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Release notes

Arria Connect

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Version 2.3.2

February 2023

New features and enhancements

The CHANGELOG.md file has been updated with the latest information.

 

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Version 2.3.1

February 2023

New features and enhancements

The in-code documentation for all API notebook samples has been updated.

 

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Version 2.3.0

February 2023

Note

Arria Connect SDK version 2.2 was released internally only.

New features and enhancements

  • NLG Apps: New apps added

    The following two new apps are now available, bringing the number of available apps to ten:

    • Anomalies: This app detects, highlights, and contextualizes anomalies in a dataset, drilling down through multiple dimensions to build the narrative.

    • Correlations: This app detects and highlights correlations between measures — at a single point or across a time range — broken down by a number of dimensions.

    The API and UI libraries, as well as the samples and notebooks, have been updated to include the two new apps.

 

  • NLG Apps: Optimization of four existing apps

    The following four apps have been optimized to offer more control over narrative length, content, and formatting:

    • Describe a Bar Chart

    • Time-Based Variance

    • Target-Based Variance

    • Trend Analysis

    The optimizations are:

    • Greater control of narrative content

      • At each level of drilldown, control the number of insights described in the narrative by number, threshold percentage, or statistical significance.

      • At each level of drilldown, control the order in which your insights are sorted (descending or ascending).

      • In the Time-Based Variance app, compare periods of comparable length using the Period to date option.

    • Enhanced readability

      • Narratives contain fewer and more concise headers.

      • Multiple insights are presented in bulleted lists.

      • Highlight positive and negative variance values with color markup.

      • Indent narratives at each level of drilldown.

 

  • API: NEW NLG Apps sample notebooks

    A set of runnable notebook samples has been added, which introduce developers to NLG apps, each app's configuration parameters, and their output.

    These notebooks show how the Arria Connect API can be used by itself in Node.js, without using the UI component.

    There is a separate notebook for each app.

 

  • API: NEW ui-single-page sample

    A new front-end sample has been added which allows developers to see a complete API implementation in a single, extensively commented index.html file.

    This file can be opened in an editor to see:

    • all stages involved in a headless Arria Connect SDK implementation, which uses the Arria Connect API only, without the UI component.

    • an example of a dataset (which is hardcoded for the purpose of this example) and associated column definitions.

    • an example of all apps parameters required to generate a narrative (all values are hardcoded for the purpose of this example).

    • an implementation of a simple custom UI, including dropdown lists for all NLG Apps and Arria Answers.

    When opened in a browser, the index.html file displays a simple dropdown menu, which uses the hardcoded data and parameters to generates the narrative for the selected app and displays it in the same browser window.

 

  • Angular Core Update: Updated to version 14.2

 

 

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Version 2.1.0

September 2021

New features and enhancements

  • API + UI: New aggregation and entity types for Arria Apps

    Apps can now generate narratives from data with a wider variety of aggregation and entity types. To create these new capabilities, changes were made to the UI and API libraries.

    • The new aggregation types are: Average, Minimum, Maximum, Count, and Don't summarize

    • The new entity types are: Percentage, Rating, and Ratio

    Changes were made to the UI and API libraries to reflect these new types.

  • API + UI: Apps availability checks

    Apps are now marked 'available' in the API when app measure/dimensions conditions are met, and greyed out in the UI if those conditions are not met.

    • In the API Library, the new NlgApps.getNlgAppsEvaluated() method marks apps as "available" when their measure/dimension conditions are met.

    • In the UI, the list of NLG Apps in the App selection screen shows an app as unavailable when the measures/dimensions conditions are not met. A message is displayed with an explanation.

  • Other fixes and improvements

    This information is available to customers with an Arria Account and Studio license. Access it from this link.

 

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Version 2.0.0

February 2021

New features and enhancements

  • Arria Apps (formerly out-of-the-box narratives):

    Arria Apps automatically generate narratives for a specified purpose from a dataset.

    Five new apps have been added to the three already existing ones:

    • Describe a Bar Chart app

    • Describe a Line Chart app

    • Describe a Pie Chart app

    • Trend Analysis app

    • Ranking Analysis app

    This brings the total number of available apps to eight, the original apps being: the Statistical Analysis app, the Time-based Variance Analysis app, and the Target-based Variance Analysis app.

    Here's what each app does:

    EightAppsDescriptions.png

     

  • Arria Answers

    Arria Answers is an Arria product offering that is now embedded in Arria Connect. It is a conversational-AI platform that enables developers to add a chat interface to BI dashboards.

    The Answers interface allows end users to query their data using natural language for instant insights and for drilling down into more detail.

    Features:

    • Question-and-answer style interaction with your data in natural language using a chat interface.

    • Instant insights and support for follow-up questions in more detail.

    • Sample questions to help users start interacting with Arria Answers quickly.

    • Autocomplete feature - suggestions are based on entities in the data (excludes temporal dimensions and their aliases).

    • Highlighting of entity names in questions if the entity is represented in the data (excludes temporal dimensions).

    • Alerts when entity names are not represented in the data.

    • Support for single or multiple aliases per entity. Aliases are displayed instead of entity names in the suggestions list. They are also displayed in autocomplete suggestions and highlighted in questions.

    • More configuration options: defining context for questions  (e.g. measure and dimensions selection screen to put questions into context and enable meaningful suggestions).

    • Copyable questions

    • Headless mode, for integration of Arria Answers with other client applications.

     

  • Use of aliases in Arria Answers and Arria Apps

    Aliases can now be used for names of measures and dimensions. This can make the narrative clearer and easier to read, especially when entity names in the source data contain codes or abbreviations.

    • A new field for alias configuration has been added to the NLG Apps Attribute configuration screen.

      Each NLG Apps entity can have a single alias.

    • A field for alias configuration is included on the Arria Answers Attribute configuration screen.

      Each Arria Answers entity can have up to three aliases.

     

  • Quickstart reference implementation

    The existing quickstart reference implementation has been rebuilt using the new API and UI libraries. It reflects all of the changes described above.

    Note

    This original quickstart reference implementation has been deprecated. It is still available in Arria Connect for now, but will be removed in the future.

    The quickstart reference implementation will be replaced by the quickstart2 reference implementation, described below, which is also included in the Arria Connect package.

  • Quickstart2 reference implementation

    A new reference implementation, quickstart2, has been added. Also built by using Connect's API and UI libraries, it is a demo web application that illustrates the SDK's ready-to-implement user interface and NLG functionality.

    It gives developers a good idea of what they can create using Arria Connect.

    The quickstart2 is presented as a generic dashboard with a fully functioning NLG add-in.

    Features:

    • Data panel for CSV file upload

    • Filters panel to represent filters on the BI Tool UI.

    • Fully featured NLG add-in (middle panel in the screenshot below)

      This add-in uses the data from the CSV file to populate configuration options on the UI, for example dropdown lists. It allows narrative generation via NLG Apps, Arria Answers or Custom Narrative.

    • Developer Tools panel (not shown in screenshot):

      • Toggle Connect Features panel: this allows developers to control the availability of Connect features within the add-in user interface. Toggles are available for:

        • The Configure your data screen and corresponding menu

        • The NLG Apps, Arria Answers and Custom Narrative options on the Service selection screen

        • The Mapping script window for Custom Narratives

      • Dispatch Events panel

      • Observation Console window

    QS2Initial.png

     

  • Code samples

    New code samples have been added, to facilitate developers' understanding of Arria Connect, and to speed up the development process.

    The new additions are the following:

    • api-notebooks with runnable code snippets to facilitate better understanding of the API library.

    • ui-boilerplate skeleton code to use as a barebones example of an Arria Connect UI implementation

    • api-arria-answers-rest to show how the Arria Connect Arria Answers API can be used as a REST service.

     

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Notable changes

  • UI / UX upgrades

    The UI has been upgraded completely to reflect the addition of Arria Answers and Arria Apps, and the other changes listed in these release notes:

    • Updated the Configure your data screen.

    • Updated the Service selection screen. This now includes NLG Apps (previously called "Configure Narrative") Arria Answers and Custom Narratives.

    • Added entitlement checks when the user selects NLG Apps, Arria Answers or Custom Narratives on the Service selection screen. A message is displayed if the user does not have the necessary entitlements.

    • Added the five new apps to the NLG Apps selection screen.

    • Updated the Custom Narrative screen.

    • Updated context menus to include Arria Answers, Arria Apps and Custom Narratives.

    • Renamed "API Settings" to "Settings" in the context menu.

    • Updated the Settings screen to give access to

      • API settings (allowing configuration of the BIIS URL and API key).

      • font / color settings.

    • Auto-refresh of UI screens on changes to data source selection, list of columns or column attributes, filters, or column values.

    ServiceSelectionScreen.png
    NLGAppsSelectionScreenSmall.png
    AASuggestions.png
    CustomNarrative.png

     

  • API improvements

    The following improvements to the API library makes it simpler for developers to use the IArriaConnect Interface:

    • Improved async support.

    • All methods with names beginning with save or load have been deprecated.

    • A single save/load persistence method replaces the above-mentioned methods.

    • New methods have been added to control different client implementations to open URLs and copy to clipboard.

    • Events handling has been simplified to be a single arriaConnectRefresh event that the Arria Connect UI listens to.

    • New featuresAvailable() method in theacui.IArriaConnectApi interface that controls which UI features are enabled/disabled.

     

  • Customer hosted mode

    Arria Connect 2 is now available to companies who choose to self-host Arria NLG Studio.

     

  • Developer documentation updates

    All documentation has been updated to reflect the new features and changes described in these release notes:

    • Developer guide

    • In-code documentation available via IDE and file browser

    • README files

    • .ts files

     

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Known issues

  • Context menu

    Adding a new dataset after some data has already been configured disables the NLG Apps, Arria Answers and Custom Narratives options in the Context menu.

  • Service selection screen

    The NLG Apps, Arria Answers and Custom Narrative options are enabled on the Service selection screen before the data is configured. They should not be enabled until after the data has been configured.

  • Configure your data screen

    When multiple datasets have been uploaded, the Configure your data screen presents issues with the measures and dimensions selections.

  • NLG Apps

    • Numbers with thousand separators in numeric data fields are not supported. No narratives can be generated from those fields.

    • Trend Analysis app

      The Trend Analysis App Attribute configuration screen disables the measures section if the measure is removed in the Configure your data screen. This option should remain available, so that users can select a new measure for their Trend Analysis narrative.

    • Target-based Variance app

      The UI currently offers the Ranking Analysis option. This is incorrect and will be replaced by a Distribution Analysis option.

  • Arria Answers

    • Arria Answers Chat screen: the refresh action takes the user back to the Arria Answers Attribute configuration screen. This will be changed, so that users stay on the Chat screen after refreshing with all the questions in the Chat screen as seen before the refresh.

    • The scrollbar is missing in Arria Answers when the chat log height exceeds the viewport.

    • The number formatting is missing for the group by dimension query.

 

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Version 1.0.0

21 July 2020

First Release

 

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