3.7.4 - Release Notes#

Squirro 3.7.4 was released on April 05, 2023.

Reference: To learn more about how Squirro releases work, see Squirro Release Process.

Warning

This release comes with a major Elasticsearch upgrade. Please read the instructions carefully in Breaking Changes before proceeding with the upgrade.

Note

Automatic upgrades on start.squirro.com have been temporarily paused for a smoother update of Elasticsearch 8. If your server is in urgent need of an update to this release, please open an IT ticket with Squirro Support.

What’s New#

  • Elasticsearch has been upgraded to Version 8.6.2.

  • Enabled Elasticsearch security by default. Now, Elasticsearch has the following security features applied out of the box:

    • Basic authentication

    • Secure internode communication

    • Secure API traffic

  • Added all customisable React widgets to the Create Custom Widget page.

  • Global search typeahead now has two columns if there are community page suggestions.

Improvements#

  • Move scripts ensuring Elasticsearch resources and migrations from the RPM packages to the services. This means that securing Elasticsearch is now much easier.

  • Improved Monitoring Studio plugin to fully support secured Elasticsearch.

  • Improved Monitoring Studio plugin to support the notetaking and pdfconversion services.

  • Added Item detail Storybook files and documentation (see Squirro Storybook). Updated many other stories based on recent changes.

  • In search query-processing, added noun-chunks & near entity recognition (NER) to the response.

  • Added a new default main.js for React custom widgets.

  • Relevant Community search suggestions are now faster (improved caching, several bug fixes) and more relevant by leveraging Concept Search. Those changes now find the best matching community for the given query (Ego-Search: Find community per name vs. overall relevancy.)

  • Extended Relevant Community API to exclude certain communities by their ID. This is useful when the community-list widget (mode: relevant communities) is used from within a community 360 page.

  • Added query parameter to template.

  • Implemented the stacked bar chart entities mode.

  • Exposed Relevant Community Retrieval configuration: Configured semantic term expansion on detected concepts via topic.search.communities.relevant.semantic-term-expansion; Aggregation of the most significant communities is configured via topic.search.communities.relevant.term-aggregation. Those settings are useful to tune for speed vs precision.

  • When the CommunitiesList widget is in Show relevant, there’s a new All option. When selected, the widget will show the most relevant communities from all community types.

  • Facet names suggestions occupy the first row, the ones that are not fitting the first row are hidden.

  • Added candidate set query to bulk labeling.

  • In the Rules Table, increased type and label field dimensions.

  • Added new fields to bulk labeling.

  • Added possibilityto add excluded sentences to the anti-set when using the bulk labeling pipeline step.

  • Added an endpoint for fetching user notes per item.

  • Added resources (frontend, topic, and notes endpoint, SquirroClient method) for deleting a note.

  • Enhance the response of getting notes with user_info (incl. user’s full name and photo) for the comments of each returned note.

  • Notes are hidden in the UI if frontend.notes.enabled configuration is set to false.

Bug Fixes#

  • Fixed a notes issue with indexing in Elasticsearch and storing in MariaDB with non-string facets.

  • Fixed an issue where the Explore screen timeline didn’t zoom with time changes.

  • Fonts are no longer fetched from googleapis.

  • FIxed an issue with the Items widget showing only one item in horizontal mode.

  • Fixed item detail not loading when opened from a newsletter.

  • Fixed an issue with infinite scroll not always working.

  • Fixed a potential security issue with the Microsoft Outlook integration plugin. Specifically, where and how the received Microsoft Exchange user identity token is validated.

  • Fixed an issue with wrong Rows types sent to the Datagrid in Rules Table in AI Studio.

Breaking Changes#

  • Upgraded to Elasticsearch 8.x, which can only read indices created in version 7.0 or above. This means all indices created in Elasticsearch 6.x and earlier versions are not supported. You must reindex them with Elasticsearch 7.x before proceeding with the upgrade.

  • All Elasticsearch plugins have been removed and must be reinstalled.

  • Elasticsearch templates can no longer be configured by the changing files in the filesystem. Instead, use the topic.elasticsearch.index-templates-settings option in the server configuration.

  • Removed legacy Elasticsearch templates and use new Index Templates (learn more at Index Templates). This means that all custom changes made to the templates have to be reapplied to the new templates.

  • The es_index_servers in the common.ini file now points directly to the Elasticsearch instead of to the nginx location.

  • Now, it is no longer possible to receive a Squirro token by providing a mapped Exchange user identity string, but the signed Exchange user identity token is needed, to protect against malicious actions.

  • The get_token_from_msexchuid method has been replaced by the get_token_from_msexchuid_token method.

  • Custom Widgets Hooks under the hooks object becomes Hooks.widgetName, for example useCollection becomes Hooks.useCollection.

  • The Result widget was changed to the Items widget in default dashboards.

Installation and Upgrade#

You will have to resolve at least the following config files when upgrading from Squirro 3.3.0

  • /etc/nginx/conf.d/ssl.inc

  • /etc/squirro/common.ini

For new installations, please follow the Installing Squirro on Linux instructions.

To upgrade an existing installation, please consult Upgrading Squirro.