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

build 20.0.0.96810

Released March 3, 2025

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)

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)