21st of November, 2022

Service

New Features

Excel Export and Import

We have added the ability to export and import results in Loome Monitor. You can export the results of a rule, edit this rule’s data in Excel and then import it back into the rule. This is useful in a variety of scenarios such as populating a new Glossary or Reference rule, or annotating a large number of metadata fields for an Alert.

Spreadsheets exported from a Loome Monitor rule have protection around which columns may be edited and what values you can insert into them. You can also insert and remove rows for manual rules such as a Glossary or Reference. When exporting you can also choose to export all rows, or only the rows matching your current filters in the results. You can also add new columns for metadata, or data in a manual Glossary or Reference. We also have server-side validation when you import a spreadsheet back into a rule. If you have invalid data or columns, you will be provided a list of issues to rectify before importing again.

You can choose to turn import and export on or off for each rule.

New Custom Field Types

Decimal

We have added a new custom field type ‘Decimal’ in Loome Monitor. You can add this to your Loome Monitor rules where you need to specify scale and precision for values such as money or percentage.

Boolean

We have added a Boolean custom field type for metadata columns in Loome Monitor. You can add this custom field to your rule to choose between ‘True’ and ‘False’ for each row in your results.

Notifications

We have introduced a new notification system to Loome. It can send email notifications as well as in-app notifications (including browser notifications).

You will notice a notification hub in the top right corner. In-app notifications will be sent to this hub. You can have a maximum of 50 notifications per user before trailing older notifications will be removed.

Currently you can view agent status notifications and import and export notifications in the hub. The agent status notification replaces the agent status bar. When an agent goes offline or comes online, you will now receive notifications via email and in-app. This provides a clearer picture of what is happening with your agents.

You also have the ability to opt out of notifications. Emails will have a link to opt out, however in-app notifications for the agent status are mandatory.

Please let us know if you would like other event notifications, and we can expand these notifications in the future.

Agent Installation and Lifecycle

We have made several improvements to agent installation and lifecycle in Loome Monitor, Integrate and Assist. - We have replaced the Azure RM PowerShell commands with Azure CLI and Azure Az PowerShell commands to keep up with current Microsoft tools. - We have also added an option to the installation command line for Windows and Linux to perform a silent installation. - We have also removed the PowerShell remoting requirement for Windows agents and added Sudo as a prefix to the Linux installation to avoid installation permission issues. - Integrate: And finally, we have improved the agent so that when an external factor causes the agent process to be terminated ungracefully, the agent will inform the service that any running tasks at the time of the termination have failed. This will be reflected in the Job status and logs.

Azure Batch

We have completed an overhaul of the Azure Batch integration in Loome Integrate. Based on feedback around the task, we have implemented the ability to query VM and image sizes for your Batch account dynamically from the cluster creation screen.

We have also replaced the input and output connections on an Azure Batch task with a single ‘Azure File Share Storage’ connector instead, that will be mounted directly in to your VM or container. You can then import, export, and store files as needed.

Azure Batch should replace all usage of Azure Shipyard with these new changes, and we intend to deprecate Azure Shipyard in the future.

Please note that Azure Shipyard will be deprecated in later versions.

We have added support for containers in Azure Batch tasks. This allows workloads to be run on pre-configured containers supplied to the Azure Batch service. You can use these containers via a Cluster Definition with the type ‘Azure Batch Container Pool’.

Tenant Changes

We have improved the Tenant Settings page and added descriptions that provide more information about each setting and how it will affect Loome Integrate. We have also improved the user experience in regards to the speed and usability of sign in and sign out processes. As well as including the tenant name in the tenant URL so you can share links to specific jobs or tasks with your team.

Logging Service

We have added a new logging service to Loome Integrate. The new logging service allows more logs to be stored for your jobs. You can also download a log file for your job execution, which contains the logs for your chosen job execution and each task. In the future, we will provide an option to integrate your logging systems with this logging service.

When updating your agent, the agent service will now communicate with au-logging.loomesoftware.com or us-logging.loomesoftware.com.

You will need to update any outbound firewall rules accordingly for the new logging service. And you will also need to download a new copy of the agent installation script from your tenant's ['Agent' page](/integrate/agents/installing-an-agent/#navigating-to-the-agent-installer-in-loome-integrate-online-interface).

This new service is backwards compatible with existing agents. We recommend updating your agent for future releases where we will depreciate the current agent logging service.

New Connectors

We have added a new connector for MYOB Online and Epicor to help integrate your data in Loome Integrate.

Microsoft Teams App

We have created a Microsoft Teams application for Loome Assist. This application can be added to Microsoft Teams and group chats to provide direct access to a Loome Assist Project for a team. Once added, users will never need to leave Microsoft Teams to create and use Azure resources and solutions in this Project. This simplifies the creation and usage of resources in Azure for researchers, as it is all easily accessible in one place while the other requirements are taken care of by Administrators.
Users are automatically synced between Teams, group chats and the Loome Assist Project. Admins will need to sign up and create a tenant before using the Loome Assist Teams app to prepare their tenant for their users.

The Loome Assist App has been certified by Microsoft and you can download it right now from the marketplace. Learn how to download and set up the Loome Assist App here.

Improvements

  • Monitor: We have improved the list view of projects and have added more information about each rule, as well as filtering and sorting.
  • Monitor: We updated the rule results layout by rearranging in-built columns and selecting default columns (some non-priority columns are now initially hidden), so that your data columns are more prominent.
  • Monitor: We modified the rule results view to show the source data columns before the custom field columns. You will need to update your agent and re-run your rule to update this.
  • Monitor: We added support for datetime offset and precision and scale filtering in the Loome Monitor results page.
  • Monitor: We have improved the results page, so you do not need to scroll the page to get to the bottom of the results table.
  • Monitor: The results page will conform to multiple screen sizes.
  • Monitor: We have moved the rule metrics to a slide out in the results table to improve the page layout.
  • Monitor: Results grid filters will be preserved when loading more records on a results view.
  • Monitor: The default order of records in the results view now prioritizes default statuses.
  • Monitor: You can now clone a manual record to copy it with a new key column value in a manual or source and manual rule.
  • Monitor: ‘Created By’ and ‘Created Date’ are hidden by default on the Project rules list. You can choose to display it using the column filters.
  • Monitor: We have added improvements to the sign out process.
  • Monitor: We also added an Excel enabled flag to the rules list to indicate if Import and Export is enabled.
  • Integrate: New tasks will default to the first agent that is online in your agent dropdown, rather than the first agent in the list that may be offline.
  • Integrate: We improved the list views of jobs, sequenced tasks, project tasks, and logs on each of their pages. You can sort, filter, search and select columns across these lists. We plan to improve remaining lists in the near future.
  • Integrate: You can now use GIT connections on container agents.
  • Integrate: You can create API keys with the Group Admin role permission. This will allow you to perform tasks such as creating projects programmatically.
  • Integrate: We have updated the code text editor, which includes code styling for all code types, across all code text editors in Integrate such as the SQL Statement task type and connection editor.
  • Integrate: We have updated the Google Analytics driver to support the new GA4 API.
  • Integrate: Improved the tenant name validation for selecting a valid tenant name when signing up to Integrate or editing your existing tenant name.
  • Integrate: Added support for Zuora environments outside of the main US production environment.
  • Integrate: Background token renewal errors for OAuth tokens on certain connectors will now appear as notifications so the end user can take action when notified.
  • Integrate: Updated the Salesforce connector to a version that supports the Bulk API.
  • Integrate: We added the ability to override the NVidia driver version for Azure Shipyard tasks.
  • Integrate: Clickable links across the application now include the tenant name, so you can copy them directly and send them to other users.
  • Integrate: Loome Integrate now includes the tenant name in the URL, which can also be seen in your email notification links.
  • Integrate: Stored procedures are now alphabetically organized.
  • Assist: You can now provide a non-unique name for storage repositories. Loome Assist will make this unique when naming the storage repository in Azure.
  • Assist: We have improved the messaging around unique solution collection names when provisioning them.
  • Assist: Confirmation boxes are now provided for all file downloads.
  • Assist: When creating a VM, or solution collection containing a VM, you will be blocked from using reserved usernames on Azure.
  • Assist: External links will now open in a new tab and will advise you that you are leaving the application before it is opened.
  • Assist: We have made some improvements to the sign out process.
  • Assist: We added some minor improvements to the wording on data repository naming.
  • Assist: Clickable links across the application now include the tenant name, so you can copy them directly and send them to other users.

Fixes

  • Monitor: We have fixed an issue where the ‘New Record’ column is being returned as an integer to the results page, and not filterable as a Boolean.
  • Monitor: We fixed an issue where the clickable URL on a Loome Monitor rule, when copied and shared would be incorrect.
  • Monitor: The Reconciliation rule type was previously adding ‘Alert’ as the rule type in the LM__MAPPING table.
  • Monitor: You could previously not use a datetime column as a key column in a manual Glossary or Reference.
  • Monitor: We fixed an issue where a Reconciliation rule was not populating both sides (base and comparison) of data into the communications table.
  • Monitor: The ‘Assigned to’ column had an issue where empty values were generating new rows into the metadata table on every run.
  • Monitor: We have fixed an issue where the Consumer application role could see all rows in a rule when using a specific filter.
  • Monitor: Fixed an issue with Synapse rules where a custom list value could not be selected on a row.
  • Monitor: We fixed a bug where certain numeric types were being treated as Varbinary.
  • Monitor: We have fixed an issue that occurred when key columns had large string values of over 50 characters.
  • Monitor: Fixed a bug that prevented spaces in metadata column names.
  • Monitor: You can no longer edit a key on a manual record in a Source and Manual rule.
  • Monitor: Fixed an issue where a new manual record is not marked as new in the ‘New Record’ column in the results.
  • Monitor: We prevent users from adding a new manual record without key column values.
  • Monitor: Fixed an issue with the licensing service that was causing some users to encounter a licensing error when opening a tenant.
  • Monitor: Resolved an issue where silent renewal of login could prompt an expired login message.
  • Monitor: Resolved issues with licensing service occasionally failing to validate a tenant.
  • Integrate: Fixed an issue where the task cleanup parameter was being ingested as an Azure Shipyard parameter and causing the task to fail.
  • Integrate: Fixed a typo in the home page message regarding no connections.
  • Integrate: Fixed an issue where selecting a different connection template did not update the connection string window.
  • Integrate: Resolved issues with the licensing service occasionally failing to validate a tenant.
  • Assist: We have fixed an issue with the Windows mounting script for storage repositories.
  • Assist: We fixed an issue where Solution Collection costs were not tracked for the remainder of the month after the Solution Collection was deleted.
  • Assist: Fixed a bug where you could not invite users in certain scenarios.
  • Assist: Resolved a bug where silent renewal of login could prompt an expired login message.
  • Assist: We have resolved issues with the licensing service occasionally failing to validate a tenant, and an issue that was causing some users to encounter a licensing error when opening a tenant.

Agent

This update requires agent version - 2022.11.21.1

Please download a new install script and update your agent to use new features, improvements, and fixes.

This version of the agent requires you to download a new install script for the agent from your tenant's 'Agent' page in [Monitor](/monitor/how-to-add-an-agent/), [Integrate](/integrate/agents/installing-an-agent/#navigating-to-the-agent-installer-in-loome-integrate-online-interface), or [Assist](/assist/agents/how-to-set-up-your-agent/).

New Features

  • Monitor: We have added Excel Export and Import. To use Import and Export you will need to update your agent. Read more above.
  • Monitor: We have added Decimal and Boolean Custom Fields. To use these custom fields, you will need to update your agent. You can learn more about each custom field above.
  • Integrate: : We have improved the agent installation and lifecycle in Loome Integrate so that when an external factor causes the agent process to be terminated ungracefully, the agent will inform the service that any running tasks at the time of the termination have failed. This will be reflected in the Job status and logs.
  • Integrate: We have added support for Azure Batch in Loome Integrate. This includes the ability to query VM and image sizes for your Batch account, a single ‘Azure File Share Storage’ connector, and support for containers in Azure Batch tasks. To use Azure Batch you will need to update your agent. Please read more above.
  • Integrate: We have improved the logging service. When updating your agent, the agent service will now communicate with au-logging.loomesoftware.com or us-logging.loomesoftware.com.
  • Assist: We have made several improvements to the agent installation and lifecycle. Please read more above.

Improvements

  • Monitor: The default order of records in the results view now prioritizes default statuses.
  • Monitor: We modified the rule results view to show the source data columns before the custom field columns. You will need to re-run your rule to update this.
  • Integrate: You can now use GIT connections on container agents.
  • Integrate: We have updated the Google Analytics driver to support the new GA4 API.
  • Integrate: Added support for Zuora environments outside of the main US production environment.
  • Integrate: Updated the Salesforce connector to a version that supports the Bulk API.
  • Integrate: We have added an Epicor connector.
  • Integrate: We added the ability to override the NVidia driver version for Shipyard tasks.
  • Assist: You can now provide a non-unique name for storage repositories. Loome Assist will make it unique when naming the storage repository in Azure.
  • Assist: When creating a VM, or solution collection containing a VM, you will be blocked from using reserved usernames on Azure.

Fixes

  • Monitor: We have fixed an issue where the ‘New Record’ column is being returned as an integer to the results page, and not filterable as a Boolean.
  • Monitor: The Reconciliation rule type was previously adding ‘Alert’ as the rule type in the LM__MAPPING table.
  • Monitor: You could previously not use a datetime column as a key column in a manual Glossary or Reference.
  • Monitor: We fixed an issue where a Reconciliation rule was not populating both sides (LHS/RHS) of data into the communications table.
  • Monitor: The ‘Assigned to’ column had an issue where empty values were generating new rows into the metadata table on every run.
  • Monitor: Fixed an issue with Synapse rules where a custom list value could not be selected on a row.
  • Monitor: We fixed a bug where certain numeric types were being treated as Varbinary.
  • Monitor: We have fixed an issue that occurred when key columns had large string values of over 50 characters.
  • Monitor: We fixed a bug that prevented spaces in metadata column names.
  • Monitor: Fixed an issue where a new manual record is not marked as new in the ‘New Record’ column in the results. New records will be updated when the rule is run.
  • Integrate: We fixed an issue where the task cleanup parameter was being ingested as a Shipyard parameter and causing the task to fail.
  • Assist: We have fixed an issue where solution collection costs were not tracked for the remainder of the month after the Solution Collection was deleted.