What's New in DAS8

In general, the DAS8 features and menus are highly consistent with the previous version. Here is an overview of the major enhancements.

Enhancements by Product Area

ProReports

DAS8 introduces a new feature called ProReports. ProReports is an advanced presentation tool that transforms one to many DAS reports into a highly sophisticated report output. Designed to simplify the complex presentation tasks that have been a challenge for our Excel presentation in the past, this tool can easily meet the needs of such things as invoices, product catalogs, and corporate filings.

Major Features and Enhancements:

Aggregate one to many DAS reports into one sophisticated layout
Publish to regular DAS users just like a regular report in DAS
Publish to mobie users in the mobie Portal
(8.0.3.0) Gauges now automatically filter actual and target values based on grouping columns of the band the gauge resides in.
(8.0.3.1) Able to map semi-colon delimited mapped parameters to ProReports multi-value parameters.
(8.0.3.2) Improved Design Notes showing rendering performance
(8.0.4.0) Charts now automatically filter series data based on grouping columns of the band the gauge resides in.
(8.0.4.0) Adding a chart now walks the developer through selecting the right type of series for the chart (single series vs. multiple series).
(8.0.4.0) Checkboxes now support Evaluate as Caption
(8.0.5.0) Able to easily change the type of a chart from the designer.
(8.0.5.5) TSV is a supported file type when bursting a ProReport.
(8.0.5.5) Added workspace management to more easily manage the layout of windows in the ProReport designer.
(8.0.6.0) Support filtering of the incoming data of a ProReport. This feature will improve ProReport performance, especially for ProReports running on the portal.
(8.0.6.0) New capability to merge different reports that use different page sizes into one report.
(8.0.6.0) Can now create a hierarchical parent/child report.
(8.0.6.0) New magnifier property button on all color properties.
(8.0.6.0) An improved method for computing a weighted average summary result.
(8.0.6.0) Labels now support a limited set of HTML tags.
(8.0.6.0) Can now customize the checkbox glyphs.
(8.0.6.0) Reports now support the creation of a list of images that can then be referenced by the PictureBox control.
(8.0.6.0) Can now paste/drag images, HTML, RTF, DOCX, and text from the clipboard directly into a report instead of embedding images only from a file or manually creating a Rich Text control.
(8.0.6.0) New Page Setting tab to the properties panel to quickly show the various properties dealing with page size and format.
(8.0.6.0) Support for colorizing segments of line and area charts. Segments of the chart can be colored based on trend, range of values of the data points, or based on the values of each data point.
(8.0.6.0) Can now specify the page numbers and multiple page ranges to print or export. You can specify duplicate page number(s) within the range. For example, "1, 1-5" would print/export the first page twice followed by pages 2-5.
(8.0.6.0) Exporting to PDF now support OpenType CFF Fonts and the capability of not embedding any fonts.
(8.0.6.5) Data level filtering now supports the IsBetween and many other date based functions such as 'last week', 'last year', etc.
(8.0.9.0) Can now add Cross Tab controls to a ProReport. This provides a significant enhancement over the Pivot Grid especially in terms of controlling layout.
(8.0.9.0) Can now embed PDF documents into a ProReport.
(8.0.9.0) Create Cross Band content (such as a side bar).
(8.0.9.0) Automatically populate the empty space of a band with logical rows (such as number lines on an invoice).
(8.0.9.0) Support for a new Date Range parameter. This allows for easy selection of a start and end date from the parameters.
(8.0.9.0) Default values of parameters can be defined using expression bindings (such as using the Today function).
(8.0.9.0) Improved look and feel of the filter editors.
(8.0.9.2) Improved New Report Wizard that creates a better report using a DAS report as input. Also supports Cross Tab reports.

Dashboards

Improvements to dashboard visualizations including the following:

New Widgets and Features
- Ability to embed hyperlinks in grid widgets
- "Empty on load" feature to load widgets empty until a selection is made
- Tab control to group widgets
- Allow specification of complex data source filtering conditions that previously could not be represented by the user interface
- (8.0.6.0) New Date Filter Widget giving more control over date filtering than the existing range filter.
- (8.0.8.0) Allows for custom period report parameters.
- (8.0.8.0) Range and Date Filter controls now support selection parameters
- (8.0.9.0) Cards now support conditional formatting.
- (8.0.9.0) Can now filter data at the measure level by using a new 'Edit Filter' option on the measure of dashboard widget.
- (8.0.9.0) Can now group date data by the week using the culture specific weekly start day by using the new Week-Year grouping interval option on date dimension of a dashboard widget.
Performance
- Asynchronous loading of widgets for improved loading performance on the Web
- (8.0.1.18) Significant loading performance improvement
- (8.0.8.0) Improved performance of pivot grid row expansion
- (8.0.8.0) Improved index generation for mobie database tables used by dashboards. Includes ensuring that full statistics are generated for all mobie databox tables.
- (8.0.9.0) Improved initial load performance for dashboards with tab pages.
- (8.0.9.2) Improved scrolling performance for dashboard pivot grids.
Formatting and Layout
- Customized control over formatting of numbers and dates
- Improved mobile adaptability mode for viewing dashboards on phones
- Improved layout of pivot grid widgets on the Web
- Parenthesized accounting format for negative numbers is used where applicable
- Improve text formatting in grid widgets
- Detail data popout grid now does better auto-sizing of columns
Developer Productivity
- URL of mobie portals are now shown in the Web publishing dialog
- Now supports design notes that shows an outline of all the widgets of the dashboard
- The 'Dependent Reports' context menu for a dashboard in our My Private Reports area now show dependencies from published reports as well as your private reports.
- (8.0.9.0) Expressions in calculated fields now maintain line breaks and space characters for improved readability.
- (8.0.9.0) Improved expression editor warning system including the addition of a warning about how we handle division.

mobie^® Portal

These are general end-user enhancements to the mobie Portal that will affect both dashboards and ProReports.

(8.0.3.2) Slide shows can now auto-refresh after detecting the underlying data is stale. This is useful when displaying a dashboard in a public area such as a warehouse or conference where the dashboard needs to automatically reflect new data.
(8.0.5.2) Improve performance of automatically updating a dashboard when the underlying data changes.
(8.0.5.5) Significant performance improvement on dashboard loading.
(8.0.6.4) The title of the current dashboard, ProReport, or slide show now shows in the browser tab
(8.0.8.0) Can now auto-submit and control zoom of ProReports on the portal via URL parameters.
(8.0.8.0) If a user is subscribed to multiple snapshots (via group subscriptions), the user can now select what snapshot to use for a dashboard or ProReport using a selector from the portal Explorer or via URL parameter.
(8.0.9.0) New chrome-less ProReport portal view that makes it easier to embed ProReports in such things like E1Pages or Cafe One.
(8.0.9.0) Improved reliability of embedded dashboards over non-ssl connections.

New Calculations

Formula Calculation

DAS8 introduces the formula calculation that allows creation of complex formulas into a single calculation column. Most existing DAS calculations can be used in a formula calculation. There are also report popup menu items for creating formulas as you would many quick calculations and mechanisms for converting existing calculations individually into formula calculations or converting all possible calculation columns into a minimal set of formulas. Using the formula calculation often results in better calculation performance because fewer individual calculation columns are created and less memory is required to hold intermediate results.

Key Features

Sophisticated editor that helps to show possible values and functions as you type.
Support nested If statements to support complex logic in a single calculation
Easily combine the output of multiple calculations
Support sophisticated string comparison using easy to use wild cards

New Calculations and Other Improvements

New math operations: square root, log, ln, ceiling, floor, and truncate
Allow copy/paste of formula contents in the list calculation editor
(8.0.3.1) Formula specific Filter Function for evaluating a value using a DAS filter expression.
(8.0.5.1) Significant usability improvements of the List Calculation editor.
- Add new Apply Operation function in list editor to easily apply the same operation to multiple rows
- Show list labels in list order rather than alphabetically in formula editing form
- Allow easy creation of summed labels (i.e. [LABEL1] + [LABEL2]) in the formula editor by holding down the shift key while selecting
(8.0.8.0) Improved Job Cost Quick Report that performs many formally manual steps automatically. Some of the improvements:
- A new Job-to-date organization method
- An option to include the Extended Job Master
- Many more columns from the business unit master including the project column and category codes
- Option to group by job and/or project
(8.0.8.0) Relative Period Calculation Improvements.
- Supports including all records for 'Reverse Sign', 'Beginning Balance', and 'Original Budget'.
- A Job-to-Date caption style.
(8.0.8.3) Significant Table Lookup performance improvement for situations where only one record of large sorted query needs to be retrieved.
(8.0.9.0) Support for dynamic hyperlinks in burst emails such as creating hyperlinks directly to JDE applications.
(8.0.9.2) The presentation menu on a report now supports presenting to ProReports and dashboards in addition to Excel. The menu now also lists the ProReports and dashboards that use the report.

Automator Improvements

Version 5.4 had some ability to introduce more complex schedules based on the standard iCalendar format, but this support was removed as it could not be properly modified once created. Support for this standard format is now back and improved in DAS 8 on an Advanced Scheduling tab:
Automator scheduling now also offers an option for choosing what to do when calculation errors occur - whether to continue to emit output or to fail the job.
(8.0.3.0) Improved task output detail. Prior to this release, Automator would simply indicate that a task was successful or if in error. Now the task will display the actions that successfully occurred (file copy, email, mobie, etc.) - even if the task ultimately ended in error. This is especially useful for tasks that are configured to send output only if the report produced data.
(8.0.4.0) Can now enable/disable a selected set of tasks
(8.0.4.0) Exporting tasks to a .DAS file (File|Export Selected Tasks) now include associated private reports.
(8.0.4.1) Email sent by Automator and burst drivers will now have an SMTP header X-DAS-MAIL-SENDER-HOST identifying the DAS system that sent the message.
(8.0.5.0) If a task ends in error, the owner of the task will now be notified instead of sending the errors to the email addresses and/or file directory as specified on the distribution task of the task. The email of the owner is retrieved from JDE (user's primary email address from the address book) but can be overridden in User Preferences.

DAS and mobie Administration Improvements

DAS

Usability improvements of the security application
- Renamed permissions and other security element to be more clear based on customer feedback
- Permissions that are required by other permissions are automatically set
Table lookups that occur in variable calculations are now audited
(8.0.1.17) Access to the Admin Guide from the Help Menu if you are logged in as a DAS Administrator.
(8.0.4.1) JDE E1 with SQL Server: DAS now auto-configures JDE recommended performance settings for reporting in the JDE.INI
(8.0.5.0) Administrators can export any record from FDASPROP to a .dasi file.
(8.0.5.6) DAS now supports running with Microsoft Excel Extension Hardening security policy set.
(8.0.6.0) Support connecting to the 64-bit JDE client. This is especially important to JDE configurations that want to go 100% 64-bit client to server. Note that this does not change the DAS client as the DAS client has always been 64-bit. This is just for the server-side connection.
(8.0.6.0) Reconfiguring the DAS web server using WebSetup no longer automatically ends all existing DAS sessions. This allows changing options such as compression and encryption that will apply to just new client sessions and not disrupt current client sessions. Termination of all client sessions is now a separate command in WebSetup.
(8.0.6.0) The DAS Log Manager (DASLogManager.exe) executable on the server now easily enables/disables server-wide logging instead of having to manually update the registry. The application now also opens up the configured log folder location of the server inside of the hidden ProgramData folder.
(8.0.8.0) Improved DAS launch detection of the Chromium based Edge browser.
(8.0.8.3) Improved license request form including the ability to import multiple DAS licenses (including just the licenses contained in zip file) at one time.
(8.0.8.6) Improved automatic notification of new releases and other important notices when administration logs in. In addition, new release notification is shown to everyone from the Help|About form.
(8.0.9.3) Support for installing a DAS testing environment on the same system as the production DAS server.
(8.0.9.3) Improved and streamlined installation experience.

mobie

Improved error page in mobie when attempting to visit an URL to a viewer that does not exist or the user does not have access to
(8.0.3.0) Simple Authenticated mobie Portals: Email addresses are now centrally managed from mobie Admin in DAS instead of allowing a user to specify the email.
(8.0.6.0) mobie setup now automatically configures the portal web server to properly handle secure cookies.

External Data

External data connection editor shows available properties for third party .NET data providers, such as the CData providers
(8.0.9.1) Excel and MS Access external data connections now support both 32-bit and 64-bit connections. No need to create new connections anymore when upgrading Office to 64-bit.

Miscellaneous

Support for MySQL DataBox's is deprecated
Improve performance of running reports that have lots of drilldown bursts defined
Updated template icons in main search view
Allow period to date range calculation to resolve negative period offsets
Can now export all dependencies of a report or dashboard (such as burst targets and underlying report of a dashboard) from My Reports workspace
(8.0.4.1) Design Notes now include the total number of records retrieved.
(8.0.5.0) Significantly improved Hyperlink generation tool. This tool makes it easier to do such things as embed dashboards into JDE or add links to run reports from menus.
(8.0.5.0) Improve the performance and scalability of large and complex reports. Especially for reports leveraging complex calculations such as multi-row table lookups and de-duplication calculations.
(8.0.5.1) DAS now supports accessing JDE tables that are defined as Oracle synonyms in an Oracle database.
(8.0.6.0) Improved exporting to Excel by supporting more numeric formats such as one that include colons and slashes.
(8.0.6.4) Improved usability of the header/footer editor dialog along with new [Published] and [Last Modified Time] variables that can be embedded in the header, footer, or Excel presentation of a standard report.
(8.0.7.0) Significant general report running performance over slow network connections.
(8.0.7.0) Improved download speed of components when accessing features of DAS requiring such a download. The download process now shows a progress dialog.
(8.0.7.0) Improved design notes experience. The design notes and 'how-to' notes window can stay up while working on or running a report.
(8.0.7.3) ProReports, dashboards, and regular reports that reference published reports can now be exported and imported as .das file. Any published reference becomes a private reference on import.
(8.0.8.1) Subscribers can now run distribution bursts.
(8.0.8.1) Added a context menu command to quickly move columns to the left
(8.0.8.3) Improved design notes for regular reports with more information about Table Lookup performance data and hyperlinks to calculation details from the performance section.
(8.0.8.5) Single Instance mode (-si) now supports just opening up a report and not run (-run=false). Useful when prompting for parameters.

Enhancements By Version

8.0.9

This release has impactful changes that should be considered.

ProReports: Can now add Cross Tab controls to a ProReport. This provides a significant enhancement over the Pivot Grid especially in terms of controlling layout.
ProReports: Can now embed PDF documents into a ProReport.
ProReports: Create Cross Band content (such as a side bar).
ProReports: Automatically populate the empty space of a band with logical rows (such as number lines on an invoice).
ProReports: Support for a new Date Range parameter. This allows for easy selection of a start and end date from the parameters.
ProReports: Default values of parameters can be defined using expression bindings (such as using the Today function).
ProReports: Improved look and feel of the filter editors.
Dashboards: Cards now support conditional formatting.
Dashboards: Can now filter data at the measure level.
Dashboards: Can now group date data by the week using the culture specific weekly start day.
Dashboards: Improved initial load performance for dashboards with tab pages.
Dashboards: Expressions in calculated fields now maintain line breaks and space characters for improved readability.
Dashboards: Improved expression editor warning system including the addition of a warning about how we handle division.
mobie Administration: Improved performance of the administration console.
mobie: New chrome-less ProReport portal view that makes it easier to embed ProReports in such things like E1Pages or Cafe-One.
mobie: Improved reliability of embedded dashboards over non-ssl connections.
Support for dynamic hyperlinks in burst emails such as creating hyperlinks directly to JDE applications.
(8.0.9.1) Excel and MS Access external data connections now support both 32-bit and 64-bit connections. No need to create new connections anymore when upgrading Office to 64-bit.
(8.0.9.2) The presentation menu on a report now supports presenting to ProReports and Dashboards in addition to Excel. The menu now also lists the ProReports and dashboards that uses the report.
(8.0.9.2) ProReports: Improved New Report Wizard that creates a better report using a DAS report as input. Also supports Cross Tab reports.
(8.0.9.2) Dashboards: Improved scrolling performance for dashboard pivot grids.
(8.0.9.3) Administration: Support for installing a DAS testing environment on the same system as the production DAS server.
(8.0.9.3) Administration: Improved and streamlined installation experience.

8.0.8

Dashboards: Can now add custom period report parameters into a dashboard.
Dashboards: Range and Date Filter controls now support selection parameters.
Improved Job Cost Quick Report that performs many formally manual steps automatically.
Relative Period Calculation Improvements include all records for 'Reverse Sign', 'Beginning Balance', and 'Original Budget' plus a new Job-To-Date caption style.
mobie: If a user is subscribed to multiple snapshots (via group subscriptions), the user can now select what snapshot to use for a dashboard or ProReport using a selector from the portal Explorer or via URL parameter.
ProReports: Improved performance of pivot grid row expansion
mobie: Improved index generation for mobie database tables used by dashboards. Includes ensuring that full statistics are generated for all mobie databox tables.
ProReports: Can now auto-submit and control zoom of ProReports on the portal via URL parameters.
Improved DAS launch detection of the Chromium based Edge browser.
(8.0.8.1) Subscribers can now run distribution bursts.
(8.0.8.1) Added a context menu command to quickly move columns to the left.
(8.0.8.3) Significant Table Lookup performance improvement for situations where only one record of large sorted query needs to be retrieved
(8.0.8.3) Improved Design Notes for regular reports with more information about Table Lookup performance data and hyperlinks to calculation details from the performance section
(8.0.8.3) Improved license request form including the ability to import multiple DAS licenses (including just the licenses contained in zip file) at one time.
(8.0.8.5) Single Instance mode (-si) now supports just opening up a report and not run (-run=false). Useful when prompting for parameters.
(8.0.8.6) Improved automatic notification of new releases and other important notices when administration logs in. In addition, new release notification is shown to everyone from the Help|About form.

8.0.7

Significant general report running performance over slow network connections.
Improved download speed of components when accessing features of DAS requiring such a download. The download process now shows a progress dialog.
Improved design notes experience. The design notes and 'how-to' notes window can stay up while working on or running a report.
(8.0.7.3) ProReports, dashboards, and regular reports that reference published reports can now be exported and imported as .das file. Any published reference becomes a private reference on import.

8.0.6

Administration: Support connecting to the 64-bit JDE client.
Dashboard: New Date Filter Widget giving more control over date filtering than the existing range filter.
ProReports: Support filtering of the incoming data of a ProReport. This feature will improve ProReport performance, especially for ProReports running on the portal.
ProReports: New capability to merge different reports that use different page sizes into one report.
ProReports: Can now create a hierarchical parent/child report.
ProReports: New magnifier property button on all color properties.
ProReports: An improved method for computing a weighted average summary result.
ProReports: Labels now support a limited set of HTML tags.
ProReports: Can now customize the checkbox glyphs.
ProReports: Reports now support the creation of a list of images that can then be referenced by the PictureBox control.
ProReports: Can now paste/drag images, HTML, RTF, DOCX, and text from the clipboard directly into a report instead of embedding images only from a file or manually creating a Rich Text control.
ProReports: New Page Setting tab to the properties panel to quickly show the various properties dealing with page size and format.
ProReports: Support for colorizing segments of line and area charts.
ProReports: Can now specify the page numbers and multiple page ranges to print or export. You can specify duplicate page number(s) within the range.
ProReports: Exporting to PDF now support OpenType CFF Fonts and the capability of not embedding any fonts.
mobie Administration: mobie setup now automatically configures the portal web server to properly handle secure cookies.
Administration: Reconfiguring the DAS web server using WebSetup no longer automatically ends all existing DAS sessions.
Administration: The DAS Log Manager executable on the server now easily enables/disables server-wide logging.
Improved exporting to Excel by supporting more numeric formats such as one that include colons and slashes.
(8.0.6.4) mobie Portal: The title of the current dashboard, ProReport, or slide show now shows in the browser tab
(8.0.6.4) Improved usability of the header/footer editor dialog along with new [Published] and [Last Modified Time] variables that can be embedded in the header, footer, or Excel presentation of a standard report.
(8.0.6.5) ProReports: Data level filtering now supports the IsBetween and many other date based functions.

8.0.5

Automator: If a task ends in error, the owner of the task will now be notified instead of sending the errors to the email addresses and/or file directory as specified on the distribution task of the task. The email of the owner is retrieved from JDE (user's primary email address from the address book) but can be overridden in User Preferences.
Miscellaneous: Significantly improved Hyperlink generation tool. This tool makes it easier to do such things as embed dashboards into JDE or add links to run reports from menus.
ProReports: Able to easily change the type of a chart from the designer.
Administration: Administrators can export any record from FDASPROP to a .dasi file.
Miscellaneous: Improve the performance and scalability of large, complex, and long-running standard reports. Especially for reports leveraging complex calculations such as multi-row table lookups and de-duplication calculations. (8.0.5.1)
Miscellaneous: DAS now supports accessing JDE tables that are defined as Oracle synonyms in an Oracle database. (8.0.5.1)
Significant usability improvements of the List Calculation editor. (8.0.5.1)
Dashboard: Improve performance of automatically updating a dashboard when the underlying data changes. (8.0.5.2)
ProReports: TSV is a supported file type when bursting a ProReport. (8.0.5.5)
ProReports: Added workspace management to more easily manage the layout of windows in the ProReport designer. (8.0.5.5)
Dashboard: Significant performance improvement on dashboard loading. (8.0.5.5)
Administration: DAS now supports running with Microsoft Excel Extension Hardening security policy set. (8.0.5.6)

8.0.4

ProReports: Charts now automatically filter series data based on grouping columns of the band the gauge resides in.
ProReports: Adding a chart now walks the developer through selecting the right type of series for the chart (single series vs. multiple series).
ProReports: Checkboxes now support Evaluate as Caption
Automator: Can now enable/disable a selected set of tasks
Automator: Exporting tasks to a .DAS file (File|Export Selected Tasks) now include associated private reports.
Automator: Email sent by Automator and burst drivers will now have an SMTP header X-DAS-MAIL-SENDER-HOST identifying the DAS system that sent the message. (8.0.4.1)
Administration: Applies to JDE E1 with SQL Server Only. DAS now auto-configures JDE recommended performance settings for reporting in the JDE.INI (8.0.4.1)
Design Notes now include the total number of records retrieved. (8.0.4.1)

8.0.3

ProReports: Gauges now automatically filter actual and target values based on grouping columns of the band the gauge resides in.
Automator: Improved task output detail. Prior to this release, Automator would simply indicate that a task was successful or if in error. Now the task will display the actions that successfully occurred (file copy, email, mobie, etc.) - even if the task ultimately ended in error. This is especially useful for tasks that are configured to send output only if the report produced data.
mobie Administration: Applies to Simple Authenticated mobie Portals Only. Email addresses are now centrally managed from mobie Admin in DAS instead of allowing a user to specify the email.
ProReports: Able to map semi-colon delimited mapped parameters to ProReports multi-value parameters. (8.0.3.1)
Formula specific Filter Function for evaluating a value using a DAS filter expression. (8.0.3.1)
ProReports: Improved Design Notes showing rendering performance (8.0.3.2)
Dashboard: Slide shows can now auto-refresh after detecting the underlying data is stale. This is useful when displaying a dashboard in a public area such as a warehouse or conference where the dashboard needs to automatically reflect new data. (8.0.3.2)

8.0.2

No Enhancements

8.0.1

Administration: Access to the Admin Guide from the Help Menu if you are logged in as a DAS Administrator. (8.0.1.17)
mobie Portal: Significant loading performance improvement (8.0.1.18)

Impactful Changes

These are changes that change the current behavior of the software that should be considered before upgrading.

Impactful Changes for 8.0.9

ProReports: Subscribers of ProReports with subreports that reference other published ProReports now must subscribe to those subreports or have a special permission. This change was made to ensure the security of your data and the integrity of a published report. Prior to this release, subscribers of a ProReport were able to view subreport contents even if the subreport contained a published report to which the current subscriber did not have access. With this release, these reports will still run but any unsubscribed subreport will be masked over with a warning:

To prevent masking, the subscriber must subscribe to the referenced ProReport or be given the 'Can Use Any Published Subreport' permission. Note that this does not affect a subreport that references a private report (that subreport simply become part of the published parent ProReport, inheriting all of its subscribers).