May 2023 release notes

The first user on the account has to complete a series of steps before other people can start using ThoughtSpot with your organization’s data. For these instructions, see Getting Started with ThoughtSpot Cloud.

When you create a Worksheet, ThoughtSpot automatically creates synonyms for each column name. Users can easily start searching on your data, without knowing the exact names for every column. For example, if you have a column named Product type, ThoughtSpot might create a synonym such as Product Category. When a user searches for revenue by product category, for example, ThoughtSpot returns sales by product type. This feature must be enabled by ThoughtSpot Support. For more information, see Create synonyms for a column.

Add notes to your Liveboards, so that viewers of your Liveboards can quickly understand how to use the data and visualizations you gathered. Note tiles can provide an overview of a Liveboard or visualization, company branding through images, definitions of terms used in the Liveboard, and so on. This feature must be enabled by your administrator. See Liveboard note tiles.

Upload your own custom maps and visualize data on geo charts with regions that are specific to you and your organization.

The Parameters feature is now GA and on by default. Any user can now create Parameters at the Answer level to optimize their data inquiries. Analysts can also create Worksheet Parameters that are available to all Worksheet users. Use Parameters to run different scenarios with adjustable values, without creating or modifying the constants in formulas for each new value. For more information, refer to Create parameters and Using parameters.

Arrange Liveboard filters in the filter bar so that they are in a logical, coherent order, by dragging and dropping them to different spots in the list. This makes it easier for viewers of the Liveboard to understand and use the filters on the Liveboard. For more information, see Change the filter order.

TML for Monitor alerts is now GA and on by default. Export, edit, and import KPI Monitor alerts programmatically, using ThoughtSpot Modeling Language. For more information, see Syntax of the Monitor alert TML file.

For data security, you may choose to remove attached files from scheduled Liveboard emails. When this feature is enabled, scheduled Liveboard email recipients will receive an email with a link to the Liveboard, which they will need to sign in to see.To ensure that only signed-in users can access your data, contact ThoughtSpot Support to enable this option. For more information, see Scheduled Liveboards.

When creating an alert for a KPI chart, you can now include a custom message in the alert update email. You can use this feature to specify next steps the alert subscribers should take once the KPI reaches a certain threshold.

Optionally disable heatmap charts' data labels, and understand the chart quickly by scanning the heatmap colors. This makes complex heatmap charts with many data values easier to read. See Heatmap charts.

When scheduling Liveboards, you can now specify your timezone.

For any column with a high cardinality, which is defined as more than 100,000 unique column values, ThoughtSpot does not index the column if the index type is DEFAULT. This means the column values do not show up in search suggestions. Previously, this limit was 1 million unique column values. This change improves performance, and reduces index times and memory usage.

Adjust Parameter values at runtime from Liveboard or Answer URLs, or using REST API v1 requests. For more information, see Runtime overrides for Parameters and Runtime Parameters.

By default, scheduled and downloaded Liveboard PDFs now render at a width of 1920 px. This ensures that most Liveboard PDFs you download or schedule look the same as the Liveboards you see in ThoughtSpot. You can also change this default width to a different width for your company, by contacting ThoughtSpot Support. See Download a Liveboard as a PDF and Schedule a Liveboard job.

When scheduling Liveboards, you can now specify your time zone. For more information, see Schedule a Liveboard job.

Group aggregate filter enhancements are GA and on by default. Previously, when using group_aggregate formulas, users could use query_filters to include filters entered in the search bar in the formula’s value, but it was difficult to write a formula that accepted filters from only a single column.
Starting with this release, you can specify column names within the ‘filters’ section of a group_aggregate formula, and any filter in your search bar referencing that column will be added to the formula. Filters entered in the search bar that are not on columns specified in the third argument of the group_aggregate formula will be ignored. For details, see Group aggregation filters.

To reduce confusion when using aggregate formulas, the level of detail defined in group formulas is now respected at query level. For more information, see Flexible aggregation functions.
To reduce confusion when using aggregate formulas, the level of detail defined in group formulas is now respected at query level. For example, when trying to calculate the contribution of each store’s sales to the entire region, you might use a group_sum formula, where the sales at store level is divided by the sales at regional level. Your search would include the following columns: Revenue, Customer nation, Regional Revenue formula, and Customer region, where Regional Revenue formula = group_sum(Revenue, Customer Region).
According to the old reaggregation behavior, if a customer removed Customer region from the search bar, the level of detail in the formula would no longer be respected and the formula’s denominator would re-aggregate up to the total. In this case, the formula result would display revenue as a percentage of total revenue, rather than as a percentage of regional revenue.
Under the new aggregation behavior, the formula result will continue to display revenue as a percentage of each region, even if you remove Customer region from the search bar. Visualizations will also display the correct aggregation even if the grouping column is not added to the X-axis.
For more information, see Flexible aggregation functions.

Data labels on a dark background are now GA and on by default. Labels that appear on a dark background now display in a lighter text color, making them easier to read.

We improved the syntax of our text keywords, such as begins with and contains, to provide users with more flexibility. For example, the contains keyword now accepts expressions such as product name contains 'shoes' or 'snickers'. See the Keyword reference.

You can now use natural language to search for answers to your business questions. To try it out, navigate to the Home page, select the search bar labeled Ask any business question you have and type your question. When you enter your question, you will see the AI generated answer appear, along with a list of related Answers created by users in your team.

The AI-suggested searches feature helps you think of relevant questions to ask of your own data source, by providing examples of searches. This feature is designed to help you get started if you are a new user of Search Data, or if you are working with a new Worksheet. For more information, see AI-suggested searches. This feature must be enabled by ThoughtSpot Support.

Click on any data point in your Liveboard and easily filter the entire Liveboard by that value. For example, if you select California in a geo chart on your Liveboard, and then select Filter, all the other visualizations only show data from California. A visualization for Total sales by city, for example, would only show sales for cities in California. This feature is also called brushing and linking. This feature must be enabled by your administrator. For more information about cross filters, see Liveboard cross filters.

Mandatory Liveboard filters are now GA. Mark certain filters in your Liveboard as mandatory. If you add mandatory filters to a Liveboard, the visualizations will only load after Liveboard viewers select values for the mandatory filters. Use mandatory filters for Liveboards that contain data that may not be relevant for everyone who must view and consume the Liveboard. Mandatory filters also lower query and performance costs.

You can now set your KPI chart to display a percent change comparison between the most recent data point and a custom comparison point. For example, when searching for sales monthly, you can choose to see percent change between this month and the previous month, previous quarter, or previous year. For more information, see Custom comparison points.

KPI change analysis is now GA and on by default. You can now use change analysis to directly identify the key drivers for change in your KPIs.

You can now see anomalies in time-series KPI charts. Our new anomaly detection algorithm detects data which does not fall within the expected confidence intervals, while allowing for seasonal changes and growth over time. This feature must be enabled by your administrator. To try it out, open your KPI chart as an Answer, open the chart configuration menu, and select Show anomalies. See Anomaly detection.

You can now use ThoughtSpot Sync to sync data directly from an Answer or custom SQL view to the following apps:

When scheduling a sync with an external app, you can now choose to schedule every 5, 10, 15, 20, 30, and 45 minutes, in addition to the other existing schedule options.

When creating a sync to HubSpot, you can now use email as a mapping field on the Contacts object type, as well as ContactID.

The apply multiple changes feature is now GA and on by default. In previous releases, every time a user reordered the fields in the chart configuration panel, the chart reloaded. When creating a visualization with multiple fields, users often need to make multiple rearrangements to reach a desired chart. Now users can make multiple configurations and apply them at the same time rather than waiting in between each configuration. For more information, see Reorder labels on the axis or legend.

We streamlined the file format options when downloading tables and charts from ThoughtSpot. You can download tables in XLSX, CSV, or PDF format, and download charts in XLSX, CSV, or PNG format. To try it out, open a chart or table, and select Download from the more options menu . For more information, see Download a chart or table.

ThoughtSpot is updating the Liveboard experience for the mobile app. Mobile app users can now view KPI charts in Liveboards.

When using ThoughtSpot Mobile, you can now press the Load More button at the bottom of a table to see the next 100 rows of data.

This release improves the translated French keywords. See Français (France) Keyword reference.

In your user profile, you can now set the option of receiving email notifications when other users share Liveboards or answers with you, or when they request access to Liveboards or answers which you edit. These new preferences are enabled by default. See Notification preferences.

You can now create connections from ThoughtSpot to SQL Server. For details, see SQL Server.

You can now create connections from ThoughtSpot to Generic JDBC databases. For details, see Generic JDBC.

You can now connect to and query Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL databases.

When creating a connection to Databricks, you can now enter your catalog name under the Catalog field. For more information, see Add a Databricks connection.

When creating a sync to an external app, admin users will no longer see destinations created by other users in the Destinations dropdown menu. Admin users will still be able to see a list of all destinations created by users in their organization when they navigate to the Destinations tab in the Data workspace.

Remove columns from tables in ThoughtSpot by deleting them in the tables' TML files. We support deleting a column from a TML file and removing that column’s dependencies in the same zip file import. Note that if the deletion of a column fails, the whole import will fail. For more information, see Deleting columns, joins, and RLS rules.

Use TML to directly edit a join condition by editing the TML file’s on parameter. This replaces the existing process of deleting and recreating the join in TML or the ThoughtSpot application. For more information, see TML join syntax.

We standardized the method of creating joins for all data objects in ThoughtSpot. When creating a join from a view, users are now directed to a Create join page where they can choose a connection, name the join, and map the source and destination columns.

In this release, administrators can contact ThoughtSpot Support to enable Private Preview features, which are complete, and available for select customers to try before they reach GA, when they are enabled by default. Then, administrators can selectively enable or disable this feature set for users and groups, using the Can preview ThoughtSpot Sage user privilege. For more information, see Private Preview features and Understanding privileges.

Cross-Region Disaster Recovery allows ThoughtSpot to recover your ThoughtSpot instance in a secondary cloud region in the case of a failure of the primary cloud region where ThoughtSpot is running. This ensures that if one cloud region fails, ThoughtSpot can start in another region, guaranteeing minimal downtime. See Data Protection and Disaster Recovery.

Use the Object Usage Liveboard to easily track how specific objects (Liveboards, Answers, Worksheets, or tables) are trending over time. Our new visualizations allow you to understand adoption on the object-level, and filter on a specific user or users to see usage on the user-level. For more information, see Object Usage Liveboard.