Compendium v2.7 Release Notes

Once again, we’ve packed a lot into our latest Compendium update. (Technically, it’s maybe too much for a “minor” update?) But there’s a good reason for how much we’ve included—because we aren’t just the developers of Compendium, we’re users of it. Our team at DTA Healthcare Solutions is working in Compendium every single day, and these upgrades are things our clients, and our own team, have been asking for. We had a hard time knowing when to stop adding new features, so you’re getting a lot with this latest release!

Here are the highlights of Compendium v2.7:

• Now you can create custom alerts based on business rules.
  Compendium can now monitor your metadata and metrics for specific situations, and alert you if/when those situations occur. Any user can create an alert based on the criteria in a saved search, and admins can create alerts based on custom sql. You can choose to have these alerts emailed to you and/or to a distribution list.
• Single sign-on (SSO) is here!
  We’re very excited to offer integration with Microsoft Entra for authentication with Compendium. It’s one less password to remember!
• Searching is even more powerful—and customizable.
  Not only can you add even more criteria to your advanced searches, you can now also search “related objects”. You can also configure which attributes are included in a simple search (beyond just object name and description).
  
• We’ve made dozens of usability enhancements—so you can work faster than ever.
  There are almost too many improvements to list (but we listed them anyway, below!). Every one of these small improvements are designed to help you be more efficient and effective in your data, analytics, and data governance journey.

Details about all of Compendium’s new functionality, improvements, and fixes are listed below. If you have any questions, if you’d like to see a demo of the new functionality, and/or if you’re ready to move ahead with getting it installed, reach out to us at support@dtahealthcare.solutions.

Change Log for Compendium 2.7   

New Features

• Compendium now supports single sign-on integration with Microsoft Entra
  Users can save searches as business rule alerts in order to monitor metadata and be notified within Compendium and also via email (when enabled) when certain conditions exist
• Admins can create alerts using custom sql queries in order to monitor metadata, connector imports, metrics, and more
• Simple search is now more flexible, as the fields included in the search can be configured via the Object Type configuration – previously Object Name and Description were the only fields included in the simple search
• Change tracking is more flexible as well, as the attributes that are change-tracked can be configured by object type
• There is now a “Save as New” button on the “Change Metadata Object” screen to allow users to copy an existing object – this reduces duplicate effort when creating multiple similar metrics for example

Improvements

Data Catalog

• Advanced Search now allows users to add and remove up to five criteria elements (up from three)
• The and/or slider between each criteria element on the Advanced Search has been moved to a single “Criteria Inclusion” dropdown with “all” vs “any” options
• Advanced Search “Include Related Objects” option allows the search to bring back objects that are related to the objects directly returned by the search criteria (note these are one-step removed, not the full lineage)
• Exact string searches are now supported in both simple and advanced searches, for example if you search for “readmission rate” (with the double-quotes), you will get AMI Readmission Rate back but not Rate of Readmission like you would without exact string searching
• Lineage can be exported to .csv from the visual lineage view
• The code compare functionality available in change history is now also available for the ObjectSQL field when editing an object – this is especially useful when needing to determine if a set of code is different from what is currently stored in Compendium
• Change history values are now top-justified so they are easier to compare, and “Visualize Changes” is easier to find with long text since it’s right at the top
• Change History now allows for modification of notes, so if a user forgot to add a change history note or needs to update one, they can do that (for their own changes only)
• When editing a metadata object, hovering over the field label (aka the “Friendly Field Name) shows the “Metadata Field Name” (which is the underlying database field name)
• Date fields on object detail pages are now formatted dynamically for date/time vs. date-only values
• Related objects are no longer shown on object detail pages when the associated object is set to be excluded from the front-end
• Hierarchy stays expanded after finding an object in the tree, editing and saving it, and hitting “Back”
• Object Name is now optional in related objects display, in other words, an object type can be configured to show other fields besides the object name in associated related object grids

Metric Hub

• The Metric Entry grid can be sorted by clicking on any column header
• Metric Goals can now be imported from a file
• Auto-save on the manual metric entry screen has been improved to avoid situations where users enter a value and then navigate away from the page before the value has been saved to the database
• The “Imported from file” column is only shown on the Metric Entry grid if populated to help clean up the look of the grid
• Metric goals displayed on object detail pages for metrics are now sorted by effective start date and then the name of the goal

Admin

• Object Type description edits are now lockable on the “Change Metadata Object” screen so auto-populated descriptions won’t get overwritten for example
• Object Name can be locked for edit as well
• Connector settings are now sorted alphabetically
• The grid on the “Select Metadata Object to change” now shows Native Object Code to help differentiate between objects that have the same name
• The “Add” button for data entry help text on the “Change Object Type” screen now changes to “Edit” when text has been entered to make it easier to know what has help text and what does not
• The object type configuration header on the “Change Object Type” screen stays visible when scrolling to make it more clear which field is which
• Metadata object import now displays an indicator while processing followed by a confirmation message once import is complete
• Added “Configured Status” to the “Select Manual Metric Configuration to change” screen to make it more clear what has and has not already been configured
• Additional logo formatting options have been added to environmental variables for more precise orientation of the client logo
• An optional message can be added to the Compendium login screen instructing the user on how to log in (for example using a network login ID vs. an email address)
• Metric Goals in the admin are now sortable by all the fields displayed on the “Select Metric Goal to change” screen

Fixes

All of these issues have been resolved:

• On the “Change Metadata Object” screen, the Object Type dropdown was empty under certain user permissions scenarios which prevented saving edits to the object
• When creating a new object type, Object Name was not showing up as a default field
• Certain values important for the automatic file import process in the Compendium Automation Hub were not being displayed in dropdown lists (namely “\n” and “\r\n”)
• Fixed issue of certain Connector Settings settings not displaying
• Not all numeric fields were giving the same Advanced Search options of greater than, less than, etc.
• Attempted deletes of metric objects were throwing a system error when they should be displaying a message explaining that metric objects with records in MetricOutcome cannot be deleted via the web application
• Sorting on “Select Object Type to change” screen was displaying additional columns

How to Update

Reach out to your favorite person at DTA or email support@dtahealthcare.solutions if you just can’t pick a favorite and we’ll get you going!

Compendium v2.6 Release Notes

Version 2.6 is in the books! There are plenty of enhancements and fixes to make your data cataloging and metric hubbing even easier.

Here are the highlights of Compendium v2.6:

• Object Type Permissions
  Permissions can now be assigned at the Object Type level, not just the individual Object level.
• More Metric Info on the Homepage
  Metric Hub information formerly only visible to admins is now visible to all.
• Search Enhancements
  Search all Object SQL across all Object Types at once.

More information about the new functionality, improvements, and fixes follows below. Reach out to us at  support@compendiumdatacatalog.com for a demo of the new functionality and/or to move ahead with getting it installed!

Change Log for Compendium 2.6    

New Features

• Object Type permissions are now live, which opens up many new opportunities for data stewards and subject matter experts to get involved in keeping the data catalog fresh. It even allows end users to submit new objects for the data governance team to evaluate!
• Metric goals, refresh schedules, and dependencies are now visible on the homepage to ensure better transparency of metrics and easier access to make updates.

Improvements

Data Catalog

• New “All” options have been added to the Advanced Search to allow searching across Object Types for the Object Code (ObjectSQL) and Native Object Identifier (NativeObjectCD) fields.
• On the homepage navigation tree, parent nodes that are not Hierarchy Objects show their Object Type icon and name (via hover).
• Fields can now be designated as Visible When Blank, which means the field will show up on the Object Detail page even if there is no value for that particular object.
• Clicking on Visualize Changes on the Change Detail pop-up automatically scrolls the screen down to the changes. In addition, the Compendium header has been removed from the Change Detail pop-up to avoid confusion.
• Special characters (aside from letters, numbers, and spaces) in object type names are now disallowed.

Metric Hub

• New grids have been added to Metric objects, so information on goals, dependencies, and refresh schedules can be viewed by all, and if the user has edit permissions, they will also be able to jump straight to editing that goal, dependency, or refresh schedule.
• If the user has permissions to edit a particular metric, buttons display allowing them to jump straight to adding goals, dependencies, and refresh schedules.

Admin

• Several new data type-specific (numeric and date/time) user-defined fields were added to the Object Type configuration.
• StatusDSC, DatabaseNM, NumeratorFormatDSC, DenominatorFormatDSC, MultiplierAMT, and ParseSQLPlatformNM were all added as new fields to the Object Type configuration as well
• “Auto Populated?” in the Object Type configuration was renamed “Locked?” (under the Data Entry heading) for clarity
• Metric-related configuration (goals, schedules, dependencies) now includes a search function like in other areas of Compendium as opposed to a drop-down list of all metrics.
• The Import Log can now be filtered by import process for ease of monitoring.
• Added the Metric Refresh Log—which shows the status of past, queued, and running metric refreshes—to the admin so it can be viewed without hitting the database directly. In addition, queued metric refreshes can now be removed from the queue, and stalled metric refreshes can be marked as no longer running to allow new refreshes of a particular metric to run.

Fixes

All of these issues have been resolved:

• DisplaySealFLG was available as a configurable field in the Object Type configuration but shouldn’t have been there
• When “Exclude from Front End” was set to Yes after clicking the edit button from the Object Detail page, an error occurred when returning the user back to the home page
• Clicking the Back button after adding an addendum (note/link/attachment) on the Object Detail page wasn’t working
• Apostrophes/single quotes entered in help text for configured fields were causing the Change Metadata Object page to only partially load
• Values entered in fields configured to use the LogSizeMB database column were not saving properly when the object was edited
• Required field indicators were not displaying properly on the Add Metric Refresh Dependency screen

How to Update

If you’re interested in implementing v2.6, reach out to your Compendium coach or email support@compendiumdatacatalog.com and we’ll get you going!

Compendium v2.5 Release Notes

Whew! We squeezed a lot of updates into version 2.5 of Compendium, and we’re excited to share those with you. There are big new features like data lineage visualization, and smaller enhancements that you’ve asked for to make Compendium even easier and more enjoyable to use.

Here are the highlights of Compendium v2.5:

• Visual Data Lineage!
  Visual data lineage was in beta testing in v2.4, but now is fully in production.
• Metric Outcome Data Imports
  In the Metric Hub, you can now import metric outcome data from spreadsheets and .csv files.
• Visualize Changes in Change History
  Now you can see exactly what changed in a Change History record—for example, if you want to see the before/after highlights for lines of code that changed in metric SQL.

More information about the new functionality, improvements, and fixes follows below. Reach out to us at support@compendiumdatacatalog.com for a demo of the new functionality and/or to move ahead with getting it installed!

Change Log for Compendium 2.5

New Features

• Visual data lineage is now fully in production!
• Metric outcome data can now be imported into the metric hub from spreadsheets and .csv files, and the column mappings are saved to ease future imports.
• Change History now has a “Visualize Changes” function that highlights the difference between the old and new values, for example showing the before and after code for the lines that changed in metric SQL.
• Connector settings can now be managed in the Compendium admin instead of in configuration files on the server.

Updates/Improvements

• We’ve made many improvements to the data lineage visualization, in terms of the order of objects, how objects react to the “Steps” filter, etc.
• Search updates:
  • You can now perform an advanced search on just archived or seal status items, whereas previously these items had to be selected in conjunction with another search criterion.
  • Blank searches are now allowed, so you can see all objects of a specified type for example.
  • Compendium Object ID, Metadata Create Date, and Metadata Update Date are all now available in the advanced search.
• We’ve added the ability to customize, by object type, how related objects grids are sorted.
• You can now see sorted values in custom drop-down lists alphabetically.
• You can also see sorted values in My Favorites alphabetically.
• The user interface will now show you the relation on both sides if “List” is set to “yes” in Related Objects. (Previously it would only show the relation in one direction.)
• Recent Actions in the admin now only shows the most recent action for each object. (Previously an object was listed each time there was a change, which resulted in duplicates in the list.)
• The object detail page for an archived object now has a blue header on the right side to make it more clear that the object has been archived.

Metric Hub Updates

• For metric refreshes, you are now able to designate whether metric output is added to MetricOutcomeHistory by schedule (via the “Keep Snapshot” checkbox) instead of just by metric, so a metric could run, for example, daily as a normal refresh and then once a month a snapshot is sent to MetricOutcomeHistory.
  • Also an additional WHERE clause can be added to the schedule so that, for example, a once-a-month historical snapshot could be limited to only the past 2 years instead of the full metric history.
• We’ve enhanced the Data Entry Grid for Manual Metric Outcomes:
  • Update Date and Updated By have been added to the grid to show who last edited that row.
  • NumeratorFLG, NumeratorNBR, DenominatorNBR, and ContinuousResultNBR are now all able to be renamed (or hidden) via Manual Metric Configurations.

Admin Updates

• We’ve made several improvements to the User screen in the admin:
  • Username is no longer editable.
  • When Active Directory is used but it is not automatically populating the user’s first name, last name, and/or email address, these fields can be manually entered and they won’t be blanked out by the Active Directory process.
  • “Active” can now be manually unchecked to indicate a user is no longer part of the organization, even if Active Directory is being used. (However if the user does log in again successfully, they will be automatically reactivated.)
  • If Active Directory is not used, a user’s password can now be changed via the admin.
• The “Add” option for Metadata Addendums was removed from the admin because it was redundant with adding through the Object Detail pages. (There is still the ability to edit and delete addendums via the admin.)
• Object Type Configuration labels have been updated to make them more clear.

Fixes

All of these issues have been resolved:

• Numeric fields set to 0 weren’t showing up on the Object Detail pages. (Now they will only not show up if they are NULL.)
• Search result pagination (at the bottom of the page) was showing 3 pages when there was less than 1 page of search results.
• Object Name was moving after clicking “Save and continue editing” on the Metadata Object Entry screen. (Fixed it to stay in a consistent spot.)
• ExcludeFromFrontEndFLG was removed from Object Type Configuration screen because it shouldn’t be configurable.
• Intranet-style URLs are now allowed in Addendum Links.
• FLG fields marked as required in the Object Type configuration weren’t being required on the Metadata Object Entry screen.
• Object Name was showing up twice in the Metadata Object Import mapping drop-down.

How to Update

If you’re interested in implementing v2.5, reach out to your Compendium coach or email support@compendiumdatacatalog.com and we’ll get you going!

Here are the highlights of Compendium v2.4:

• Significant Enhancements to Related Objects
  Compendium shows you how data is interconnected across your organization—and now we’ve made those connections even more insightful.
• NEW: Visual Data Lineage!
  The Related Objects enhancements make visualization of data lineage possible, and we’re thrilled to share this new feature with you. It’s technically still in beta but we think you’re going to want to implement it right away.
• New Imports and More Exports
  You can now import data from spreadsheets, and you can also now export any field you want (and save the export definition for reuse).
• Lots of Improvements to the User Interface
  We’ve added plenty of new features, like drop-down lists that help guide the data-entry process, an edit button on the front end (for those with edit permissions), better headers that are more clear, and more!

More information about the new functionality, improvements, and fixes follows below. Reach out to us at support@compendiumdatacatalog.com for a demo of the new functionality and/or to move ahead with getting it installed!

Change Log for Compendium 2.4

New Features

• Visual data lineage! Note: this functionality is currently in beta testing.
• Admins can now import data into Compendium from Excel and comma-separated text files.
• You can now export any field available to you, not just the name and description. You can also save the export configuration to easily run again later.
• For manually entered metrics, drop-down lists can now be created and associated with data entry fields to improve data integrity.
• Drop-down lists can also be created and associated with metadata fields so that manually entered metadata can be better governed.
• For admin users and users with edit permissions on specific objects, an edit icon on the object detail page allows quicker and easier access to update information.

Improvements

• We’ve significantly revamped the related objects functionality:
  • Grid columns are now defined at the object type level, so when object A shows up in the related objects grid for object B, the grid columns that show are determined by the object type configuration of object A.
  • Related objects go in both directions, meaning you only need to enter a related object pair once, and it will result in the related object grids showing up on each side of the pair (if “grid” is selected as a display type).
• We’ve revamped the Configure New Manually Entered Metric page so that it only involves configuration of manually entered metrics, not data entry, and allows for editing of the configuration.
• Many more icons are now available to associate with object types.
• On the Object Type configuration page in the admin, if a field has already been configured, it is removed from the drop-down list.
• We’ve added pagination to change history on the Object Detail page.
• We’ve standardized page titles.
• Several improvements have been made to the look and feel of the Change Metadata page in the admin.
• We’ve made improvements to the Change Object Type page (clearer headers, more configuration rows available by default, etc.)
• We’ve revamped the Metadata Object Permission page to make it more user-friendly.
• The Compendium Object ID and Archive Date (if populated) fields now always show on the Object Detail page.
• Addendums are now sorted newest to oldest.

Fixes

All of these issues have been resolved:

• SourceRowCNT was showing up twice on the object detail page.
• Label for FormattedSQLErrorDSC in the admin Change Metadata page was incorrect.
• Long text without spaces was not wrapping properly on the object detail page.
• In certain situations, the post-search filtering was not working correctly.
• An object was able to be made a child of itself, causing an infinite drill-down on the homepage hierarchy.
• Back button was not working properly after searching.
• Saved searches with apostrophes weren’t deleting properly.

How to Update

If you’re interested in implementing v2.4, reach out to your Compendium coach or email support@compendiumdatacatalog.com and we’ll get you going!