2021.3 Product Changes

Validatar has a new release! From major updates to minor bug fixes, we're constantly working to improve your Validatar experience so you can continue to build trust in your data. Learn about what's new below.

New Look and Feel

The UI and navigation have changed to reflect the discovery and reporting nature of Validatar better, in addition to data quality testing.

• There's a new home page! Discover details about data sources, projects, and reports as soon as you log in.
• A new toolbar provides quick access to the Explorer, Projects, Reports, and Settings areas.
  • The navigation tree on the left changes depending on which areas mentioned above were selected in the toolbar.

API Integration

For organizations on the Enterprise Edition, API integration is now available!

• Use API endpoints to create Validatar objects, execute tests and jobs, and manage users.
• Get in touch with us to learn how to expose the API documentation on your local Validatar install.

Data Sources Changes

Manage data sources globally instead of under project settings. That's right, no more creating duplicate data sources for each project using a particular database.

• You can quickly discover and navigate to objects in a data source by drilling into the data source on the Explorer's navigation tree. Click on the object to navigate to its data profile.
• Create and manage data environments for data sources. Go to Settings > Configuration > Data Environments to manage the environments. Assign the environment to a data source by navigating to the data source's settings.

Implications of Moving Data Sources

• The names of existing data sources have been concatenated to include the data source name and the project from where it was migrated.
• All data sources that existed before upgrading to 2021.3 are assigned to the Migrated environment.
• You can assign data sources to projects in the new Projects subsection found in Data Source Settings.
• We've added the ability to merge duplicate data sources together if they have an identical connection string. Validatar will preserve the connections to tests, profile sets, and execution history.

Learn more about the migration of data sources at Data Source and Explorer Changes

Improved Testing

The long-awaited ability to compare string values in Validatar is finally here!

• Compare strings using the following test data types:
  • Key-Value List SQL (previously known as Multi-Value SQL)
  • Single-Value SQL
  • String Value
• Use regular expressions on the string value test type to detect patterns. Not a regex expert? No problem! Find out more about common regular expressions here.
• Speaking of Key-Value List SQL, we've changed the name from Multi-Value SQL to explain better that this type of test expects a SQL script that returns only two columns: a key column and a value column.
  • With the addition of string testing, there are now test data type options for both string and numeric value testing.

What's New with Reporting

Everything! We're introducing the ability to connect Tableau dashboards to Validatar and view reports on previously executed tests and jobs.

• Connect to your Tableau Server account by navigating to Settings > Configuration > Reporting.
• You can also find reports for both Test and Job Execution History by clicking on Reports in the new navigation bar. Add filters to the report and save the view for easy access for your or your team.

Keep an eye out for other custom reports and views coming soon!

Storage Improvements

You can now save your test and profile results to Snowflake instead of using the local Validatar database.

• Why? A cloud database is more flexible, effiecient, and can be scaled up-or-down quickly depending on its usage unlike locally stored databases.
• How? Have a global admin go to Settings > Configuration > Result Storage, set up and validate the connection to Snowflake, then switch the Storage Location to Snowflake.

Other Improvements

• Modified Move/Copy button: Move or copy tests and folders straight from the Test Repository page using the Move/Copy button.
• Modified Global Admin role: Global Admin has been split into three sub-roles: Configuration Admin, Data Source Admin, and Security Admin.
• Deselect import objects: We've added the ability to deselect objects you want to exclude during the Import process.
• Migrated Groups: We've moved User Groups, previously known as Groups, from Project Settings to Global Settings. This change comes with the ability to merge two or more user groups.
• Long String Test Results: If a test returns a string value longer than 500 characters, the entire string result will be evaluated but only the first 500 character will be saved.

Highlighted Bug Fixes

• We've fixed a bug that allowed the user to change the object selection setting in Template tests unintentionally.
• We've fixed a bug that required the purge profile set results setting to be configured and enabled before executing a default profile set.
• We've corrected a bug where users could use a non-numeric profile result in a test.
• We've corrected an issue in SMTP settings where users received an error message when sending a test email if they left the username field blank and didn't use default credentials.
• We've fixed a bug that was causing scheduled jobs containing a profile set step to lock.
• We've fixed a bug that didn't filter custom profile references on Template Tests correctly.
• We've corrected a bug where non-global admin users couldn't upload Template Tests import files.