use Google Apps for your business then this is what you’ve been waiting for. All of your spreadsheets at docs.yourdomain.com can now be exported through Bluyah into your favorite formats.
- Enhanced features for Professional and Enterprise accounts [Ticket #150]. Our senior level account subscribers now have much more control over export configuration - including the ability to turn off the Bluyah branding attached to all Maps, Charts and Marquees. Now why people would want to do this we have yet to figure out….
- Fixed an issue with pie charts where users were not able to properly set the row containing their chart data in the UI. [Ticket #166]
- Enhanced maintenance notifications and defined maintenance window. You will now see a ‘System Unavailable’ message when we’re performing maintenance on the system. Additionally, we’ve standardized our maintenance schedule. For the immediate future, all maintenance will be performed on Saturdays between 9:00 - 10:00 PM PST. W will post a calendar to this blog and to the website.
