Release Notes 2025.1 (General Availability)

Note

The release notes on this page reflect changes to the Alation application. If you’re looking for OCF connector release notes, jump to OCF Connector Release Notes.

RELEASE 2025.1.1

build 20.1.0.99218

Released April 1, 2025

Note

This release is available for all Alation instance types: customer-managed (on-premise) and Alation Cloud Service.

In this release:

Alation Quick Start Tour Deprecation

The Alation Quick Start Tour feature will be discontinued in April 2025. The Quick Start Tour links have been removed from the Classic User Experience. This includes the link previously shown to new users on the Welcome screen, as well as the links that were accessible via the Help menu > Quick Start Tour in both the Catalog and Compose interfaces.

You can access the Get To Know Alation and Data Catalog Fundamentals courses and other training resources available in Alation University for the same onboarding content for users. (AL-183390)

Platform

PostgreSQL Upgrade to 16.8

Customer-managed instances

The internal PostgreSQL databases (the internal Alation database and the Alation Analytics database) have been upgraded from version 16.5 to 16.8 to enhance application security. The databases will be upgraded automatically during the Alation update to 2025.1.1. (AL-184959)

Document Hubs

Trust Flags for Documents and Folders

Added support for all users with edit permissions to assign trust flags, including endorsements, information or warning indicators, and deprecations through Document and Folder catalog pages. This provides a standard way to assess and communicate the reliability of content.

Deprecation Propagation

  • Deprecating a Folder will recursively mark all its Documents and Subfolders as deprecated.

  • Deprecating a Document will apply the same status to all child Documents in its hierarchy.

Note

You can disable the feature using the feature flag alation.document_hubs.DEV_enable_document_hubs_trust_flags. (AL-152752)

Note

Alation Cloud Service customers can request server configuration changes through Alation Support.

Move Documents and Folders Across Document Hubs

  • Server Admins can now move Documents and Folders to a different document hub and select any destination folder. Moving a Folder transfers all its contents, including its hierarchy, while moving a Document transfers the document along with its hierarchy. This feature helps in reorganizing content better structurally.

    By default, a template is created as part of the move, with an option to map it to an existing template in the destination.

    Note

    The navigational links to the source document or folder in the original document hub will be removed. (AL-180571)

  • Introduced an optional intermediate step in the basic Move flow for Documents and Folders, allowing users to choose between the old flow or the new cross-hub migration. The new flow is enabled for admins. (AL-182446)

Enhancements to the Folder Page

Applies to Classic User Experience

Enhanced the Folder page with a toggle control to switch between all listed items or only Top-level items.

In the Folders table, the changes include the following:

  • A toggle switch where Top-level is the default.

  • The count of the number of documents listed is based on the total count of documents and navigation links.

In the Documents table, the changes include the following:

  • A toggle switch where all the items are listed by default.

  • A parent column that establishes parent and child relationship for the documents.

  • A sorting feature for the table where you can use Last Updated or Created Date to sort. By default, Last Updated is used in descending order. (AL-181983)

Improved Migration of Article Groups to Document Hub

Enhanced serialization and datetime within the code path by addressing issues preventing the migration of Article Groups to Document Hubs, particularly when articles are mentioned in any catalog object. This ensures a smoother migration of articles and their references. (AL-181635)

Error Status in Migration Readiness Results Table

Query error statuses for articles in a group now appear at the top of the Migration Readiness results table during article migration check, ensuring visibility even without pagination. (AL-185205)

Open Connector Framework

  • Improved job notification for extraction from OCF Tableau sources by adding a new alation_conf flag alation.job.notify_status_list with default values of [failed, did_not_start]. This enhancement ensures that job statuses like Did Not Start are properly flagged, triggering email notifications for relevant job runs upon completion. The configurable value allows for customized notification settings based on the job statuses, ensuring better visibility and communication. (AL-183855)

  • Implemented a retry mechanism in the save_with_retry utility function to handle operational error exceptions during database save operations. This enhancement ensures more reliable execution of failed Snowflake MDE jobs. (AL-181503)

Lineage

Classic Layout Deprecation Update

The horizontal-level configuration settings associated with the Classic Layout are removed from the Load Settings tab under Admin Settings > Lineage Settings. The sample chart image displayed alongside settings is updated to reflect this change. (AL-184091)

Enhanced Viewing Experience in Incremental Lineage

Added an ability where users can now personalize their Lineage Chart experience in Alation by setting a preferred default layout: Compound or Incremental to load automatically. A new dropdown menu next to the Metadata Layers menu is available for seamlessly switching between layouts and setting a default preference.

Note

For optimal performance, large lineage charts with a larger number of nodes will automatically load in Incremental Layout, regardless of the user preference. (AL-184664)

Alation Analytics

  • Added support for custom fields in the glossaries table of Alation Analytics. This includes adding, updating, and removing field values. (AL-181783)

  • Added Limitation on Alation Analytics Snowflake replication to truncate data from large text columns greater than 16,777,216 bytes (16 MB) due to a limitation in Snowflake. For more information on this, refer to Snowflake Documentation. (AL-173976, Alation Cloud Service on the cloud-native architecture)

  • Enhanced handling of Compose-related failures in Alation Analytics. The flow has been modified to terminate running queries only when necessary, such as during complete replacement, addition, update, or deletion of custom fields. This change enhances system stability. (AL-183602)

Compose

Improved Filter Search String Visibility in Compose Sapphire Theme

Enhanced search string visibility experience in the Compose Sapphire theme, where the filter search string was not visible in the Open Query modal. (AL-182308)

User Management

Enhanced Sorting of Active Users by Last Login

Improved the sorting functionality for Active Users by Last Login in Admin Settings > Users > Licensed Users. Users who have never logged in are consistently listed at the bottom. In addition to that, the user-selected sort order is preserved, ensuring a more reliable and intuitive sorting experience without affecting ordering based on other fields. (AL-179682)

Security

Secure Credentials Management - Integration with Hashicorp Vault

Alation Cloud Service on the cloud-native architecture

Alation now supports integration with HashiCorp Vault for securely retrieving data source (DS) credentials during metadata extraction (MDE) and Query Log Ingestion (QLI).

This enhancement enables server admins and data source admins to configure credential retrieval from HashiCorp Vault, eliminating the need to store service account credentials in Alation and helping meet enterprise security and compliance requirements.

The integration supports both cloud and on-premise data sources, including those hosted via Agent, and allows authentication using LDAP and AppRole methods.

This feature is available under Settings > Authentication > Authentication Configuration Methods for External Systems and on the DS Settings page, similar to the existing AWS Secrets Manager integration. To use this feature, customers must upgrade to Agent version 1.8.10-5149 or later and ensure the Auth Service on Agent is updated to 5.14.0.2303 or above—failure to do so will prevent vault configurations for DS settings credentials. (AL-180791)

New User Experience Updates

Alation Cloud Service on the cloud-native architecture

Improved Table Border Styling in Rich Text Editor

Table borders have been reset to the default black color, and support for border-left, border-top, border-right, and border-bottom styles has been added by default in the rich text editor. This enhancement gives the user greater flexibility and control over table formatting, allowing for customized borders directly within the editor. (AL-185289)

Bug Fixes

Compose

  • Fixed an issue where published queries wouldn’t show up in the Queries tab of a table catalog page when a query form variable was used for a column name in the SELECT statement (for example SELECT tablename.${a | type:raw}). (AL-170741)

  • Fixed an issue to support the export functionality in Compose that ensures query results are downloaded as XLSX correctly and includes headers for all columns. This update improves the logic for column indexing based on the metadata of the result set, ensuring accurate data representation in exported files. (AL-179272)

Curation

  • Fixed an issue by removing an unnecessary tooltip when a user confirms an Allie-generated title. (AL-67793)

  • Fixed an issue where Allie suggested some inappropriate words that are not safe for work (NSFW). (AL-157176)

  • Eased permission restrictions that previously blocked users from suggesting changes if they lacked access to all objects in a workflow. Now, users can propose changes to an object if they have access, regardless of their permissions for other objects in the workflow configuration. (AL-177544)

  • Added support for resubmitting a rejected document by moving it to a folder, which puts it in draft mode. This enhancement ensures that users can easily revise and resubmit documents without starting over when a new term addition is rejected in a workflow. (AL-178409)

  • Introduced the Select All option for the Add/Remove Domains flow in the Stewardship Workbench. This enhancement allows users to select objects easily for domain updates. (AL-180921)

  • Added an info message to the workflow overview to inform users that modifying a workflow will close any active suggestions. This enhancement ensures better transparency and understanding when changes are made to workflows. (AL-181611)

  • Improved Data Dictionary upload process by fixing the key resolution logic for multi-part schema in the data dictionary upload process for Salesforce and MongoDB data sources. (AL-185543)

Other Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where Compose serialize arrays using square bracket syntax [ ] as opposed to curly brace syntax { }. (AL-182126)

  • Fixed an issue where the Invite Conversation action displayed a blank popup when opened a second time until the page was refreshed. The form now retains and shows the most recent state when reopened. (AL-101118)

  • Fixed a performance issue where the GET /integration/v2/term API exceeded the 5-second service-level agreement (SLA). The API now performs within the expected time limits. (AL-183008)

  • Fixed an issue where the Children column in the Document table did not update correctly when subdocuments were added. The child document count is now accurate. (AL-184396)

  • Fixed a formatting issue where the Created Date and Update Date fields in the Folders table did not display the time. Both fields now show both date and time. (AL-185331)

  • Fixed an access issue where users were blocked from the ELT Source Settings page after their access was changed to Viewer for a Private source, and the expected error popup did not appear. Server admins are now prompted with a dialog to add themselves to private asset sources. (AL-186172)

  • Fixed an issue where a Viewer with Private Access could access all ELT Source tabs. During the upgrade, permissions are now added to ensure:

    • View access for all asset sources to the Builtin Field - Everyone

    • Admin access for all asset sources to the Builtin Field - Server Admin

    This ensures that the Server Admins receive a prompt to add themselves as source admins. (AL-186396)

  • Fixed an issue where invalid error logs were generated and inserted into the etl_job_event_log table, even when the ETL process was successful. The table now correctly logs only valid errors. (AL-186545)

  • Fixed an issue where switching from New User Experience to Classic User Experience while viewing the lineage graph would incorrectly load the classic view. The classic experience now correctly retains and displays the Compound Layout. (AL-184814)

  • Fixed an issue where the Incremental Load toggle was incorrectly displayed on Lineage Chart for attributes. The toggle has now been removed to prevent confusion. (AL-184497)

PATCH RELEASE 2025.1.0.2

build 20.0.2.98126

Released March 24, 2025

Note

This patch release is available for Alation Cloud Service instances on the cloud-native architecture. This patch release doesn’t apply to customer-managed (on-premise) instances and Alation Cloud Service instances that haven’t been migrated to the cloud-native architecture.

  • Fixed an issue where the Trust Check Flags API returned UUIDs for the subject ID instead of integers. In versions prior to 2025.1.0.1, the list flag API returned an integer in the subject field for asset types that use integer IDs. Due to a bug introduced in 2025.1.0.1, the API began returning UUIDs instead. This fix restores the original behvior: assets with integer IDs now correctly return integer values in the subject field. If you had scripts that expected integer IDs, they should now work as before. (AL-186638)

RELEASE 2025.1.0.1

build 20.0.1.97285

Released March 6, 2025

Note

This release is available for all Alation instance types: customer-managed (on-premise) and Alation Cloud Service.

In this release:

Connected Sheets Deprecation

Alation Cloud Service on the cloud-native architecture

The Connected Sheets feature will be discontinued by the end of April 2025 due to low adoption, allowing Alation to focus on higher-value features for customers.

  • Key dates:

    • March 2025: The installation link will be removed.

    • April 2025: The feature will stop working; existing sheets will remain but won’t update with live data.

  • Customer impact:

    • No impact for most customers who don’t use Connected Sheets. For users of Connected Sheets, existing sheets will remain but lose automatic data updates.

  • Workarounds:

    • For data retrieval: Users can create reports via queries and manually download and upload them to spreadsheets.

    • For spreadsheet governance: Alation is exploring new capabilities to govern diverse data assets. Contact your Account Manager for details.

New User Experience Updates

Alation Cloud Service on the cloud-native architecture

  • For Alation Analytics V2, added a New ETL Monitoring Status page under Admin Settings > System Monitor to monitor the status of the latest ETL run for all tables, highlighting table name, status, ingestion timestamp, and a unique ETL identifier in a sortable dashboard. (AL-183833)

  • In Document Hubs, the Folder page is enhanced with a toggle control to switch between all listed items or only top-level items. In the Folders table, the changes include the following:

    • A toggle switch where top-level is the default.

    • The count of the number of documents listed is based on the total count of documents and navigation links.

    In the Documents table, the changes include the following:

    • A toggle switch where all the items are listed by default.

    • A parent column that establishes parent-child relationship for the documents.

    • A sorting feature for the table where you can use Last Updated or Created Date to sort. By default, Last Updated is used in descending order. (AL-181983)

Alation Analytics

  • Added the data_quality table to the Alation Analytics V2 database. This table stores Data Health information uploaded to the catalog via the Data Health API that is now extracted during the Alation Analytics ETL process. The data_quality table can be used for potential integrations with other systems and serves as a centralized source for data health insights in Alation Analytics. (AL-174343)

  • Enhanced the terms table in Alation Analytics V2 by adding the private column to indicate the access level to term objects. The private column reflects either the explicit privacy setting of the term or reflects the privacy inherited from its glossary. The value True means that a term is private and False that it is public. (AL-183282)

Search

  • Added support to enable semantic search only when the search query exceeds a minimum word limit defined by alation.search.semantic_min_word_limit flag. The default value of this flag is 1, which means that the semantic search is triggered for two or more words. (AL-184099, Alation Cloud Service on the cloud-native architecture)

  • Added improvements for handling Japanese text in titles, names, and article bodies, including mixed Japanese-English content. This greatly improves recall and precision when using Search with Japanese text. The feature is currently in beta release in the ap-northeast-1 AWS region. (AL-180245, Alation Cloud Service on the cloud-native architecture)

    Note

    Contact Alation Support to enable the feature flag alation.search.enable_japanese_search.

    For existing Japanese content, Alation Support will need to rebuild or update your index so that all tokens are properly generated.

  • In the tabular view of the Search results page, the Description column replaces the existing Snippet column to give more details about the asset.

    Note

    By default, this feature is disabled. Contact Alation Support to enable it using the feature flag alation.feature_flags.DEV_enable_prepare_search_description to rebuild the index and see the desired details. (AL-165173)

Public APIs

Public Joins API

Added new endpoints to get information on joins that have been cataloged in Alation. The endpoints are part of the Relational Integration API.

  • Get joins by table ID

  • Get joins by table name

  • Get joins by data source

  • Get joins by column (attribute) ID

  • Get joins by column (attribute) name. (AL-183255)

Addition of the “values” Parameter to Relational Integration API

Added a new values parameter that will enable you to specify which fields to return when getting schemas, tables, and columns. Limiting which fields to return can improve API performance, especially when you exclude the custom_fields field.

The fields parameter offers the same functionality with lower performance over values and is still available for compatibility purposes. The values parameter is preferred and is added for better consistency with other APIs. (AL-179358)

Data Dictionary API Update

API specifications are updated to include the Document object type in the Upload Data Dictionary and Task Info APIs. (AL-182642)

Template Visual Config API Update

Added a new property, collection_type_id, to the Create a new visual config endpoint of the Template Visual Config API. This property is required when creating Document templates and will enable you to assign a Document template to a Document Hub. (AL-182252)

Lineage

Classic Layout Sunset Update

With the sunsetting of the Classic Layout, the following changes are made:

  • The option to switch between the Compound and Classic layouts has been removed.

  • The information banner regarding the classic layout deprecation has been removed.

The Compound Layout is now the main view of the lineage chart with the following benefits:

  • Advanced filters for better data exploration.

  • Enhanced features for improved usability.

  • Incremental lineage loading support, allowing on-demand expansion, easier navigation, and exploration of dependencies step by step. (AL-184291)

Manual Lineage Creation in the Compound Lineage View

With the sunsetting of the Classic Layout, the manual lineage feature that was part of the Classic Layout is now fully integrated into the default Compound Layout to ensure a consistent experience across all views. From the Compound Layout, you now can:

  • Perform manual lineage editing

  • Add, modify, or manage lineage relationships directly (AL-177675)

Incremental Lineage for Improved Chart Navigation

Introduced a new feature Incremental Load that enhances lineage chart navigation by allowing users to load data step by step, reducing complexity and improving usability. In the Lineage chart, you can enable it by clicking the Incremental load button located next to the Metadata Layer filter.

This feature offers the following key benefits:

  • On-demand graph expansion: Load the lineage chart incrementally by clicking on it to easily navigate large charts.

  • Improved readability: Hide or show only the necessary paths to keep the chart manageable and clear.

  • Customizable expansion depth: Define the number of nodes loaded per click using the Initial Vertical Nodes (Depth) setting in Admin Settings > Lineage Settings > Load Settings.

    Note

    Setting a lower Initial Vertical Nodes (Depth) value optimizes the chart loading performance. (AL-183555)

Lineage Delete API V3 for Enhanced Efficiency and Control

Introduced an improved Lineage Delete API V3 based on the existing Lineage V2 Delete API to provide a more streamlined and efficient approach to delete objects from the lineage chart.

  • A new parameter dataflow_key in the Lineage Delete API V3 allows you to define the dataflow object for deletion in addition to specifying the source and target object for more precise lineage removal.

  • Only Server Admins and Source Admins can perform deletions using this new endpoint.

  • A streamlined workflow ensures better efficiency and reduced complexity in managing lineage paths while maintaining security controls. (AL-179124)

Bug Fixes

API Fixes

  • Fixed an issue in the Documents and Terms APIs where an error would occur when the folder_id parameter value referred to a folder that contained subfolders. (AL-183044)

  • Fixed an issue with GET {protocol}://{base-url}/integration/v2/column/ API to optimize performance, ensuring it meets the required Service Level Agreement (SLA) of five seconds. (AL-183003)

  • Fixed an issue where OCF public API throws an error response when you create a data source without a database password. (AL-180160)

  • Optimized the performance of the Terms API endpoints when listing the contents of folders that contain several documents. (AL-181817)

  • Added server-side validation on the GET Relational Columns API to check the 1800 characters limit in URLs to ensure server stability. (AL-180993)

Alation Analytics V2 Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where the Alation Analytics V2 built-in article (Introduction to Alation Analytics) displays suspended users in the Last Edited By section. (AL-113713)

  • Enhanced the internal APIs that power the Governance Dashboard to skip restrictive role checks to make them accessible to all user roles. (AL-181391)

Lineage Fixes

  • Fixed an issue on the Admin Settings > Customize Catalog > Lineage > Default Filters page to provide the ability to search and filter schemas and data sources separately across parent and child lists. (AL-182476)

  • Fixed an issue where expanding the dataflow preview in the column-level lineage trace view was throwing a 500 internal server error when a BI column was used as a source or target. (AL-182653)

  • Fixed an issue with cross-system lineage between PowerBI and Databricks where lineage wasn’t generated for reports whose datasets were created with custom queries. Added support for query extraction for cross-system lineage between PowerBI and Databricks datasets. (AL-181967)

Document Hubs Fixes

  • Fixed an issue by removing referencing duplicate object set values when you migrate an article to Document Hubs. (AL-182007)

  • Fixed an issue to ensure no folder creation is allowed inside a deleted folder. (AL-181090)

OCF Platform Fixes

  • Added support for new query expression for lineage generation between Google BigQuery and PowerBI. (AL-180806)

  • Added support for displaying descriptions of columns in tabular format for Struct data type when there are source comments from the source and the add-on connector. (AL-181287)

  • Fixed the timeout error when the connector takes a long time while fetching the query log ingestion data. (AL-179213)

Other Fixes

  • Fixed an issue to ensure the endorsement flags are editable when the schema granular permissions feature flags are turned off. (AL-184272)

  • Fixed an issue to ensure the Alation logo is visible on the Password Reset page. (AL-156521)

  • Fixed an issue to ensure the Alation logo is visible on the Password Reset Confirm page. (AL-183117)

  • Enhanced the pagination to reflect the correct schema count on catalog pages of data source objects. (AL-180785)

  • Enhanced the query log ingestion test to correctly parse the timestamp for the last seven days using values from event data. (AL-180639)

  • Added support to read the files in lowercase to resolve issues around scheduled metadata extraction after a reboot. (AL-180578)

  • Fixed an issue where navigating for a document containing multiple sub-documents freezes the rendering table on the user interface. (AL-180398)

  • Fixed an issue to ensure deleting users is possible with the X option (the Delete icon) from the Top Users list. (AL-175111)

  • Added the ability to update the Domain for terms using the Bulk Utility tool. (AL-167986)

  • Added the table object type to the list of supported object types with the GONE prefix so that it appears as GONE in articles. (AL-140498)

  • Added ability to suggest changes to an object if you have access to that specific object, regardless of permissions for other objects in the workflow configuration. (AL-177544)

  • Fixed an issue where the Health Check option appears on the Admin Settings page even when the feature is disabled. (AL-174896)

  • Fixed an issue where multiple values appear for the same Request ID in a Search query. (AL-167501)

  • Enhanced custom fields in Search by fixing the issue in New User Experience where query parameters are removed in the URL. (AL-181632, Alation Cloud Service on the cloud-native architecture)

Known Issues

  • Stewardship Workbench in the New User Experience might update the wrong items when you select all items in the Stewardship Workbench using the Select All feature and enact a bulk change. As a workaround, you can safely update items on a single page at a time (25 items by default), or expand to 100 items per page. Switching pages can cause selected items on the previous page to hinder updating.

  • It is not recommended to use the Add Objects to Domains or the Remove Objects from Domains features in Stewardship Workbench due to recently identified technical limitations. (AL-183826)

  • When the schema privacy feature is enabled, the schema will not show up in the smart suggestions in Compose regardless of whether the user has access to the schema or not. (AL-182315)