Welcome to the JMP Development Update for May 19, 2023!
JMP 18 EA3 installers have been created for JMP Pro and JMP Clinical on Windows and are in the process of being verified by testing teams in Cary and Beijing. We will still need to rebuild Mac JMP 18 EA3 installers next week to resolve some file signing/notarization issues and also plan to integrate a critical fix for a crash impacting the Torch Deep Learning add-in when used on Intel Macs.
Product management notes that we have added several new EA members for this latest iteration, and announcements about EA3 will likely go out later next week once signoffs are complete. Looking ahead, JMP 18 EA4 is planned to freeze in about a month. Please continue to update your feature pages in Confluence as new items become ready to test!
While we continue to work towards JMP 18 Feature Freeze in two short months, and JMP 17.2 Code Freeze in about a month, it’s important to remember that many JMP customers are only now adopting JMP 17 and finding out about its cool new features. (Only a small proportion of our customers participate in our EA program, and many customers do not install every production version of JMP.)
In fact, Jeff Perkinson passed on this thread from the JMP Community this week titled Thank you for table previews! It refers to a feature many of us can’t live without – and retired JMP developer Craige Hales (once of our most dedicated JMP Early Adopter testers) even chimed in with his approval. This user captured my thoughts about this JMP 17 feature perfectly – it saves me time and reduces my frustrations every time I use JMP. Thanks again to Ernest Pasour for developing this feature in 17 – it is one of the JMP 17 features that made it impossible for me to go back to using an older version!
Speaking of JMP usage of various versions, at this week’s JMP Dev meeting, John Schroedl and David White presented on JMP 17.1 and JMP 18 telemetry progress. John reviewed historical details about JMP telemetry data collection and shared some of we’ve learned in the process of collecting 17.1 telemetry uploads from JMP trial users. Dave shared data collection improvements made in JMP 18 along with technical details for developers looking to add telemetry for features in JMP 18. Myron Chandler has collaborated with Dave and John on the telemetry back end database and has an automated process that saves copies of the data as JMP tables on a regular schedule here. (If you decided to take a look, please copy the tables so they will not be locked for the next refresh.) If you missed the telemetry meeting, you can find a recording here in Sharepoint.
Thanks to Audrey Shull for providing this week’s Atlassian Tip!
Jira Tip of the Week: It is worth mentioning that JMP is actually licensing two Jira products. Jira Software is used by teams such as R&D groups, Product Management and Digital Operations to track issues and bugs through a software release cycle. Jira Software includes the concept of sprints, used currently by our HTML and JMP Live teams, to break down big tasks into project periods. Jira Work Management (JWM) is more of a general purpose tool, often used in a project management capacity, to manage tasks and timelines. JMP staff who have a Jira Software license are able to view all projects, including those categorized as JWM projects. Those with a JWM license are only able to view other JWM projects, and are not able to view the R&D projects, for example, If you find you need to access content in Jira, and thought you had a license, please contact Audrey Shull, Brian Corcoran, or Shannon Conners to rectify the situation.
And thanks very much to Tonya Mauldin for sharing this week’s beta/crash reports!
You can find this report in JMP Live here: JMP Beta Report - Distribution (3) | JMP Live (sas.com)
General Announcements
- If you’re willing to be a featured employee on Inside JMP, please download a copy of the Get to Know form. Simply fill out the questions and when you’re done, upload it, along with 3 photos of you to the folder. Thank you for helping to make our JMP family a little more familiar!
Important Upcoming Dates
- JMP 17.2 Code Approval Begins – 6/13/23
- JMP 18 EA4 and JMP Clinical EA2 Freeze – 6/23/23
- JMP 17.2 Code Freeze – 6/30/23
- JMP 18 Feature Freeze – 7/21/23
- JMP 18 EA5 and JMP Clinical EA3, JMP Live 18 EA1 – 8/11/23
- JMP 18 EA6 and JMP Clinical EA4 – 10/3/23
- JMP 18 EA7 and JMP Clinical EA5 – 12/8/23
- Please visit Confluence for a full list of JMP 17 and JMP 18 dates.
JMP Development Updates
JMP Interns
- Anusha Bellapu: I am a software testing intern at JMP working under Wenjun Bao. It was a great week to start with. We all interns had the best introduction to the SAS-JMP culture and its history. I also learned about JMP and its functionalities, uses and its DOE through a fun Helicopter session by Byron and team. We had so many networking events to talk to all the executives of SAS and JMP. We thoroughly enjoyed the RFC day. Thank you for the wonderful opportunity to explore the campus.
- Hamid Sanei: I attended the orientation sessions, which were immensely helpful in understanding the company's culture, values, and processes. They also provided a great opportunity to meet and interact with fellow colleagues from different departments. I had the pleasure of meeting my manager and some of the team members, and they have been incredibly welcoming and supportive. Together, we have discussed expectations and goals, ensuring a clear understanding of my role and responsibilities within the organization. I have successfully set up my computer and configured all the necessary software. Also, I had the opportunity to participate in a meeting with the JMP writing group today. I am excited to contribute my skills and knowledge to this group and work towards our common objectives. In terms of planning, I have set a tentative schedule for the upcoming weeks. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the starting project, I have been actively watching recorded videos and diligently reading related documentation. This has allowed me to familiarize myself with the project's objectives, scope, and requirements. I look forward to further exploring my role and collaborating with my colleagues to achieve our collective objectives.
- Kyra Dalbo: I’m working under Andy and Curt, and I’m really excited about this summer. I’m loving it already here! In my first week, I’ve been mostly participating in Internpalooza and completing the onboarding process. However, I recently completed all the to-do activities for that, and I am now starting to learn JMP and get into its origin story as well!! It’s been a great week of getting to know everyone, and I’m so glad to be a part of the team!
- Trevor Rathje: This week was my first week at JMP and I am so excited for the summer! I attended the SAS internpalooza event Tuesday- Thursday which was a great introduction to policies and how the summer would look. I also had my JMP orientation and got to introduce myself to the JMP executive team. I will be learning how to use Salesforce today to prepare for the start of projects next week!
- Vidisha Mahajan: I am an intern on the Digital Operations team. I have had an amazing first week at JMP and have really enjoyed meeting everyone! I'm super excited to work on a project with Trevor and Aya this summer. We will be creating a campaign that upsells a current JMP industry; I will be focusing on the marketing aspect of this project.
Data Discovery
- Dave B: Working on performance of html conversion on new AWS machine. Investigating a problem with opening csv files with trailing spaces in columns and list check. Fixed a tablebox header click regression (colstack/row selection related, JMP-16718) and debugged a crash that occurs during image tests.
- Ernest: First five designs. Make Table menu items generate table names all the time. Platform Templates work. Header Stats alignment change for Categorical vs. Continuous labels and data.
- Dan S: Additional UI work and broadcast support for Platform Templates. Removed bad triangles from Surface Plot triangulation. Working on general broadcast support for ClickState operations.
- Xan: Code cleanup: changed many 3-statement swaps to use std::swap(). Added stdx::swap_if() for conditional ordering swaps.
- Evan: First Five designs. Starting changes to Dispatch syntax for Platform Templates. Dependency cleanup.
DOE
- Brad: Preparing to give a talk at the Spring Research Conference of the ASA and IMS in Canada next week.
- Peng: Writing a discussion paper on a prior selection by Bill’s formal student and coauthors, including Bill. Working on an interface feature in Contour platform, so my work in other platforms can be verified.
Host
- Paul N: Update cURL in 18.0 and 17.2 to 8.1.0, for several security issues. Working on getting macOS version of EA3 notarized. Getting ready to remove dependency on Python package matplotlib.
- Brian C: Pushed out (and broke build) the changeover of the Excel import engine for Windows. We now use LibXL instead of SpreadsheetGear. A change in licensing terms made this necessary.
Interactive HTML
- John Powell: Made further progress on support for Dendrograms (Hierarchical Clustering) in Interactive HTML. Started implementing support for CellPlotBox used in two-way hierarchical clustering. Interviewed candidates for our open developer position. Evaluated Feature Requests with Dieter for future consideration. Began knowledge transfer of Column Switcher support on JMP Live to Praveena. Met with Josh, Hui, and Steve C. to discuss progress on automated interactive regression testing.
- Paul Spychala: We’ve had two critical bugs that have been polluting our image tests: one with “Error reading data” alerts (JMPHTML-2149) and one with duplicate legendModelID attributes in the JMP report XML (JMPHTML-2049). Hopefully with fixes in place we won’t get so many alerts about HTML changes.
- Mike S: Finished work on JMPHTML-2059, finished Product Security Training 1. Began looking into JMPHTML-1866.
JMP Live
- Aurora: Made some improvements to the onboarding docs for JMP Live developers, thanks to Praveena who test-drove the docs after getting a new machine. Improved performance of granting access to a group with a huge number of users (~96%). Improved performance of revoking access from such a group (~99%). The new AD sync feature (an easy way to get a huge number of users) is stressing some aspects of JMP Live and we are shoring things up as we go. Also investigated an intermittently slow history table load time, but haven't cracked that one yet.
- Alex: Created AWS Tagging Standards page in Confluence based on a discussion this week about how to track and manage existing AWS AMIs and images.
Statistics
- Laura C-S: Made a usability study for the new model shortcuts in SEM to be highlighted in EA3. Added a context menu to the items in the Lists tab in SEM. Working on a fix to distinguish variances and covariances from residual variances/covariances in the SEM UI. Started work for the platform-wide bootstrap. Shared an example with Narayanan for using summarized data in SEM. Enjoyed meeting some of our new and returning interns!
- Elizabeth: Unstructured covariance structure and Toeplitz structure for GLMMs. A couple of spatial structures left to add to wrap up the planned list for 18, but we might get requests through the EA.
Stat Documentation
- Michael C: Helped James get stat R&D interns up and running for the summer; fixed some variance formulas in the Generalized Regression documentation; documented some new features added for Distribution in 18.
- Karen: Working on minor doc defects to clarify various items (e.g., diamond overlap marks, simulation in DOE, etc.).
Stat Testing
- Mark: Working on final features and testing of Easy DOE in JMP 17.2 with Brad, Ryan, Joseph, and Jacob. Closed Jira tickets with Jacob. Locating or creating more content for initial prototype of new R&D Technical site. Finished slides for the presentation of the usability study for INFORMS QSR conference in Raleigh with Jacob. Discussed improvements to new Inbox for usability studies that part of EA program with Mia, Tonya, and Jacob. Began developing a general analysis tool for usability study results as a counterpart to the design tool with Jacob. Answered questions in the JMP Community.
- Jacob: Writing unit tests for Easy DOE Flexible mode for designs with hard-to-change factors or random blocks. Updating the Usability Study Tool, and helping finalizing usability studies for EA3 (Easy DOE Model tab, Short Run Control Chart, and Response Screening Confidence Intervals). Preparing presentation for the INFORMS QSR conference with Mark.
- Tonya: Testing short run control charts and helping with a short run control chart usability study.
Product Management
- JMP Live Product Training 5/18/2023: On May 18, the product marketing team hosted a product training session on JMP Live. Geanine Tyson, Janet Brazel, Alex Lippincott and Dieter Pisot provided useful information on all things JMP Live. Please see the link above for more details and a recording!
Technical Support
Development Operations
- Melanie: Setting up a new Mac. Finishing the migration of MIF-PDF jobs to the AWS system. Special Stringbot run for localization. Updating documentation for several Jenkins jobs in Confluence.
- Myron: Config fixes/updates for Stringbot 17.2 run. Fixed some formatting and Unicode errors for telemetry 17.1 exports. Several JiraBot updates (JMPTOOL-859, JMPTOOL-851, JMPTOOL-858, JMPTOOL-830). Worked on several help/doc-related issues (JMPTOOL-767, JMPTOOL-692).
Documentation
- Chris B: Pushed new 17.2 and 18.0 help (with corrected startrelease values). Worked on a couple of new Jenkins scripts to help with moving files around when publishing. Documented some internal processes, including how to iterate the help build script and job, and some helpful unix terminal stuff. Met Emily, our intern.
- Devon: Lots of onboarding and training as a new full-time employee! Looking at the scripts for the screenshots in my books with the goal of removing manual steps using JMP’s new-as-of-17.0 support for modal dialog in scripting. Overhauled the Documentation team’s New writer orientation page on Confluence.
- Susan C: Finished creating most book Jiras. Working on Quick Start tips.
Planned work for 17.2 RNs. Updating JMP Live 17.2 English templates.
- Qiana: Onboarding of Devon and Emily. Help Menu Simplification work. Project planning.
System/Host Testing-Cary
- Audrey: Welcome to our interns! This week I gave one orientation session and talked to many about getting onboarded with JMP and SAS. We have some bright minds here and I’m excited to see what they will be working on. Also, EA3 testing for Windows is underway!
- Josh L: JMP Live Group Sync with active directory testing. This required me to add a 100 level deep group with a total of 10k users. I have asked Da Zhang to start looking a Group Sync to get another set of eyes on the feature. Answered JMP Live deployment questions and resolved some server starting issues.
Web Testing Team Jira status
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55
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Test Ready
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4
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Testing
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17
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Bugs Created in the last 7 days
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21
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Stories Closed in the last 7 days
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System/Host Testing-Beijing
- Beijing Team:
- JMP18 EA3 testing for Windows has been done (JMPTESTBJ-2278)
- JMP Live 17.2 I18N testing (JMPTESTBJ-2268)
- JMPDev3 is available. Beijing team’s database and SAS related unit tests point to JMPDev3 now.
- Eric (Nai) Wang: (1) Tested ‘@ mentioning’ feature in package comments (WEBJMP-6952). Added jest tests. Some UI checks. (2) Tested History log pages in space and package page. Now History log page can show more details (WEBJMP-5349). (3) Bug verification.
- Da Li: (1) JMP18 EA3 testing for Windows. (2) Done feature testing for JMP-8429 NF: add support to export version 8 transport files. (3) Prepared to do feature testing for JMP-16445: OSIsoft PI Import: UI enhancements (4) Org JMP Live 17.2 I18N testing. (5) Bug verification. (6) Investigated JMP Live migration issue (16.2 > 18). (7) Jenkins: fix an issue in Beijing UT Jenkins job script.
- Mike Wu: (1) JMP18 EA3 testing for Windows. (2) Investigated TS report 00041322. (3) Bug verification. (4) Unit tests failures investigation.
- Kimi (Yu) Wang: (1) JMP18 EA3 testing for Windows. (2) Modify SAS/Formula Depot related UT scripts to jmpdev3. (3) Test specific ports for AWS machine. (4) Testing Python Interface for JMP 18: Discuss with Paul about Future Plan for python integration testing. Basic testing, JMP-16664: Initial Python integration cut for JMP 18 EA3. (5) Created How to Install Python Packages for JMP embedded python . (6) Helped others to resolve new Python Interface related issues.
- Da Zhang: (1) JMP18 EA3 testing for Windows. (2) Help others in Beijing team to verify their JMP Live Jira issues. (3) JMP Live 17.2 I18N testing. (4) Playing with the AD group import feature. (5) Investigated/fixed OLE test failures.
- Nala: (1) JMP18 EA3 testing for Windows. (2) Bug verification. (3) JMP Live 17.2 I18N testing.
Note from Shannon
Thanks to John Sall for sharing a picture of this cute coffee cup that he saw while traveling that reminded him of – what else? – JMP’s “little red triangle” (LRT) menu!
And because that cup also reminded me of a duck…
