Release Notes

Toad® Intelligence Central 6.3

Release Notes

Tuesday, July 16, 2024

About Toad Intelligence Central

Toad® Intelligence Central enables enterprise users to be far more productive with their tools including Toad Data Point by centralizing automation workflows, accessing data directly, collaborating and sharing on datasets, queries and Toad files and providing a secure and established way to manage your data sprawl.

• AUTOMATE - Toad users can schedule the regular automated execution of Toad Data Point automation scripts on Toad Intelligence Central.

• ACCESS - Toad users can access Toad files and basic data files published to Toad Intelligence Central that have been shared with them. An additional data connectivity license extends Toad Intelligence Central to work across a wide range of data stores including relational database models, data warehouses, No SQL and Business Intelligence data sources like OBIEE and SAP®.

• SHARE - Objects can be shared amongst users and groups and organized collectively in a familiar folder structure, assigned tags and given a description for easy search retrieval. Administration of users and groups can be managed locally or users and groups can be imported from Active Directory®.

• SECURE - Toad Intelligence Central provides a centrally managed, secure, stable and accessible system.

Distributions of Toad Intelligence Central include a Web Server for administrative and general user access. In addition, Toad Data Point and other collaborative Toad products can directly access Toad Intelligence Central. Data on Toad Intelligence Central can be accessed via a third party product such as Tableau for further data processing and visualization.

Data Connectivity

A valid data connectivity license supports the following Business Intelligence Data Sources.

• Google Analytics™
• Oracle^® Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 10g and 11g
• SAP^® Business Objects Query as a Web Service (QAAWS) XI 3.0, 3.1 and 4.1
• Salesforce.com^®
• SharePoint^® Lists using Data Services over SharePoint Server 2010 and later via OData. Also, SharePoint Online.
• Hive™
• Microsoft^® Analysis Services
• OData - Generic for any OData service versions 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Intelligence Central 6.3 is a minor release, with enhanced features and functionality. See New features.

New Features

This release of Toad Intelligence Central includes new features and enhancements.

Allow force stop on hanging workbooks

Enhanced functionality: enable force stop for hanging workbooks

Introduced a powerful new enchantment to streamline workflow: the ability to force stop hanging workbooks.

Now, under the Settings tab within the Server settings, an enchantment for managing workbooks that run longer than the specified threshold is added among automation scripts. This option automatically intervenes when a workbook exceeds its expected processing time, ensuring optimal performance and efficiency. This behavior will be applied to all published automation scripts and workbooks that have at least one successful run.

How to Identify a Canceled Workbook using this feature

In the Details of the selected Workbook or Automation script within the Logs section, a canceled script will be clearly denoted by "Canceled" under the Result column:

To access more detailed information, expand the logs for comprehensive insights:

Support for Modern authentication connection to email servers

Enhanced functionality:

This new feature for Toad Intelligence Central has the specific task of providing end users with the option of choosing which type of SMTP authentication they would like to have with their Email server connection.

Users can choose between Basic authentication, which has been available in Toad Intelligence Central from the start, and OAuth authentication which we have just implemented.

This new type of authentication is a process that verifies your identity and provides enhanced security for end users. OAuth does involve your identity, but its purpose is to grant permission to seamlessly connect with different apps and services without requiring you to create a new account.

Setting up this new feature is very easy and user-friendly, only steps you need to take are to choose the SMTP authentication method that you prefer and fill in all the necessary credential fields:

Defining default user for running automation scripts and workbooks on TIC

Enhanced functionality:

This is a new security update for Toad Intelligence Central where administrator can define a default user that will run automation scripts and workbooks (starting Toad Data Point when the Run button is clicked on Toad Intelligence Central).

Setting up this new feature is very easy, you just need to open TIC, go to: Server / Settings / Default user:

You just fill in all the necessary credentials / domain fields, click Save and you are all set.

Connection lending

Enhanced functionality:

Connection Lending is a new feature for Toad Intelligence Central admins to provide specific connections to individual Toad Data Point users through the TIC connections without having to guide their users to add data-source connections to Toad Data Point.

This means that the Toad Intelligence Central admin can publish a connection into Toad Intelligence Central from their copy of Toad Data Point as a "leased connection" type and share it through Toad Intelligence Central to users or groups registered in Toad Intelligence Central.

When Toad Data Point user connects to Toad Intelligence Central, any “leased connection” that has been published and shared with them will automatically appear in their connection list in the Navigation Manager and will be available for their use. Similarly, when that same Toad Data Point user disconnects from Toad Intelligence Central any “leased connections” that have been shared with them through Toad Intelligence Central will disappear.

Having this functionality will allow the necessary data source connections sharing between the defined users or group of users with all the properties of those connections (except password) from a centralized location.

This feature will enhance user experience in managing the list of users that are allowed to access only the needed data sources while preserving the security settings.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

- Only Toad Intelligence Central admins can publish Toad Data Point connection as a leased connection and choose the users that can be shared with

- “Leased connection” can be used only for direct data sources thru Toad Data Point and cannot be used for connections that acquire ODBC drivers, catalogs, or any additional software for successful connection

- A shared connection with the user will have all of the necessary parameters except the password which the user must enter himself

- Toad Data Point “leased connection” users will not have the possibility to publish any data to Toad Intelligence Central

See Resolved issues for enhancements and resolved issues in this release of Toad Intelligence Central.

Deprecated Features

Integration with Toad for Oracle has been discontinued. The Toad for Oracle Code Quality, Code Analysis, Code Tester, Team Coding, and DB Health Check pages have been removed in Toad Intelligence Central 5.0. Beginning with Toad for Oracle 13.1, you can no longer connect to Toad Intelligence Central and you cannot publish scripts, files, Code Analysis results, and other resources to a Toad Intelligence Central server.

The Admin Console. Beginning with Toad Intelligence Central 4.3, the Admin Console is no longer required and is not included in the Toad Intelligence Central installation. The administrative functionality of the Admin Console is now superseded by the Web Server (Web Console). The activity of mapping/editing data objects is best performed through Toad Data Point.

After installing Intelligence Central 4.3 or later, it is recommended that you uninstall any earlier version of the Admin Console as some functionality may no longer be supported.

Authentication Keys for Views. Beginning with Toad Intelligence Central 4.3, a view can now have only one type of key, personal or shared. This change is designed to simplify the process of Authentication. If you are upgrading from Intelligence Central 3.3 or earlier, please see the Upgrade section of the Toad Intelligence Central Deployment Guide for more information.

Toad for Oracle Installation. Beginning with Toad Intelligence Central 4.3, Toad for Oracle is no longer installed as part of the Toad Intelligence Central installation.

Run in Debug Mode. In Toad Intelligence Central 3.3, the Run in debug mode option was removed from the Web console (Web server). It is no longer necessary to enable/disable debug mode. Debug-level information is always logged and automatically included in the support bundle. This release also includes improved logging strategies and archiving methods.

The use of SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 has been discontinued.

The use of RC4 cipher has been discontinued.

The use of SWEET32 medium strength cipher has been discontinued.

Resolved Issues

Resolved Issues and Enhancements

The following is a list of issues addressed and enhancements implemented in this release of Intelligence Central.

Resolved Issues in Toad Data Point—If you are using Toad Data Point to publish objects to Intelligence Central or to run Automation scripts on Intelligence Central, you might want to also review resolved issues in the Toad Data Point Release Notes.