Welcome to the JMP Development Update for May 5, 2023!
We are nearing our freeze date for JMP 18 EA3 on 5/12/23. Please update the Motivation and Summary section of your feature pages with any new information for customers to guide their testing efforts for this latest iteration. If you are creating a new feature page, please see this How-to page under the JMP 18 features category in Confluence that explains how to use the JMP 18 feature page template. If you need help setting up a feature page or adding epics or stories for JMP 18 features, please let me know! I’m always glad to help.
Feature pages are extremely important resources for product management as they work to communicate the major new and updated items to our EA customers with each iteration. Mia tells me that feature pages have greatly streamlined the process of collecting customer-facing information to share on the EA webpage! You should always create and link Jira epics and their associated child stories to your feature pages and use your Jira issues to communicate development details to testers and writers. Downstream teams depend on the details provided in feature pages, epic and story issues to understand what new features do and how they are changing over time as the development cycle continues. And of course, testers use stories and bugs to verify specific changes.
As a reminder, you should never track code pushes in an Epic type issue. Epics do not have roles like Developer, Tester, etc. Always create an epic as a container for a big project (e.g., “Torch Deep Learning Add-in for JMP 18”) that describes the main idea of the project, and add specific stories underneath it to capture aspects of the project that require verification (e.g., “Initial implementation for JMP 18 EA3” (story), “Add support for three level profit matrix for Y variables” (feature request), “Remove underscores to make parameter labels easier to read” (bug?)). You can also link to items that relate in a big project to other ways – e.g., “Support torch C++ libraries on M1 Macs” or “Add support roles for new Torch Deep Learning component”).
And speaking of that project…Thanks very much to Russ Wolfinger for presenting at Thursday’s dev meeting on the Torch Deep Learning image analysis features he’s been working on in collaboration with JMP student intern Chunwei Ma. Special thanks to Chunwei for answering so many questions in the very active meeting chat as Russ presented their work! If you missed the meeting, you can find a recording here, showcasing numerous interesting image classification (and other) examples. Now that the LS team has cleared the legal approval process, they plan to include the Torch C++ libraries in an add-in that customers can install into JMP 18. Recently, Russ has been working through the process of creating a set of universal binaries for the add-in so that it will work on Windows as well as the Intel and M1/arm64 Macs now preferred by JMP customers (at least those who are submitting telemetry files to us anonymously).
Also, thanks very much to Tonya Mauldin for sending this week’s Beta/Crash tracks (with crashes selected)!
JMP Beta Report - Distribution (2) | JMP Live (sas.com)
General Announcements
Important Upcoming Dates
- JMP 18 EA3 Freeze – 5/12/23
- JMP 17.2 Code Approval – 6/13/23
- JMP 18 EA4 Freeze – 6/23/23
- JMP 17.2 Code Freeze – 6/30/23
- Please visit Confluence for a full list of JMP 17 and JMP 18 dates.
JMP Development Updates
Product Management
- This week product marketing presented a sales and marketing training session around the Workflow Assessment - a sales tool that enables teams to understand where JMP is being utilized in an account and how often it’s used. The US Central High Tech team of Peter Polito, Kyle Bickford and Ben Rost shared how they utilized this tool to build a strong story, strategy and roadmap for their accounts. Thanks to Sara Doudt and Kaylee Warren for the writeup here that provides more details about the training!
Technical Support
- Wendy: This week, several members of Tech Support met for lunch in building C. It was great to see everyone and to welcome Christine Kjellberg to JMP in person! Christine has begun training with Tech Support on the tools we use to support JMP users. We are excited to have her on the team!
- Here are the TS JMP Live reports and the link to the Jira filter showing the tickets reported by TS for the last 14 days.
Development Operations
- Bob: Finalized the process and placed JMP Clinical 17.1 revised installers on various download sites. Prepared Clinical EA and Pro EA for EA3. Worked with Paul Nelson in adding Python files to V 18 Windows installers. Restructured JMP Live 17.1 hidden download by splitting it into a two-part download. The original single file was too large for the SAS system to handle. Continued project management to place 17.2 into the SAS delivery processes for ship date of September 19, 2023.
- Myron: Working on telemetry exports; fixing problems with the export job running out of memory before completing the job. Updated JiraBot owner assignments (JMPTOOL-851, JMPTOOL-849, JMPTOOL-850, etc). Investigating and/or fixing doc build and help build errors.
- Jim: Ongoing AWS migration. Bug verification. Perforce support.
Documentation
- Susan C: Finished creating smart checklist templates in Jira to track our 18.0 deliverables for both the stat writers and the Doc team. Created process Jiras for all EAs and for the final build. Created a book Jira for the EG and just need to finish reviewing its smart checklist items before creating the rest of the book/project Jiras. Drafted the 17.1.1 Release Notes and sent for email review. Keeping up with feedback on the TOTD revamp to Quick Start tips and proposing ideas. Keeping up with JMP Live Jiras that come in which impact docs.
- Chris B: Spent the week on a potential solution to JMPTOOL-334, getting search results that send English users to the Chinese help. We'll know in a month (or two) if it worked.
System/Host Testing-Cary
- Mandy: Created a Workflow builder blog as a follow-up to Discovery Summit Europe. Worked on JMP 18 WFB issues and examples with If/Else and For Loop. Tested CCB and LDF fixes for 17.2 involving crashing when toggling options and data filter JIRA issues fixed for 18 and 17.2. Found a few new issues with Workflow builder including one related to Windows and Zoom (JMP-16476) and another where moving actions around in the step settings area causes them to vanish like magic (JMP-16553). Resolved a few Tech support tracks too, as I prepare to be OOO on vacation from May 8-May 23 to take a much needed break – praying for safety and good health! And not too many issues to occur while I’m off playing in Italy!
- Nick H: Worked on installer testing for JMP 17.1.1. as well as ongoing bug validations. Verified an improvement to our accessibility, updating various portable prompts to use newLabel instead of newText which allows screen readers to recognize and read the text. Looking into an issue with the Testing Dashboard where test history graphs are not loading for certain individual tester pages.
- Hunter: Working through JMP 17.1.1 final installer testing, encountered a Mac specific crash in one of the baseline tests for JMP 18.0 and reported it to Dan S., and working with a CIS staff member on a BeyondTrust issue.
- Mike M: A less-productive week for me as I’m battling Covid. Feeling better w/ Paxlovid. Opened a Local Data Filter regression Jira. Removed Tutorials from JMP 18 Sikuli tests. Started 17.1.1 installer testing.
Web Testing Team
- Josh L.: JMP 17.1.1. Installation testing is at 83% complete. I have been helping testers by looking at machine issues and answering questions. JMP Live Testing Active Directory integration and JMP Live Space and Data History.
- Anna: Bug verifications. Contour plot testing for HTML5. HR classes. Another week of NO INSTALLER TESTING! 8)
System/Host Testing-Beijing
- Beijing Team:
- Eric (Nai) Wang: (1) JMP 17.1.1 installer testing. (2) Working a new ‘publish various reports’ test to regenerate all sample reports, JMPTESTBJ-2258.
- Da Li: (1) Continue feature testing JMP-16294: OSIsoft PI Import: Multi-Attribute Import. (6). Verified and closed JMP Live bugs. (2) JMP 17.1.1 installer testing.
- Mike Wu: (1) JMP 17.1.1 Installer Testing. (2) Migration from jmpdev2 to AWS temporary server rehearsal investigation for SAS 9.4 is still in progress, detailed status can be found in JMPTOOL-740. For the SAS 9.4 migration configuration, met quite a lot of unforeseen issues and sought internal resource and help to resolve the issues and took record note in the SAS migration instruction confluence page accordingly.
- Kimi (Yu) Wang: (1) JMP 17.1.1 Installer Testing. (2) Jenkins: Set a VM to run JMP E2E, for details refer to JMPTESTBJ-2243 – done. Debug the abort jobs for mac UTs.
- Da Zhang: (1) JMP 17.1.1 Installer Testing. (2) Investigated a JMP 17.1.1 crash issue on the JMP Live connection dialog, unable to re-create the crash
- Nala: (1) JMP 17.1.1 Installer Testing. (2) Completed the CAS Integration new changes testing for 17.1.1, 17.2 and 18. Details can be found in JMP-16240. (3) Investigated a Publish Control Chart LDF issue which was reported by Eric Hill.
Data Discovery
- Dave B: Tracked down a tech support problem when saving Control Chart Builder to pdf on windows, added the ability to customize interval line style and color for Plot Col, fixed a crash with the JSON import wizard reported by JMP early adopter Craige Hales (JMP-16535), and working on ColStack row alignment. problems Worked with John Schroedl to figure out problems running the image tests on the AWS machine.
- Dan S: Working on UI for Platform Templates, rework save-to-addin for App/Dashboard Builder to reference the app in a separate file, looking into helper function for saving group context to saved tables
- Evan: Looking at Dispatch calls related to Platform Templates. Prep work for Sample Data Index refresh. Added telemetry for open/import to record file types (both interactive and scripted).
- Xan: Finally tracked down a Control Chart Builder crash resulting from a Graph Builder change; fix now pushed for 17.2 (JMP-16416).
- Ernest: Model work for platform templates, multi-col transforms support.
DOE
- Brad: Still working on a potential improvement of DSDs to better estimate the quadratic effects.
- Caleb: This week, I’ve been working on adapting the model specification GUI Peng developed a while back for the CSALT platform. It really is amazing and I look forward to showing it off to our users! I’ve also continued work on mine and Brad’s research.
- Peng: Continued working on both fronts of JMP 18 development for DOE and Reliability. Investigated and responded several inquiries from tech support and documentation.
Host
- Paul: Making the pip wrapper script jpip work on Mac and Windows and utilizing the .zip files for the Python std library modules. Note: at this point, each user needs to copy the jpip script and edit for their environment – username, jmp product (JMP, JMP Pro, JMPSUB) and install directory. Will be working to improve this before we ship final JMP 18. Tested build on JMP runner on windows, David Barbour is updating the copy portion of JMP runner to pick up the embedded python components. All files have been submitted to Perforce except project changes and jmpconfig.h to flip the build - will look at doing that on Monday. Bob Hickey has updated the Windows installer to pick up then necessary Python files. Started rebuilding macOS Python to support older OS flavors. (If I push it tonight, I will send out e-mail and instructions on editing jpip and installing the extra python modules needed: numpy, pandas, and matplotlib.
- John Schroedl: Host changes to transition away from deprecated .NET classes as part of .NET Core work. Helped investigate baseline/image test issues. Pushed change to allow rendering WPF content on machine w/ no attached display. Restaged Win11 Insider Preview machine due to MS changes to the insider channel structure.
- Paul: Trimming down the size and number of files that go into the framework by using the byte compiled .pyc files and packaging them into a zip file.
- Michael H: Initial implementation of user interface for PI Server multi-attribute import.
Interactive HTML
- Mike S: Completed three fixes for custom label fonts not showing up properly in HTML exports (bars, packed bars, and heatmaps), and made progress on a fourth (parallel plots).
- John Powell: Presented progress from our first new feature sprint in JMP 18.
Addressed change to where the color for missing data is stored (JMPHTML-2090).
- Paul Spychala: Adding support for Wrap Lines for Axis Values in HTML (JMPHTML-1372).
JMP Live
- Aurora: 18.0 - Completed work on removing package-level control over downloadability. Also removed space join request feature (which had never been exposed in the UI). Tweaked notification emails. Continued GDPR discussion. With Eric and Dieter, started design of folder-level access control. Miscellaneous - Ran 2 quick & dirty usability studies (@ Mentioning, and Post List Filtering) with 3 participants each.
Statistics
- John Sall: The Show Commands builtin function now produces data tables instead of text on the log (JMP-16483). Example: Show Commands(Scriptables); This is useful in censusing builtin functions and ScriptItems across JMP. For example, there are 5218 out of 20,072 ScriptItem entries that have no tip or doc. If you remove the ContinTable,ColumnNames and combinations of NoMenu/NoScript/Deprecated, that leaves 401. Many of these may not need tips, but some might. There are 69 deprecated commands, but they are in only 19 components, with Preferences having the largest number (16). The Category Distribution of Builtin operators is:
- Laura C-S: Fixed a couple of bugs in SEM (Robust Inference with MGA and Singularity Details) and picked back up my Measurement Invariance shortcut work (requested by Narayanan), which is now nearly done. Started reading the causal inference book “What if” to try and bridge gaps with “traditional SEM.”
Stat Testing
- Mark: Developed a usability study of the new FDR report in Process Screening for John with Nicole and Jacob. Developed enhancements to the Plot Col Box for FDR usability test and further development of the Analyze tab in Easy DOE with Dave Barbour. Testing Easy DOE with Jacob. Finishing the prototype of the new R&D Technical Resources area in the JMP Community with Caleb. Answering questions in JMP Community.
- Jacob: Testing Easy DOE, adding tests for 17.2 updates and testing the new factor list. Testing Make Validation Column 17.2 fixes. Working on usability tests with Mark Bailey and Nicole Jones.
- Tonya: Testing short run control charts and working on bug verification.
Life Sciences Updates
- The revised JMP Clinical 17.1 installers were approved yesterday after a change was made last week to resolve an important bug found by an internal customer.
Note from Shannon
Hopefully you all saw Lauren Buck’s email earlier in the week about an opportunity coming up to donate new or gently used clothing to a great cause! If not, here is the information again. SAS and WIN have supported this organization many times over the years. If you’re in Cary, this is a very convenient way to donate! And if you’re not, feel free to donate online, or to support one of the many similar organizations across the country and the world that are also dedicated to this cause. Have a great weekend, all!
Good afternoon. The US East Inside Sales team will be volunteering on Wednesday, May 10th, at Note in the Pocket. Their mission is to “provide quality clothing to homeless and impoverished children and families with dignity and love”.
Our team will be collecting new and gently used clothing and shoes that we will bring to Note in the Pocket when we arrive for our volunteer time. You can find the list of most needed items here. If you have anything you would like to donate, please bring your items by 12pm on Wednesday the 10th. There is a sign on the 5th floor lobby of Building A where you can place your items. Thanks!
