Release 6.4

ADVIZOR Analyst 6.4 Release Notes

January 1, 2014

ADVIZOR Solutions, Inc Copyright 2000 - 2014, ADVIZOR Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This file contains product information for ADVIZOR Analyst 6.4 products. These release notes are available in the User Guide available from ADVIZOR Analyst under "Help".

Index

• Instructional videos are available online.

• Product use is described in the "User Guide" available from within ADVIZOR Analyst from "Help".

• Implementation scenarios and supported hardware and software configurations are described in the "ADVIZOR Implementation Guide" that is located in the directory where ADVIZOR Analyst is installed (typically c:/Program Files/ADVIZOR Soutions/{Product Name}/ADVIZOR Implementation Guide.pdf").

• New in this Release

• Known Problems and Hints

• Technical Support

New in this Release

Analytics

Anaytics has been changed with a new user interface, new ways of displaying models, new support for conditioning data, and a new capability to apply models as part of data loading. See the User Guide section on "Predictive Analytics" for more details, or open the Predictive Model Pane (from the "Tools" menu) and click the "?" icon at the top right to go directly to Help.

• Predictive Models built with previous versions of ADVIZOR AnalystX are not supported in R6.4. Please note the configuration of your model and re-create it.

Expression Builder

The Expression Builder has been enhanced with these new capabilities:

• A new function, "link()", allows data from two tables that have a link connecting them (e.g., selection or color link) to have data from the linked table summarized and included in the source table. This is especially useful in binning all data into a single table for use with Analytics.

• A new "distance()" function can be used to compute the distance between two points on a map.

• A new "upper()" function may be used to convert strings to upper case (previously there was only a "lower()" function for converting to lower case).

See the User Guide section "Use the Expression Builder" for more details and examples of these new functions.

User Interface Changes

• It is now possible to remove sorting on a Data Sheet or Summary Sheet via a button in the chart tool tray under the chart.

• Buttons on the chart tool bar at the top of each page now provide a way to copy the configuration of a chart and then paste it on another page. This may be used to duplicate a chart exactly.

• You can now edit the column labels in Data Sheets and Summary Sheets via a button in the chart tool tray under the chart.

• Searching is now available for the Summary Sheet in the same way as from the Data Sheet, via a button in the chart tool tray.

Maps

All available maps and geocode translation files are now stored with the product so that they do not have to be downloaded from an external web site. You still can add your own maps to the product by copying them to the installation directory.

Database Error Handling

Database data sources now give better error messages when illegal data is encountered to make debugging such problems easier.

Adv2Advm

Adv2Advm.exe can now be configured to send email when errors are encountered during processing. This makes it easier to detect and debug problems in offline processing. See the "Implementation Guide" for how to set this up.

Defects

These defects have been repaired:

• Re-writing a string field with a changed expression causes field to be corrupted.

• Clearing the Datasheet SortBy property does not update the display.

• Clearing the Summary Sheet SortBy property does not clear the column sorting.

• A color link that cannot be created is no longer removed from the project.

• Expression Builder: match() crashes comparing string to result of || operator.

• Crash on reload.

• Cannot load Advizor.data.dll after publishing project to server.

• Analyst/X crashes in Expression Builder on comparison with a literal date.

• Advizor fails with exception on save with unconfigured charts.

• Project crashes after selection in Data Sheet with particular state.

• Analyst hogs CPU for 5-10 seconds on chart resize with Project Workshop open.

• Flight recorder playback did not go to the same state for this sample.

• Drill down on hierarchy on bar chart with measure labels mangles labels.

• Filter reflects undo but not redo.

• Summary Sheet should keep unselected items in previous order after selection.

• Deleting tables in project with color model is confusing.

• Expression builder throwing in $ when I tell it not to.

• Warning about links that can't be created but no support in removing them.

• Expression Builder date calculation only works for first non-null row.

• Rollup with calculated key field adds NULL first row.

• Expression including lower() not handling NULLs correctly: evaluation stops.

• Server AE 6.3 crashes when server process shuts down due to inactivity.

• Temporary files could be left behind when writing .advm output file.

Known Problems and Hints

• Models built with previous versions of ADVIZOR AnalystX are not supported in R6.4. Please note the configuration of your model and re-create it.

• All projects must be be re-published to ADVIZOR Server for versions predating R6.1.

• See the ADVIZOR Implementation Guide (referenced above) if you are using adv2advm.

• Only install ADVIZOR Server to the default location on the "C" drive. Installing to another location will cause publishing to the server to not work.

• Existing Navigation Panes must be migrated from HTML format to RTF. If you originally created the Navigation Panes in Microsoft Word (or another text editor that will also write RTF files), you can re-write the files and then go to the Page Properties dialog in ADVIZOR Analyst and load the new file. If you do not have the source files, you can create them like this:

  • Go to each Navigation Pane in ADVIZOR Analyst.

  • Right click in the Navigation Pane and select "Select All" from the popup menu. Right click again and select "Copy" from the popup menu. This copies the current pane contents to the system clipboard.

  • Open a text editor such as Microsoft Word and paste from the clipboard.

  • Save the pane contents to a file of type "RTF".

  • Go to the Page Properties in ADVIZOR Analyst for each page with Navigation Panes and load the new files.

  • If you are using Microsoft Word, make sure that the Paragraph format has 0 points of space before and after paragraphs; other specifications are not followed when the text is displayed in ADVIZOR Analyst.

  • Only insert images that are in standard image formats such as PNG, GIF, or JPEG. Other formats may not appear if the Navigation Pane is published to ADVIZOR Server.

Technical Support

When submitting a problem to Technical Support, email is the preferred mechanism ([e-mail]). In the email, please provide as many of the following as possible:

• Your name & contact information including phone number

• The name of the product you are using and its version number

• Your license key used to install the product

• A detailed explanation of what you were doing that led up to the problem.

• Screen shot(s) and/or exact text of any error information

• Errors are logged to a file at this location; include a copy of this file:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ADVIZOR Solutions\<product name>\error.log

Or

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\ADVIZOR Solutions\error.log on Windows XP

Replace <product name> with Analyst or AnalystX, etc. as applicable to your product.

• Machine's System Information file created from the "System Information" saved as type ".nfo"

• Operating system's Application event log in .evt format so that we get the detailed event descriptions

• If you're having a database access problem, submit all relevant DB information, including DB vendor, DB version, whether the DB is local or remote, whether or not you are able to access the DB using vendor or third party supplied query tools, etc

If you encounter an error/exception and are offered the opportunity to forward diagnostic information, please do so. However, note that you can help reduce the time to resolution by also including details of the actions that led to the event. Our ability to rapidly understand the problem is significantly increased when we know all the details.

If you cannot find answers to your questions using the online help "Table of Contents", "Index" or "Find" tabs, or in this release notes file, have your application license number handy and contact us:

Call the ADVIZOR Solutions, Inc Technical Support line during business hours (8:00 AM - 4:30 PM Central time, Monday - Friday) at +1.630.971.5250

Acknowledgements

This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.