Release Notes 16.3

2024-04-27

Bar and Pie Charts - Two new built-in visualization types are now available: Bar Charts and Pie Charts. (video)
Chart Designer: A new chart designer is available for a wide range of built-in visualization types, featuring drag-and-drop column selection and a more intuitive layout of configuration options. (docs) (video)
Improved Data Views: A new setting lets you control the display height for the Data Views web part. (docs)
Binning for Large Data Sets: Data point binning improves the readability of scatter plots over large data sets. (docs)
(Premium Editions) Additional Column Summary Statistics: New statistics options have been added, including standard deviation and standard error. (docs) (video)

R Studio Integration: Design R reports in RStudio using data selected in LabKey Server. Contact LabKey for set up and support options.
New SQL Methods: The SQL methods GREATEST and LEAST are now supported for PostgreSQL, MS SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL. (docs)
ETL Engine Improvements

Improved PostgreSQL Scalability: A limitation has been removed that imposed a limit of 100 columns on PostgreSQL tables that are targets of an ETL process.
Alternate Key: Use an alternate key, instead of the target table's primary key, when merging data with an ETL process. (docs)
Set Range: Developers can use ranges to aid development of ETL scripts. (docs)
Transformation Improvements: ETL transformation using a Java class is now supported. (docs) ETL processes may now output constant values into a target column. (docs)

Improved Duo Configuration: A new option lets you indicate how LabKey Server user accounts are matched to Duo accounts, either by user id, user name, or email address. (docs)

Date and DateTime Data Types: Date and DateTime data types are more intuitive to use. Admins can set default formats for each type at various scopes in the server. (docs)
Apply a Template to Multiple Folders: When importing a folder archive, you have the option to select a subset of objects to import, and can also choose to apply that template to multiple folders simultaneously. (docs) (video)

New UI for Assay Schedule: The process for scheduling assays has been simplified. (docs)
New UI for Vaccine Study Products and Treatments: Simplify study registration and making immunization products consistent and manageable across multiple studies. (docs and docs)
Study Performance Improvements: The underlying database schema for studies has been redesigned, providing greater performance and using less storage space in the database.

Natural Language Processing: Use the LabKey NLP engine or integrate another to extract data from free text documents and reports. (docs)
Document Abstraction Workflow: Improved document abstraction workflow, including options for manual abstraction, automatic abstraction, and document review. (docs)
Disease-based Document Assignment: Specialize abstraction workflow and assignments based on the disease group represented in the document. (docs)
Document Abstraction UI: More intuitive interface streamlines the process of abstracting information from documents. (docs)

Signal Data Module: Capture data and metadata for HPLC experiments. (docs)
Sample Sets: Samples in different containers can be resolved in a single sample set. (docs) (video)
(Luminex) Retain Exclusions when Reimporting Runs: If you have excluded wells, analytes, or titrations, you can opt to continue excluding them on reimport. (docs) (video)
(Luminex) Ignore Bead Numbers on Analytes: Bead numbers are no longer included as part of the analyte name. (docs)
(Panorama) Performance Improvements: The internal queries used by Panorama have been optimized to improve page load times.

Improved Study Export/Import: The dataset_metadata.xml file in a study archive now provides: (1) an <index> tag to indicate index fields, (2) a <sharedConfig> tag to indicate columns that should be added to all the datasets, and (3) on import of a study archive, the <scale> tag (which holds column size information) is applied to existing columns in the target study. (docs)
API Session Key: Run client API code in the context of a user account without storing your credentials on the client machine. (docs)

Upgrading the Issues Module. If the server is restarted prematurely during upgrade, the issues tracker migration code will not be re-run automatically (because it is implemented as a deferred upgrade script). To run the upgrade code manually go to this URL: ./labkey/issues/home/upgradeIssues.view It will trigger the same upgrade code that the automatic upgrade should have run. For more details see Support Ticket #27963.