Whats New in Viya 4 Visual Analytics – A concise history of product feature releases
Long term Support Releases
2020.1 (November 2020)
Contents of 2020.1
The 2020.1 long-term support release is based on the 2020.0.6 stable release. It includes all features in the stable releases 2020.0.1 through 2020.0.6.
Critical Change
You can no longer import content from Facebook, Google Analytics, Google Drive, Twitter, or YouTube on the Import tab in the Choose Data window. This change is due to changes in the access that these companies permit to third parties like SAS.
Report Review Pane
There is a new Report Review pane where you can analyze a report and identify issues with performance and accessibility. For more information, see Using the Report Review Pane.
New Configuration Property
There is a new IFrame Sandbox Attribute Value configuration property, which specifies the value of the sandbox attribute for inline frames (iframes) in SAS Visual Analytics reports. For more information, see Configuration Properties: SAS Visual Analytics.
General Enhancements
2021.1 (May 2021)
Export Table Data to Microsoft Excel Workbooks
You can now export crosstab and list table data with its structure preserved to a Microsoft Excel workbook. For more information, see Exporting Data, Microsoft Excel Workbooks, and Images from Objects.
Note: All of the Export menu items are now consistent for reports, pages, and objects. Here are two examples: the Print page menu item has been replaced with Export
PDF and Save image has been replaced by Export
Image.
Import Report Pages
You can now import a page from another report into your current report. For more information, see Import a Page from Another Report.
New Page Type
You can now create a new type of report page called a hidden page. This new Hidden page type enables you to hide a page in a report that is in a draft state or that is otherwise incomplete from users who are viewing the report. For more information about the available page types, see Overview of Pages.
Custom Page Templates
You can now create custom page templates to ensure consistency across your reports. When you create a custom page template, you can include data-related items, a report theme, or both. If you are an administrator, you can publish custom page templates for other users to access. For more information, see Using Page Templates.
Object Templates for Analytical Objects
You can now create object templates from analytical objects (all of the objects that are listed under the Analytics, SAS Visual Statistics, and SAS Visual Data Mining and Machine Learning headings in the Objects pane).
Geographic Maps in the Automated Explanation Object
The automated explanation object now displays geographic maps when the response variable is a measure and the selected underlying factor is a geography.
URL Parameters for Viewing Reports
When you specify the values of report parameters in the URL for a report, you can now specify the labels of the parameter data items rather than the internal name of the parameter. For example, you might specify “Region” instead of “pr75”.
Terminology Change in Documentation
The term “quick calculation” replaces “derived item” for data items that you can create by using the New calculation pop-up menu selection on the Data pane.
General Enhancements
When you are viewing a report, a pop-up menu enables you to select or deselect totals and subtotals for individual category and measure data items in a crosstab.
When you are viewing a report, a pop-up menu enables you to select or deselect totals for individual measure data items in a list table.
2021.2 (November 2021)
Critical Changes
Change in Support on Windows Mobile Devices
The SAS Visual Analytics App for Windows no longer supports SAS Viya 4 deployments. Instead, users of Windows mobile devices can install SAS Visual Analytics as a Progressive Web Application (PWA).
For more information, see Install SAS Visual Analytics as a Progressive Web App.
New Options for Network Analysis Objects
Options for the network analysis object have changed. The new Network structure option and Link type option specify the structure and link directionality for the network.
New Progressive Web App Functionality
SAS Visual Analytics can now be installed as a Progressive Web App (PWA), enabling you to use the product as a desktop app instead of in a web browser. Only Chromium-based browsers support PWA. For more information, see Install SAS Visual Analytics as a Progressive Web App.
Export SAS Report Packages
You can now export a report and a snapshot of your data and query results for a report from SAS Visual Analytics to a SAS report package.
You do not have to export an entire report. Instead, you can select individual objects, containers, and pages that you want to export. The report package includes a snapshot of the report, images, style sheets, and data that is needed to render the selected objects. It also includes any additional data that is needed to support any actions that are defined between the objects. You can then use the SAS Visual Analytics SDK to embed the report information into your custom web pages and portals. For more information, see Exporting SAS Report Packages and SAS Report Package Reference.
Outlier Insights
The new Insights window identifies possible outlier values in the data for the objects in your report.
If outlier values are detected, then the icon appears in the report toolbar.
Outlier Detection in the Data Pane
Measures in the Data pane are automatically checked for potential outlier values.
The icon appears beside measures that might have outlier values.
Outlier detection can be disabled by the Disable automatic outlier detection for the Data pane user setting and the disableAutomaticOutlierDetection configuration property.
New Geographic Mapping Objects
There are four new geographic mapping objects: geo bubble, geo cluster, geo line, and geo line-coordinate.
The new geo bubble and geo cluster objects provide dedicated objects for functionality that was previously part of the geo coordinate object. The geo bubble object displays data as a bubble plot on a map background. The geo cluster object displays a clustered scatter plot on a map background, in which coordinate markers that are in close proximity are clustered together into a single marker.
The geo line and geo line-coordinate objects enable you to display line segments on a map. You can use geo line maps and geo line-coordinate maps to display linear geographical features such as roads, railroads, pipelines, bus routes, and so on.
Change Type of Geographic Map Layers
For geographic mapping objects, a new Change type option enables you to change a specific data layer in the map to a different type of map layer. For example, if you click Change type on the Region option group for a geo region-coordinate map, you can change the region layer of the map to a different type.
Updated Values for Geographical Maps
The geographical lookup values for SAS Visual Analytics have been updated with the following changes:
High-Contrast Background for Geographic Maps
The OpenStreetMap High Contrast map background is available for geographic maps. The High Contrast map is optimized to provide the best usability for users with low vision.
If you set the map background to Automatic, then the High Contrast map is automatically selected when the high-contrast theme is displayed.
Automatic Value Grouping for Custom Categories
When you create a custom category that is based on a measure, you can generate the value intervals automatically by clicking Generate groups in the New Custom Category window. You can also generate a custom category for a measure by right-clicking a measure in the Data pane and selecting New custom category.
Enhanced Localization for Analytical Objects
Generated text is now localized in the following objects: forecasting, network analysis, path analysis, and text topics. If SAS Visual Statistics is not licensed at your site, then the basic decision tree also has localized generated text.
New Service and Configuration Properties
The new Visual Analytics service (sas.visualanalytics.api.settings) has these new configuration properties:
For more information, see Configuration Properties: Visual Analytics Service.
General Enhancements
2022.1 (May 2022)
Geo Pie Object
The new geo pie object enables you to display your data as pie charts on a geographic map. You can use the geo pie object to display the distribution of category values for each location or region on the map. Read more
Enhancements to the Outliers Insight
The Outliers insight now provides a detailed outlier analysis for each object in your report that is affected by outlier values. The analysis includes an impact assessment that quantifies the effect of outlier values.
Changes to Application Themes
Recommended Reports in the Home Pane
In the home pane, you can select Recommended to see a list of recommended reports. Reports are recommended based on other users’ recent activity, such as opening the report, sharing it, and adding comments.
SAS Content SDK
The new SAS Content SDK enables you to browse your SAS content inside of a custom web page or web application. Read more
Enhanced Support for Exporting SAS Report Packages
A hierarchy can now be the source of an action in an exported report.
General Enhancements
2022.09 (November 2022)
Deprecation of the Rapid Growth Option for the Decision Tree Object
The "Rapid growth" option for the decision tree object has been deprecated.
You cannot select the Rapid growth option for new decision trees. Existing decision trees for which the Rapid growth option was selected are currently unchanged. When the option is disabled, it is removed from the Options pane.
You can achieve similar results to rapid growth at the data preparation stage by combining levels of high-cardinality variables. You can also use custom categories for managing high-cardinality variables.
Promote Custom Graph Templates from Previous Releases
You can promote the custom graph templates that you created in SAS Visual Analytics 7.5 and 7.51 to the 2022.1.3 release. For details about the types of content that you can promote, see Overview of Promoting and Migrating Content.
Enhanced Support for Exporting SAS Report Packages
Hierarchies with percent-of-total and context-sensitive calculations are now supported for exported report packages.
SAS Viya SDK for JavaScript
The SAS Visual Analytics SDK, which includes the va-report-components library, and the SAS Content SDK, which includes the content-components library, are now included in the SAS Viya SDK for JavaScript.
General Enhancements
2023.03 (May 2023)
Enhanced Support for Exporting SAS Report Packages
Hierarchies with ranks are now supported for exported report packages.
Updated Application Bar
You can use the new help icon on the application bar to access the Help Center. In previous releases, you had to click the user button to access the Help Center menu item.
Updated Objects Pane
The headings in the Objects pane have been revised. The modeling objects are now listed under the Statistics and Machine Learning headings.
Updated Settings Window
A new Modeling heading has replaced the Visual Statistics heading in the Settings window. The available settings did not change.
There is also 2023.10 https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/vacdc/v_023/vawn/p1e5eve74c4j1fn161xpa51bgs6e.htm
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