Release notes

Security upgrade

ACL for Windows 15.1.1 is a patch release that addresses security vulnerabilities with some internal components used by Analytics. Although the risk to Analytics customers is low, we have already made a manual patch available, and we are now incorporating the manual patch in a released version of Analytics.  Learn more

For more information about the vulnerabilities and the manual patch, see Patch critical security vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-44832, -45105, -45046, and -44228).

Highlights

• New data connectors The addition of 15 new data connectors means that Analytics provides pre-built connectivity to almost 100 external data sources.
• New SAP Connector A new version of the SAP connector supports connecting to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.
• Connector fixes We made fixes to several of the existing connectors, including the REST connector for interacting with APIs.

New DSN data connectors You can now connect to these external data sources using newly added DSN data connectors provided by our data access and connectivity partner, CData Software:

• Airtable  Learn more
• Azure Analysis Services  Learn more
• Azure Data Catalog  Learn more
• Azure Data Lake Storage  Learn more
• DigitalOcean  Learn more
• Dropbox  Learn more
• Excel Online  Learn more
• Google Analytics  Learn more
• Google Contacts  Learn more
• Google Drive  Learn more
• Google Sheets  Learn more
• Microsoft Access  Learn more
• Microsoft OneDrive  Learn more
• Parquet  Learn more
• SAP Concur  Learn more

DIA-606

DIA-824

DIH-708

DIH-754

New version of SAP connector add-on Version 1.4 of the SAP connector add-on has been released. This version of the add-on is required for the Analytics SAP connector to communicate with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.

The download package contains installation as well as upgrade files for the latest connector add-on version.

Version 1.4 is certified by SAP for deployment on the following SAP systems:

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition 2020

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition 1909

• SAP S/4HANA 2020

• SAP S/4HANA 1909

Learn more

Analytics data connector issues fixed The data connector issues listed below have now been resolved.

• Active Directory connector issue resolved:

  • Default column size property not working

    As part of the fix, the Default Column Size field has been added to the Active Directory connector form.

• Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations connector issue resolved:

  • SQL error when selecting a table after successfully connecting

• Oracle connector issue resolved:

  • Connection fails when SESSIONS_PER_USER is limited to 1

• REST connector issues resolved:

  • Connections made with the REST connector form fail with a 401 Unauthorized error

  • Custom Headers option is no longer available in REST connector form

    The Custom Headers field has been restored to the REST connector form.

  • Timeout setting is not available in REST connector form

    As part of the fix, the Timeout field has been added to the REST connector form.

  • Get robot list API request returns a 419 unknown error

  • When reused, connections made with an OAuth2 setting fail with the error Unable to bind to type

• Rsam connector issues resolved:

  • The connection fails with an error if an Rsam saved search returns no records

  • The connector is not using system proxy settings

• SFTP connector issues resolved:

  • The connector converts a requested path to lowercase which causes issues with remote paths on a Unix or Linux server

  • The connector returns an error when you specify a path to a file located at the SFTP root folder level

• Snowflake connector issues resolved:

  • After a successful test connection, using the new connection returns the error The parameter 'url' is missing from connection string

  • Using the connector to save a table to Analytics results in the error Object reference not set to an instance of an object

  • After successfully connecting using a DSN connection initially created outside of Analytics, selecting a table causes a SQL error

• QuickBooks Online connector issue resolved:

  • The connector returns an error Connection string exceeds maximum allowed length of 1024

DIA-601

DIA-777

DIA-872

DIH-497

GRCPRD-4107

GRCPRD-4226

GRCPRD-4489

Analytics SAP connector not working with S/4HANA 2020 When attempting to connect to an SAP S/4HANA 2020 system, the SAP Connector was returning the error Function module 'CMO_GET_INSTNO' not found.

The issue has now been resolved and you can connect successfully.

FILESIZE( ) function and Excel temp file The FILESIZE( ) function was always returning -1 when used with an Excel temp file, which incorrectly indicated that no file existed. This issue has now been resolved and the function correctly returns the actual size of an Excel temp file.

Analytics SAP connector authentication protocol Two options for specifying the Single Sign On (SSO) authentication protocol used by a target SAP system were not working correctly in the SAP connector. The options, Kerberos and NTLM, have been removed from the connector settings.

The only SSO authentication protocol now supported is Individual. If you cannot use the Individual authentication protocol with your SAP system, your other option is to select Username and Password as the Authentication Method, rather than Single Sign On, and connect using standard SAP credentials.

GRCPRD-3900

RAPHX-1864

GRCPRD-4733

New version of SAP connector add-on Version 1.1 of the SAP connector add-on has been released. This add-on is required for the Analytics SAP connector to communicate with the SAP system.

The download package contains installation as well as upgrade files for the latest connector add-on version.

Learn more

Highlights

• New data connectors The addition of 45+ new data connectors more than doubles the number of external data sources for which Analytics provides pre-built connectivity.
• Improved SAP Connector You can now join up to 8 tables while importing data using the SAP Connector, and we have extended what you can do in SQL mode.
• Machine learning enhancements You can now use datetime fields with machine learning analysis, which increases the range of available predictive data in many situations. Usability improvements include automated correction of incorrect key field selection.
• Improved fuzzy matching The new SORTWORDS( ) function improves the accuracy and effectiveness of fuzzy joining and fuzzy duplicates analysis resulting in more focused result sets with fewer false positives.

Updates to REST Connector The REST Connector is enhanced to support the following authentication methods:

• No Auth
• API Key
• Bearer Token
• Basic Auth
• OAuth 1.0
• OAuth 2.0

However, this enhancement will cause the REST connector scripts from previous versions of Analytics to no longer work in Analytics 15. Learn more

Installation on Windows 7 Galvanize does not support installations of Analytics 15 on Windows 7. Microsoft ended support for Windows 7 on January 14, 2020.

Install Analytics 15 on Windows 8.1 or Windows 10.

Analytics 15.0, previous versions of Analytics

Excel import and export issue An upgrade of your installation of Microsoft Excel from the 32-bit version to the 64-bit version may cause Analytics-Excel connectivity to stop working. You are no longer able to import files from Excel, or export files to Excel.

The underlying cause of the issue could be a new installation of the 64-bit version of Microsoft Access Database Engine conflicting with the 32-bit version that is installed and required by Analytics.

If you or your organization has recently upgraded Excel or Microsoft 365 and Analytics-Excel connectivity has stopped working, contact Support for assistance.

• Presto  Learn more
• Qualys  Learn more
• RSS/ATOM  Learn more
• SFTP  Learn more
• Tenable  Learn more

New DSN data connectors You can now connect to these external data sources using the newly added DSN data connectors provided by our data partner, CData:

• Amazon Athena
• Amazon S3
• AWS Data Management
• Azure Data Management
• Azure Table Storage
• Box
• DocuSign
• Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations
• Dynamics 365 Sales
• Dynamics CRM
• Dynamics GP
• Dynamics NAV
• Edgar Online
• Epicor ERP
• Exact Online
• LinkedIn
• NetSuite
• OData
• Oracle Eloqua
• Oracle Sales Cloud
• QuickBooks
• QuickBooks Online
• QuickBooks POS
• Sage 50 UK
• Sage Cloud Accounting
• Sage Intacct
• SAP ByDesign
• SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer
• SAP SuccessFactors
• Slack
• Snowflake
• Splunk
• Square
• Stripe
• SugarCRM
• SurveyMonkey
• Sybase
• Sybase IQ
• UPS
• USPS
• xBase
• Zendesk

SORTWORDS( ) function The new SORTWORDS( ) function sorts the individual words or character clusters in a string into a sequential order. The function can be helpful in various situations. In particular, it can significantly improve the effectiveness of the Fuzzy Duplicates and Fuzzy Join commands, producing more focused result sets with fewer false positives and more true positives.

Learn more

New SET command option A new SET command option, LOCKAUTOSAVEFILE, lets you control how data is saved to the Analytics log file (*.LOG). Saving log data directly to disk, without using a write buffer, can help prevent corruption of the log file when complex scripts run and potentially conflict with other processes on your computer such as anti-virus monitoring or automated backups.

Learn more

ACL Connector for SAP enhancements Two enhancements have been made to the SAP connector:

• Join tables The number of SAP tables that you can join during the import of SAP data has been increased from two to eight.
• OR condition You can now use the OR condition when manually editing the SAP import query statement.

RAPHX-576

RAPHX-889

ACCESSDATA command supports multiple passwords You can now specify multiple passwords when using the ACCESSDATA command to import data from ODBC-compliant data sources. The new capability allows encrypted authentication with data sources that require more than one authentication element.

Learn more

Machine learning commands now accept datetime fields You can now use datetime fields with the machine learning Train and Predict commands, which increases the range of available predictive data in many situations.

Datetime fields are automatically processed to produce a set of synthetic features that you can use in addition to regular features based on character, numeric, or logical fields.

Learn more

Machine learning usability improvements usability improvements have been made to the Train command:

• Two different errors that previously caused the command to fail have been changed to warnings with an automatic correction performed by Analytics:
  • If you specify the target field among the key fields, a warning appears and the target field is automatically excluded from the key fields.
  • If you specify one or more key fields with unique values that exceed the Maximum Categories limit, a warning appears and the non-conforming fields are automatically excluded from the key fields.
• The default running time of the command has been reduced so that exploratory use of the command returns a result within a short time frame.

EXCLUDE parameter When using the ALL parameter to specify that all fields in a table are included in a command, you can now also use the new EXCLUDE parameter to selectively exclude fields. For example:

ALL EXCLUDE field_1 field_2

EXCLUDE allows you to fine-tune ALL, which is useful when a table has a large number of fields that you want to include, and a small number that you want to exclude. Previously, if you wanted to exclude even one field, you could not use ALL and you had to manually enter the long list of fields to include. Now you can specify ALL EXCLUDE and manually enter only the short list of excluded fields.

Twenty-one commands support the new EXCLUDE parameter:

AGE • CLASSIFY • CROSSTAB • DUPLICATES • EXPORT • EXTRACT • FUZZYDUP • FUZZYJOIN • INDEX • JOIN • MERGE • OUTLIERS • PROFILE • SAMPLE • SEQUENCE • SORT • STATISTICS • STRATIFY • SUMMARIZE • TOTAL • VERIFY

First match option added to Fuzzy Join dialog box The Fuzzy Join dialog box now has the option to specify that each primary key value is joined to only the first occurrence of any matching secondary key values. Previously this option was only available when scripting.

Learn more

Optional installation of data connectors When you install ACL for Windows, you can choose whether to install the following optional data connectors:

• Amazon Redshift
• Cassandra
• Concur
• Couchbase
• Drill
• DynamoDB
• Google BigQuery
• HBase
• Hive
• Impala
• MongoDB
• Oracle
• Salesforce
• Spark
• SQL Server
• Teradata

Optional installation of Python Engine for Analytics When you install ACL for Windows, you can choose whether to install the Python engine for Analytics to enable machine learning.

If you do not install the optional data connectors or Python engine and need them in future, you will need to uninstall and re-install ACL for Windows.

Analytics 14.1

Analytics 14

Robots Agent 14.1

Robots Agent 14

Analytics Exchange 14.1

Analytics Exchange 14

SAP Connector issue related to licensing Using the SAP Connector in Analytics 14.0.x or 14.1.x may result in a "SapDriverLicenseInvalid" error. If you encounter this error, upgrading to Analytics 14.2.x will resolve the problem.

If you are experiencing the same issue with Robots or Analytics Exchange, contact Support for assistance.

Table relation indexes (Unicode edition only) After upgrading to Analytics 14.2.0, table relations created in previous versions of Analytics were not preserved. Attempting to recreate a table relation did not work, resulting in an empty key field.

A problem with table relation index files has been resolved and table relations are now working properly. Table relations created in previous versions of Analytics are correctly preserved in Analytics 14.2.1.

Importing data using ODBC driver Using the Data Access window in conjunction with an external IBM DB2 ODBC driver was not working correctly in Analytics 14.2.0. A required log-in dialog box was not appearing.

This problem has now been resolved with a fix that applies to any external ODBC driver used in the Data Access window.

Highlights

• New user interface for creating analytic headers required to run scripts in Robots, or on AX Server
• Enhancements to Excel and delimited file imports
• Enhancements to classical variables sampling

Updates to Analytics data connectors may cause previously scripted imports to stop working as expected When you upgrade to Analytics 14.2, you should test any of your scripts that import data using one of the Analytics data connectors listed below (Data Access window / ACCESSDATA command). Changes made by third-party data sources or ODBC driver vendors required updates to the associated data connectors. Scripted data connections may need to be updated in order to continue working correctly.

The easiest way to update a connection is to perform an import using the Data Access window in Analytics 14.2. Copy the ACCESSDATA command from the log and use it to update your script. You may also need to update field specifications in the script body to align with table schema changes in the data source or ODBC driver.

• Email  Learn more
• Exchange  Learn more
• Jira  Learn more
• ServiceNow Learn more
• Twitter  Learn more

Analytics data connectors not supported for side-by-side installations of Analytics Some of the Analytics data connectors in a previous version of Analytics no longer work if Analytics 14.2 is installed side by side with the previous version. If you want to ensure that all data connectors in the previous version continue to work, do not install the two versions side by side on the same computer.

SAP connector supports SNC without SSO The SAP data connector now supports connecting to SAP systems that use Secure Network Communications (SNC) but do not use Single Sign-on.

Previously, connecting to an SAP system that uses SNC was limited to systems that also use Single Sign-on.

Learn more

SAP connector adds SAProuter support The SAP data connector now supports connecting to an SAP system that uses an SAProuter.

Learn more

SAP connector allows configuring record bundle size You can now specify the maximum number of records in each portion of a query performed by the SAP connector.

You may be able to improve connector speed by adjusting the size of record bundles.

Learn more

New filtering options for Analytics data connectors Two new filtering options make it easier to import only the records you want:

• Select first n records allows you to specify the number of records to import, starting from the top of a table

  (auto-generates a SQL SELECT TOP statement)

• "In" conditional operator allows you to filter a field by multiple test values

  (auto-generates a SQL WHERE IN clause)

Learn more

New options when importing from Excel When importing Excel files to Analytics, two new options provide greater flexibility. You can now specify the line number on which to start reading the worksheet, which allows you to skip unwanted header information in the source file. You can also import all fields as character data, which can simplify the import process.

• Import Microsoft Excel data  Learn more
• IMPORT EXCEL command  Learn more

CS-9496

CS-9679

Source tables used in Append When you append two or more tables, you now have the option of including the names of the source tables in the output table.

• Append tables  Learn more
• APPEND command  Learn more

Enhancements to classical variables sampling

• Bottom certainty stratum The option of specifying a bottom certainty stratum has been added. Previously, there was only the option of a top certainty stratum. Learn more
• Better integration of commands The integration of the CVS Prepare and CVS Sample commands has been improved (user interface only):
  • As part of its output, CVS Prepare now autogenerates the associated CVS Sample command with most values prefilled.  Learn more
  • An If condition specified in CVS Prepare is now automatically propagated to CVS Sample.  Learn more
• All evaluation types You now have the option of outputting all four evaluation types at once, which saves having to run the CVS Evaluate command multiple times.  Learn more
• Sample Difference Value As a convenience, the Sample Difference Value field has been added to the Strata Breakdown in the CVS Evaluate output. For each stratum in a sample of records, the field shows the difference between the book value of the records in the stratum and the audited value.  Learn more

Acquire HighBond access token improved The process for acquiring a HighBond access token has been improved. To acquire a token, a user is now taken from Analytics to the Manage API tokens page in Launchpad for password-secured token generation.

Previously, the generated token just appeared in Analytics, without requiring a second layer of security, and without any context, so users were not aware of the ability to manage their tokens.

The Manage API tokens page gives users a simple view of all their current tokens, and the ability to manage their tokens, either individually, or in bulk.

Learn more

Machine learning components updated The versions of the Python engine and TPOT included in Analytics, components that enable machine learning, have been updated.

The results produced by machine learning prediction may differ slightly between the updated versions and the previous versions in Analytics 14.1. However, both sets of results are valid. Differences between the sets of results are caused by adjustments to the way TPOT optimizes the machine learning pipeline.

Delimited file import Characters were being omitted from the import of a delimited file if the file contained a delimiter character at the end of the line (end of the record). The issue has now been resolved. (AN-7700)

Making this fix required reverting an earlier fix: "Empty last field in *.csv and *.dat files correctly imported" (AN-6859). The defect addressed by the earlier fix is now present again in Analytics 14.1.2. It will be addressed in a future version of Analytics.

Rebranding and product name changes ACL Services is now Galvanize, and our cloud-based platform, ACL GRC, is now called HighBond. ACL Analytics is now simply Analytics.

How do these rebranding changes affect Analytics? The short answer is that Analytics 14.1 continues to function in the same way as previous versions of Analytics, with the addition of the new features and enhancements described in these release notes.

Analytics scripts No change. Scripts authored in previous versions of Analytics continue to run in Analytics 14.1.

Analytics subscription Analytics subscriptions are now part of the subscription for ACL Robotics, a Galvanize solution containing Analytics, and lite versions of Robots and Results.

The new commands join the Cluster command, the other machine learning command in Analytics.

• Predicting classes and numeric values using the Analytics user interface  Learn more
• TRAIN command  Learn more
• PREDICT command  Learn more

• Rsam Learn more
• RESTful APIs Learn more
• SharePoint Learn more

SAP connector supports Secure Network Communications (SNC) and SSO The SAP data connector now supports connecting to SAP systems that use Secure Network Communications (SNC).

SNC allows SAP systems to integrate with an external security product for Single Sign-on and encryption of data in transit.

Learn more

Workaround: If you want to stop these sub-threads, end them in Task Manager, or restart your computer. (AN-7570)

Workaround: Consider using sampling to reduce the size of the training data set, and do not include feature fields that do not contribute to predictive accuracy. (AN-7563)

Analytics Update notification The notification that normally appears in the Windows taskbar alerting users to a new version of Analytics is currently not working.

Workaround: Users or a company’s HighBond account administrator can periodically sign in to Launchpad (www.highbond.com) and check for an updated ACL for Windows installation package. (AN-7676)

Existing analytic scripts used in Analytics Exchange or the Analysis App window can be run in Robots with little or no modification.

• identifying clusters using the ACL user interface  Learn more
• CLUSTER command  Learn more

The SAP data connector requires a separate subscription entitlement beyond the basic ACL subscription.  Learn more

• Jira
• JSON
• LDAP
• Marketo
• Open Exchange Rates

You have the option of identifying outliers by group, or for the entire table.

• identifying outliers using the ACL user interface  Learn more
• OUTLIERS command  Learn more

• performing fuzzy joins using the ACL user interface  Learn more
• FUZZYJOIN command  Learn more

This latest enhancement builds on the ability, introduced in version 13.0, to import multiple Excel worksheets simultaneously from a single Excel file.  Learn more

• Append dialog box  Learn more
• APPEND command  Learn more

The ability to use your full screen for previewing and working with data makes the experience of importing files such as Excel, delimited text, and PDF much more user-friendly.

• Hash imported data You can now protect sensitive data imported using the Data Access window by hashing it on a field-level basis.  Learn more
• Wildcards in table search Wildcard characters are now supported when searching tables in the Data Access window.  Learn more

After running the 13.1.1 patch installer, you can connect to named instances using the format "serverName\instanceName".

• Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010
• three files that are part of Microsoft Visual C++ 2008:
  • msvcm90.dll
  • msvcp90.dll
  • msvcr90.dll

  The .dll files are located in a subfolder in the C:\Windows\WinSxS directory.

ACL Analytics 13.1 does not use these components and uninstalling them does not impact the application.

Uninstall Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 before you install ACL Analytics 13.1.

If you install ACL Analytics 13.1 first, before uninstalling Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010, Excel imports and exports do not work in any previous version of ACL installed side by side with version 13.1.

The Concur connector no longer supports authentication without a Concur access token.

Any scripts currently configured with user credentials that do not include a token must be updated to use a Concur access token. You can obtain a token directly from Concur, or by entering your user credentials in the Data Access window and clicking Get Token.

Make note of your token's expiry date when you obtain it. Concur tokens expire after one year. Learn more

The Concur connector now requires that you specify the host name of Concur's API server when connecting. As of the 13.1 release, this value is "https://www.concursolutions.com".

Existing scripts that use the native Concur connector and an access token continue to work. However, if you are using a DSN connection or you open the Data Access window, you must specify a host name in the Host field for the connection to succeed. Learn more

setup.exe installs the updated, more secure versions of all required software prerequisites on the target computer, if they are not already installed. ACL for Windows.msi does not install prerequisites.

• a more recent version of Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (10.0.40219.325 instead of 10.0.40219.1)
• Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 instead of Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010
• Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 8u181 instead of 8u66 (Data Access window update).
• Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 8u171 instead of 8u121 (Analysis App window update).

• Amazon DynamoDB
• Apache HBase
• Concur
• MongoDB
• Amazon Redshift
• Apache Hive
• Couchbase
• Oracle
• Apache Cassandra
• Apache Spark
• Google BigQuery
• Salesforce
• Apache Drill
• Cloudera Impala
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Teradata

The correct version number does appear in the Windows Control Panel.

You have the option of including all the fields from all the tables being combined, or just those fields that are common to all the tables.

• appending using the ACL user interface  Learn more
• the APPEND command  Learn more

• Active Directory
• Email
• Exchange
• Twitter
• ServiceNow
• MySQL

• classical variables sampling
• monetary unit sampling
• record sampling (attributes sampling)

The CVS feature set includes the ability to stratify a population based on a statistical formula that optimizes strata boundaries, which helps create efficient sample sizes.

Learn more