Welcome to the JMP Development Update for November 22, 2024!
JMP 18.1.1 was released earlier this week. Thanks to everyone who worked on finalizing 18.1.1 and JMP 19 EA4, released last week. We have a bit of a lull before JMP 19 EA5 freezes on 12/6/24, but with the Thanksgiving holiday next week, that time will go by fast! Thanks for continuing to update your feature pages so that product management can point customers to features that are ready for testing. If you need to add a new feature page, please follow this How-To page.
Brian Corcoran would like us to join him in congratulating Bryan Boone for 30th years at SAS, the last 13 at JMP. Allison Hines will put up Bryan’s work bio on Inside JMP soon. As Bryan tells me, he really started on November 14th, but SAS HR recognizes his start date as December 1st. Bryan leads our Data Connector initiative and has been instrumental in the development of data access, SAS connectivity, HTTP Request, and Snowflake (and those are just the recent ones). He’s also a terrific mentor and liaison to customers, often being called in to help solve customer issues with JMP integration. Congratulations, Bryan!
Speaking of data connectors, we met as a group yesterday to see a demo on enhancements to connectors coming for JMP 19. If you missed the meeting, you can find a recording here. Thanks to Will Morgan and Neal Siekierski for presenting! If you’d like to present at a future JMP dev meeting, please sign up in Confluence here.
Thanks very much to Tonya Mauldin for sharing this week’s details on Beta/Crash reports with crashes selected! (Tonya notes she has been having some trouble publishing her reports recently and has contacted Josh L to troubleshoot.)
General Announcements
Important Upcoming Dates
- JMP 19 EA5 Code Freeze – 12/6/24
- JMP 18.2 Code Approval Mode – 12/6/24
- JMP 18.2 Code Freeze – 12/20/24
- JMP 18.1.2 Security Freeze – 1/3/25
- JMP 18.1.2 Final Image Candidate – 1/6/25
- JMP 18.1.2 QA Signoff – 1/16/25
- JMP 18.1.2 Release in MyJMP – 1/21/25
- Please visit Confluence for a full list of JMP 18 and JMP 19 dates.
JMP Development Updates
Interactive HTML
- Paul S: Attended the Connect.Tech conference in Atlanta, GA this week (write-up to come). Last week I also worked on 3d scatterplot in HTML adding the ability to rotate the titles along the axes (JMPHTML-14142). I also worked with Clay Barker on adding Distribution platforms continuous fit CDF profilers to HTML (JMPHTML-14206). We also fixed more issues with Fit to Window (JMPHTML-14125, JMPHTML-14187) and allowed Label segments to be fit-able (JMPHTML-14175). Lastly added support of the power operation with no optional degree argument (use default value instead) (JMPHTML-14225).
- Mike Stickles: Continued work on JMPHTML-13966 (Word Cloud selections not working correctly). This has been much more difficult than originally anticipated because the way Text Explorer data display tables are formatted when exported is slightly different than other tables, and those differences impact the selection code. I have managed to find ways around enough issues to enable selections, but those selections are being mirrored in tables where they should not be mirrored so there is more work to be done.
- John Powell: Fixed lint warning and failing tests after JMP Live ‘Save Report Changes’ menu item was added. Added Reset View and Spin animations to Interactive HTML’s Scatterplot 3D. (JMPHTML-14226). Demoed features that I added during our latest sprint.
- Michael Senoyuit: Worked on bug fixes for multiple response local data filter (MRLDF) and fixing Pinned Tooltips in HTML5.
JMP Live
- Aurora: Control chart warning improvements (add support for multi-warning triage, add support for filters on control chart *.csv downloads, bug fixes, filed Jiras from recent usability study). Discussed JMP Live "insight" reports with Scott Allen, who has created a very nice example report. Created a proof of concept for JMP Live generating "insight" data tables about itself to drive reports, via Python & GraphQL.
Statistics
- Laura C-S: Continued development work for specific indirect effects (thanks to David Barbour and Ernest Pasour for their help with display issues!). Reviewed SEM doc example for multiple-group invariance, met with Haley to plan for SPSP workshop, worked on paper for collaboration with UNC prof using JMP’s SEM platform for her analyses, wrote document describing causal mediation in SEM for NIEHS customers I met from Discovery.
- John Sall: In Model Screening, add a column in the Validation Set statistics with a dagger mark to and legend -- "† indicates that the method uses validation data to tune model." (JMP-23705)
Stat Documentation
- Michael C: Completed the Inclusive Leadership training class; continued work on updates to the Fit Least Squares entries in the Scripting Index; updated UI strings to adhere to Acrolinx standards; reviewed some doc updates for Hamid and Karen.
Stat Testing
- Haley: Began planning a Longitudinal SEM workshop with Laura Castro-Schilo, which we’ll be teaching at the Society for Personality & Social Psychology annual conference in Denver in February. Volunteered with NPower NC conducting mock interviews with students training to enter the tech workforce. Verified some JIRA tickets related to recent fixes in the SEM platform.
- Jacob: Writing unit tests for DOE platforms in Projects. Creating JMP Live Control Warnings usability study for EA5. Updating the Usability Study Tool. Investigating potential performance issues.
- Tonya: Verifying bug fixes and updating unit tests.
Product Management and Product Marketing
- Sara Doudt: I have been on a roll this week with articles. Here are three that I have published to InsideJMP with links to full articles on Confluence.
- JMP Marketplace Updates and November Featured Extension. Since the release of the JMP Marketplace on October 21st, we will continue to provide updates on how the JMP Marketplace is performing and how you can continue to promote it! Each month we will share a JMP Marketplace update that includes:
- Featured Extension for the Month: We are featuring specific extensions as a way to continue the promotion and conversation around the value that you and customers can find in the new JMP Marketplace.
- JMP Marketplace Stats: Dashboards that show the performance of the JMP Marketplace.
- Promotion Updates: The latest resources that can help you continue to promote the JMP Marketplace through your channels.
- New Extensions: Listing of any new extensions that have come out in the last month.
- Please take a minute to review more details in this write up.
- 5 Takeaways from the Interactive Wall at Discovery. During Discovery, one of the activities was the Interactive Wall, a display where attendees placed stickers to different areas of the analytic workflow showcasing where they spend their time (each sticker equals roughly 4 hours of work a week), with each color representing a different industry. The result: an community-driven statistical visualization that evolved over the course of the event. Also, a frequent meeting spot for conversation, the proverbial data visualization water cooler for idea sharing and discussion. Now that the Discovery Summit event is over, here are five takeaways
Development Operations
- Melanie:
- Validated new AWS Stringbot run – extractions are running well. We are changing the time Stringbot runs in the morning to avoid the Perforce log cleanup job, which seems to be causing an error when submitting files. Note that the files are submitted correctly on the second try. (JMPTOOL-1434)
- Set up a meeting after Thanksgiving with Documentation to discuss JMP Live Help processes. (JMPTOOL-1428)
- Tested and added a new Text Finder for Mac Unit Test runs using a regular expressions instead of plain text. (JMPTOOL-1303)
- Sent a reminder to everyone for JMP 19.0 EA 6 and JMP 19.0 Feature Freeze. Added the JMP 19 Late Features Confluence page to track late feature development.
- Checking, resetting, general troubleshooting for Unit Test jobs and Jenkins.
- Started working on JSL Conflicts for 18.2 Portable UI Strings for Localization. The rest will be finished next week.
- Made many improvements to the Unit Test Console Log capturing script. It now runs in minutes instead of hours.
- Shannon L: Pulled weeds and planted seeds at Burkett Farm. Oxygen migration Jira disposition review meetings with team; helped with security vulnerability tracking; JMP 19 EA5 export compliance registration; continued progress on documentation for end-of-cycle security/registration tasks; release tracking & signoff meetings; Jira customizations and Jira/Confluence user, site, and plugin support.
- Shannon C: Cut and packed kale and collard greens at Burkett Farm. Thanks to Beth Evans for organizing the visit – we all had a great time! Reviewed UT fixes made by testers and UT timing data reports. Investigated a few crashes. Met with team to discuss ongoing development projects and releases – we’ve had a lot going on!
- Bob: Uploading of 18.1.1 installers for JMP, JMP Pro, JMP Clinical, and JMP Live to Salesforce. Tested to verify accuracy. Released for customers. Numerous confluence page updates for release and processes.
- Myron: JMPTOOL-1308 - rescheduled stringbot to avoid Perforce errors. JMPDOC-2286 - configuring new MIF PDF machine. Modifying Acrolinx scripts due to upgrade.
Localization
- Allison: Finalized localized 18.2 Menu Description Card strings and pushed them to production; handed off localized 18.0 JMP Documentation pdfs to Marketing; finalized localized 18.2 Portable UI strings and preparing for push to production; submitted purchase reqs and work order requests for V19 review work; communicated with vendors about quotes and invoices; prepared localized JMP Documentation pdfs for Doc Library creation.
- Krzysztof: Processing translation returns of PortableUI 18.2. Testing alignment process for Oxygen files converted from English and translated FM files. Researching open source LLMs for localization needs. Preparing demo of the localization process for Store using memoQ. Designing and testing new automation (image diff, commit job for UI).
- Howard: Demo Jira integration with current Translation Query System. Jira integration for Dashboard push which will provide customized descriptions with Jira story title and close the Jira once P4 pushed is done successfully. Bug fixes.
- Sandy: Finished up Jenkins job where image diff file validation runs right after the image diff step. Continued work on commit job enhancements. Tested new commit test job. Began more work with pytest framework for rest api testing.
Documentation
- Khawar: Sample index: Finished creating confluence pages for issues; Discussed the next plan with Chris and Qiana. Oxygen: Discussed some issues with Chris; Created and revised 4 callout images; met Shannon L for Oxygen Jira review.
- Devon: JMPDOC-2308: Working with Krzysztof on handed off files and working on additional files for L10N review, house cleaning Oxygen Jiras with Shannon L, finding user guide chapters for our new editor Jill to look at, planning 19.0 documentation.
- Susan C: Finished creating the JMP Live 18.2 help in all languages. Sent to test. Will wait to publish until close to the release date of March 2025. Working on JMP Live retrospective fixes.
- Qiana: Completed the 18.2 menu description cards and delivered to L10n. Emailed Legal about the copyright year in the footer of jmp.com pages. Did project planning and coordination.
System/Host Testing-Cary
- Mandy: Worked on some JIRA fixes, testing issues; Also connected when home with the Global Protect VPN app for testing purposes – from my Mac so far, nothing terrible for me to note; Received a few TS tracks for EA3 and EA4 – responded to those; Tracked down a testing issue with the framework that I’ve been seeing for a while- thanks to Nick Holmes for the huge assist in helping me find the issue, and resolve my JSL syntax – but he opened a JIRA ticket to try and figure out WHY Mac behaved as it did; Working on a few tests to add now, and need to get back to Tags, Value Labels, and workflow testing stuff.
- Nick H: Spent some time helping Mandy find a ut assert that() syntax error in one of her unit tests that was causing undesirable framework side affects with failure reporting. In addition to 19 verifications I am also looking into a weird Mail() issue on Windows that Sarah Seligman brought to our attention. Lastly, there is a wave of EA4 feedback for notebooks, code folding, and auto completion that I am sifting through.
- Hunter: Responded to a flurry of JMP 19 EA 4 cases and attempted to reproduce reported crashes. JIRA verifications, worked with Dave Matthews in technical support to identify a crash when closing multiple files in JMP Clinical on the Mac, reviewed several localized PDF files, and updated the Sequoia Beta host testing Macs in the lab with 15.2 Dev Beta 4 and ran some tests.
- Lisa: Worked on getting caught up on EA feedback tracks and bug verifications. Reviewed some hover label image diffs with Mike. Also took a first look at the new arrow charts.
- Audrey: Matlab testing for JMP 18 on the Mac, still trying to gain access to a Snowflake instance for testing that new data connector.
Web Testing – Cary
- Josh: JMP Live 18.1.1 installer testing. Keycloak 25.0.6 regression testing. Adding to the regression bucket for dot-dot security releases. Answering JMP Live-related questions.
System/Host Testing-Beijing
- Beijing Team:
- Da Li: (1) Bugs verification. (2) TS:00175321, excel import issue, provide comments. (3) DONE: Migration failure investigation and fix JMPTESTBJ-3213: jmp live migration xx to 19.0 test failed- 2024w47. (4) DONE: JMP Clinical 18.2: Non-English Testing.
- Nan Wu: (1) JMP 19.0 bug verification testing. (2) JMP 18.1.1 installer testing Done - (JMPTESTBJ-3193). (3) SharePoint data connector testing on the newly supported personal account sign in feature. (4) JMP Clinical 18.2 non-English testing started (JMPTESTBJ-2111).
- Da Zhang: (1) Bug verification. (2) Update tests due to changes made in WEBJMP-9210 - JMPTESTBJ-3212 – DONE. (3) Testing for WEBJMP-6788 - Limit user / group list in triage assignment, to only those users permitted to view the package (JMPTESTBJ-3215). (4) JMP Clinical 18.2: Non-English Testing - JMPTESTBJ-3211 – DONE. (5) Quick intro on how to add E2E tests for data refreshing using data connector.
- Lily Meng: (1) Bug verification. (2) Install several versions of Matlab on Mac computer and attempt to run Matlab unit tests on JMP18.2. - In progress. (3) JMP Clinical 18.2: Non-English Testing - In progress. (4) Write Matlab unit tests that invoke Matlab engine through Python - In progress.
- Nala: (1) Bug Verification. (2) Updated JMPLiveGraphQLDiffTool to support different versions of JMP Live. (3) JMP Live Load Testing: Updated tests for new APIs for JMP Live 19. Check test results for JMP Live 18.2. (4) JMP Clinical 18.2: Non-English Testing.
Core
- Dave B: Updated add-in builder so it now can now automatically refresh files added to an add-in if the original files change and the add-in is then opened in edit mode.
- Xan: Arrow chart work.
DOE and Reliability
- Caleb: Finished up some analysis work for the student working with Doug Montgomery. He’s presenting our findings at a conference in Italy. Also, some more work in CSALT and sample size explorers. Lastly, I’ll be presenting my idea for a shape profiler add-in to the SAS patent committee later today.
- Irene: Investigating some Jira tickets; learning JSL from Joseph to create UI for covering array analysis.
Hosting and Interfaces
- John Schroedl: Made some tweaks to the Home window based on EA feedback. Wrote up screenshot advice for doc folks related to color modes and accent color. Fixed bug in UUIDCreate. Pushed new portable APIs to retrieve the full sets of portable and host built-in icons. Fixed issue where custom toolbar items were not in the correct location after a language change. Brainstorming Python issue with Paul. Investigated some EA4 crashes - If you receive one with a JMPManagedExcept with the following message "'{DependencyProperty.UnsetValue}' is not a valid value for property 'Padding'", it is a DUP of JMPCLINICAL-3632. We've already seen it a number of times and there will be more. Unfortunately, the fix just missed the EA4 cutoff.
- Will: Bug fixes for the SharePoint data connector. Adding additional authentication mechanisms to support personal accounts for the SharePoint connector. I’ve also begun updating documentation to start refactoring the SharePoint connector to OneDrive, since a connector to SharePoint lists and sites is coming in the future.
- Michael H: Initial push of AspenTech IP.21 Importer code. Nothing testable yet.
Note from Shannon
Hope everyone in the US enjoys the Thanksgiving holiday break! If you’re cooking for children, I hope they enjoy more of the Thanksgiving food than this! 
