Release Notes for ReportServer 4.7.0

These release notes reflect the changes with respect to ReportServer RS4.6.3-6104.

• Some Important Features and Noteworthy Improvements
• Remove old deprecated and insecure mail.cf configuration file
• Dynamic list performance improvements
• Transport mechanism
• Tools menu
• Support sending CSV/script datasource data to table datasinks
• Allow to truncate table in table datasinks
• Allow to configure thresholds of exportable records
• Allow to configure number of rows of dynamic list preview
• Support JXLS Grid
• Support for old MSSQL installations with jTDS driver
• Allow to configure TeamSpace file upload
• Allow to move variants to another report
• Allow to render DOT files directly from file system administration to SVG
• Allow to render DOT files directly in script reports via "dot-svg", "dot-png" and "dot-html" renderers
• Allow to render external DOT files via REST
• Allow to render Markdown files directly from file system administration to HTML
• Allow to render Markdown files directly in script reports via "markdown-html" renderer
• Allow to render external Markdown files via REST
• Allow to render DOT files in Markdown
• Allow to open terminal session location from any location
• Allow to move entities to any location by right click
• Allow to merge entities by terminal command
• Allow to import entities with merge option in UI
• More readable terminal colors
• More intuitive icon for parameter
• Mappings configuration file (replaces old rssync.cf)
• Enforcing unique usernames
• Improvements to LDAP service and commands
• Allow to select variants to duplicate when duplicating a report
• Allow to suppress automatic report preview
• Allow to configure the number of rows per Excel sheet for dynamic list
• New Features, Improvements and Bug Fixes for RS4.7.0-6105

Some Important Features and Noteworthy Improvements for ReportServer RS4.7.0

Remove old deprecated and insecure mail.cf configuration file

IMPORTANT

The old, deprecated and insecure mail.cf has been now removed. This means that you can and should delete it from your system after the upgrade to RS 4.7. If you have any scheduler jobs based on mail.cf, these are automatically upgraded to an automatically created Email datasink during the upgrade process. This datasink is created in any case.

Please note that if your default email datasink requires no password, simply deleting the characters in the password field won’t work, as it will set the password to an empty string. Instead, you need to right-click on the password field and choose "Remove Password", as shown in the screenshot below:

IMPORTANT

Starting with ReportServer 4.7, usernames are required to be unique and non-null. During the upgrade process, any existing usernames that are duplicated or empty will be automatically modified to meet this requirement. Specifically, duplicated or empty usernames will have their ID appended to them in the following format: user_id_{id}.

It's important to note that, in earlier versions of ReportServer, users with invalid usernames (e.g., duplicates or empty usernames) would not have been able to log in. Therefore, such cases should be very rare. However, for those few instances where invalid usernames exist, this automatic modification ensures that all usernames comply with the new requirements in ReportServer 4.7.

A similar approach has been implemented for keys in ReportServer 4.7. Keys are now required to be unique (per tree) and non-null. During the upgrade process, any duplicated or empty keys will be automatically adjusted to meet these new requirements.

If a key is duplicated or empty, it will be modified to ensure uniqueness and validity. Additionally, when creating new objects in ReportServer, default values for keys are automatically assigned to prevent any issues.

This ensures consistency and integrity in the system, especially during the transition to ReportServer 4.7.

Dynamic list performance improvements

In ReportServer 4.7, significant enhancements were made to the performance of the dynamic list feature. This involved reducing the number of database queries sent, as many of them were unnecessary and could be refactored to improve overall performance.

Further, a "export:veto_large_report" report property was added. By default, when exporting a report to formats like Excel, ReportServer verifies whether the result set size exceeds certain limits. If it does, the export process is halted. However, if this property is configured with a value other than "auto", this verification step is bypassed. It's important to note that this approach could potentially cause the system to crash if the report size is exceptionally large.

Transport mechanism

ReportServer 4.7.0 offers a comprehensive transport mechanism that enables secure transportation of objects like reports, datasources, datasinks, and files between different system environments such as development, testing, and production. This mechanism ensures that changes are carried out consistently and in a controlled manner, thereby guaranteeing the integrity and stability of the entire system landscape.

The transport mechanism in ReportServer provides various use cases that allow users to efficiently manage their work and safely transfer changes across different environments:

Transfer of Reports and Datasources between Environments:

Use Case: Transporting reports, datasources, datasinks, and files from a development environment to a testing or production environment.

Advantage: Ensures that changes can be tested in a controlled environment before being transferred to production.

Backing up Work Results during Development:

Use Case: Developers can create regular transports to secure the current state of their work.

Advantage: Provides a way to secure work steps as snapshots that can be restored or transferred to another system if needed. This is especially useful when multiple developers are working in parallel or when experimental changes are made that need to be rolled back later.

Duplicating Transports for Further Processing:

Use Case: Creating copies of existing transports to make changes or use content in other contexts.

Advantage: Flexibility in managing transports, as existing transports can be duplicated and reused as open transports.

Restoring States after Errors:

Use Case: Undoing unwanted changes by applying a new transport that restores the original states.

Advantage: Allows restoring the original state after an error or misapplication by transporting and applying the corresponding changes again.

Reverting Changes:

Use Case: Indirectly reverting changes through manual adjustments or repeated transports, as direct rollbacks are not possible in ReportServer.

Advantage: Provides a method to undo applied changes by either relying on backups or performing manual corrections.

Tools menu

A new menu is shown in the upper right section of the screen in order to allow easy access to important ReportServer functionalities as shown in the following screenshot.

Support sending CSV/script datasource data to table datasinks

ReportServer now supports sending CSV and script datasource data to table datasinks as shown in the following screenshot. Scheduling CSV/script datasource-based dynamic lists to table datasinks is also supported. This allows gathering your necessary data into tables of any supported DB easily.

Allow to truncate table in table datasinks

ReportServer now allows to truncate the table in the table datasink before copying the data to the given table as shown in the following screenshot.

Allow to configure thresholds of exportable records

When exporting a dynamic list, ReportServer now allows to configure two different thresholds. If the export contains more records than the first threshold, the user gets a warning as in the following screenshot.

If the export contains more records than the second threshold, the export is being prohibited.

Both thresholds allow to avoid memory overflow errors if a user tries to export too many records. Both thresholds are configurable in the main/main.cf configuration file as shown here:

The default main/main.cf configuration file is shown below.

Allow to configure number of rows of dynamic list preview

The number of rows of the dynamic list preview can now be configured in the ui/previews.cf configuration file as shown below.

The number of rows is dependent of the number of columns selected. In the example above, the preview will have:

• 50 rows if the number of colums is greater equal 0 or less equal 99
• 25 rows if the number of colums is greater equal 100 or less equal 249
• 10 rows if the number of colums is greater equal 250 or less equal 499
• 5 rows if the number of colums is greater equal 500

Note that you can use the "MAX" keyword for denoting the maximum number of columns.

In case you don't want the number of rows to be dependent on the number of columns, you can configure it as follows:

<pageSize>
   <configs>
      <config minCols = "0" maxCols = "MAX">50</config>
   </configs>
</pageSize>

The default ui/previews.cf configuration file is shown below.

Support JXLS Grid

IMPORTANT

Due to a regression issue, JXLS grid support has been discontinued as of RS 4.7.2. We are actively working to reintroduce this functionality in a future release.

ReportServer now supports the JXLS grid in the JXLS template of the dynamic list as demonstrated in the following screenshots:

Support for old MSSQL installations with jTDS driver

ReportServer now supports old MSSQL installations by the jTDS driver. According to the documentation, the following servers are supported: Microsoft SQL Server (6.5, 7, 2000, 2005, 2008 and 2012). The following screenshot shows an example configuration:

Allow to configure TeamSpace file upload

The TeamSpace file upload (shown in the following screenshot) can now be completely disabled in the /etc/security/teamspace.cf configuration file as shown below.

Further, the maximum upload file size can be configured using the following property:

Only the file endings explicitely allowed in the whitelist as shown below are allowed.

Note that regular expressions are allowed in the ending whitelist. E.g., the following allows all possible file endings:

<whitelist>
   <endings>
      <ending>.*</ending>
   </endings>
</whitelist>

The complete default /etc/security/teamspace.cf configuration file is shown below.

Allow to move variants to another report

ReportServer now allows to move variants easily from one report to another report as shown in the screenshot below.

Allow to render DOT files directly from file system administration to SVG

You can now directly render DOT files as SVG graphs if you include the content type "text/vnd.graphviz" as shown in the following screenshots. Note that if the content type is not included, the preview will not appear.

Allow to render DOT files directly in script reports via "dot-svg", "dot-png" and "dot-html" renderers

You can now easily render DOT files directly in script reports via the new "dot-svg", "dot-png" and "dot-html" renderers.

The “dot-svg” renderer renders a given DOT file as a SVG graph, the “dot-png” renders a given DOT file as a PNG image, and the “dot-html” renders the DOT file as a SVG graph and embeds it into a HTML page.

Note that this is very powerful, since you can dynamically create your DOT file and export it easily. Two examples are shown here and here.

Allow to render external DOT files via REST

The "dot-renderer" REST service now allows to render arbitrary external DOT files into SVG via POST.

Example: (POST) https://SERVER:PORT/reportserverbasedir/reportserver/rest/dot-renderer?user= myuser&apikey=MYAPIKEY

Don’t forget to include your external DOT file in your POST request body.

Allow to render Markdown files directly from file system administration to HTML

You can now directly render Markdown files as HTML if you include the content type "text/markdown" as shown in the following screenshots. Note that if the content type is not included, the preview will not appear.

Allow to render Markdown files directly in script reports via "markdown-html" renderer

You can now easily render Markdown files directly in script reports via "markdown-html" renderer.

The "markdown-html" renderer renders a given Markdown file as a CompiledHtmlReport.

Please note that not every Markdown formatting command can be rendered properly. An example is shown here.

Allow to render external Markdown files via REST

The "markdown-renderer" REST service now allows to render arbitrary external Markdown files to HTML via POST.

Example: (POST) https://SERVER:PORT/reportserverbasedir/reportserver/rest/markdown-renderer?user= myuser&apikey=MYAPIKEY

Don’t forget to include your external Markdown file in your POST request body.

Be aware that some Markdown commands are not supported and will not render properly.

Allow to render DOT files in Markdown

You can now directly include DOT files in your Markdown files. These will be automatically rendered. Also, width and height can be specified as shown in the following screenshot.

Allow to open terminal session location from any location

Now you can open a new terminal session from any location in ReportServer as shown in the following screenshots:

Allow to move entities to any location by right click

ReportServer now provides the capability to relocate any entity (such as reports, datasources, datasinks, etc.) to any desired location through a simple right-click action, as demonstrated in the screenshot below. This feature proves particularly beneficial for installations with complex directory hierarchies.

Allow to merge entities by terminal command

The "entitymerge" command merges two entities transfering values from one to the other. No entity is deleted after merging. In general, only entities of the same type can be merged.

Allow to import entities with merge option in UI

The importer was extended to allow (per-default) a merge import. If the checkbox is selected, the merge routine is applied. This involves taking one object and transferring its values to another object in the system, with the exception of the key and ID.

More readable terminal colors

The terminal colors have been improved to be more readable.

You may have to change your theme.cf file to see the new colors. The default theme.cf with the updated color is shown below.

Before:

After:

More intuitive icon for parameter

As you can see in the following screenshot, the parameter icon has changed to show the settings menu in a more intuitive manner.

Mappings configuration file (replaces old rssync.cf)

The old main/rssync.cf configuration file has been replaced by main/mappings.cf. You can find the default configuration file following:

Enforcing unique usernames

While it was previously technically possible to have multiple users sharing the same username. Neither would be able to log into their respective account. With this update unique usernames will be enforced to prevent this situation from occurring.

Improvements to LDAP service and commands

In this release we made some adaptations to the LDAP service functionality to ensure a smooth transition to the enforcement of unique usernames. While is was previously possible to import LDAP users that have the same name as internal users you will now receive an error message. In order to resolve possible username duplication errors you may utilize the "ldaptest users" terminal command which scans the current usertree to identify username collisions.

Another noticeable change is that the LDAP service will now scan the whole usertree for LDAP nodes. Meaning that if you accidentally moved a node imported by LDAP service it will still be recognized, updated and moved to its supposed destination without creating a new node. You should ensure that your current usertree does not contain duplicate GUIDs because that leads to undefined behavior. You can easily identify duplicate GUIDs by running the "ldaptest guid" terminal command. If duplicate GUIDs are found they will be displayed in a second table

Allow to select variants to duplicate when duplicating a report

In earlier versions of ReportServer, duplicating a report did not include duplicating the report's variants. However, in the current version, you can now choose the variants to duplicate, and they will be copied along with the report, as illustrated in the screenshot below:

Allow to suppress automatic report preview

ReportServer now provides the functionality to selectively deactivate automatic previews for specific reports by configuring the "suppress_automatic_preview" property of the report to "true". Setting this option to "true" prevents the report from automatically executing upon opening from within the Administration panel or within a TeamSpace. This capability is particularly beneficial in situations where reports generated by Birt, JXLS, Jasper, or Crystal have extended execution times, and users simply wish to export the report without initiating its direct execution. It's important to note that when automatic preview is disabled, users can still manually trigger previews by explicitly clicking on "Preview" or the "Refresh preview" button. Furthermore, it's noteworthy that dynamic lists cannot have their preview functionality disabled, as users are always required to explicitly click on "Preview".

Allow to configure the number of rows per Excel sheet for dynamic list

When exporting to Excel, you can organize the data into multiple tabs by setting the number of rows per tab. The default value is 1,048,574, which is selected because Excel allows a maximum of 1,048,576 rows. The difference accounts for one row used by the headings and one for the final newline. To determine the number of rows per sheet, modify the following parameter:

New Features, Improvements and Bug Fixes for ReportServer RS4.7.0-6105