Recently we have been hitting quota limits of the Google Analytics API with our extractor. As these limits are shared between all users of the extractor, we decided to add a new authorization option - Custom Authorization.

With Custom Authorization, you can provide your own API keys for the Google Analytics extractor, so you will have your own quota limits. This way you can monitor these limits as you need, and other users won't be affected.

Please check out our step-by-step guide on how to set up Custom Authorization in the Google Analytics Extactor.

In case of any problems or questions, please contact us on support@keboola.com.

As part of our effort to make Keboola Connection an open platform we would like to announce the availability of the Keboola Developer Portal - https://apps.keboola.com/. Some of you may already be aware that it is possible to modify applications in KBC through the Developer Portal API. Now we are adding an application to the API so that you can get things done more easily.

The Keboola Developer Portal is a completely separate application from Keboola Connection. It is region-less because it has no access to customer projects. The Developer Portal provides an authoritative list of KBC applications for each region. Each Keboola Connection stack reads this list regularly. As usual in Keboola, the Developer Portal is done in an API first approach, so everything that the application does can be done programmatically too.

What does the Developer Portal do?

• It allows users registered to vendors to create and modify applications in KBC without Keboola Tech support.
• It provides service accounts for automating deployment and testing.
• It provides Docker AWS ECR repositories for applications (thus avoiding Quay and Dockerhub issues).
• It provides an authoritative list of publicly available approved applications.

Anyone can sign up for the Developer Portal. However until you join a vendor or create a new one, you will not be able to do anything. Both creating and joining a vendor must be approved. Joining a vendor must be approved by the vendor administrator, and creating a vendor must be approved by Keboola Tech. Once a member of a vendor, you can modify and add new applications to that vendor. There's no need to fill a checklist and go through our support. When you create an application, it becomes immediately available for you to use. Using the Developer Portal, you can also set up automated deployment for your application.

Keboola Tech still has some things to do:

• approve new vendors
• change some controlled properties of an application (e.g. memory limit)
• approve a new application before it can become public

Next steps:

• We still have a long list of things to be done on the Developer Portal, so we consider it as beta quality at the moment.
• We are soon going to hold a developer meet-up in the Czech Republic where we’d like to hear about your experience developing applications for KBC (in January probably).
• If you have previously used the Developer Portal API, we encourage you to try the application. If you are having trouble joining your vendor, please contact us on support (there may be some friction depending on how your account was created).
• If you have created complex applications using Custom Science, go ahead and check the Developer Portal, it may now be more convenient to turn them into full applications.
• If you have never created an application for Keboola Connection, we highly encourage you to try it - it's much easier now. In fact a component can be created from scratch in an hour.

Support for MySQL in Keboola Connection is coming to its end. Here's what will happen.

Effective immediately

• New projects and projects without existing MySQL transformations will not be able to create new MySQL transformations.

MySQL Storage Backend (supported until January 2018)

• The default storage backend for all projects is immediately switched from MySQL to Snowflake.
  
• All MySQL buckets in all projects will be migrated to Snowflake in January 2018. This will not affect any operations, only a short maintenance on the project will be required.
• No changes in the project are required.
• You can apply for a sooner migration at support@keboola.com.

MySQL Transformations (supported until April 2018)

• Your existing MySQL transformations will need to be migrated to Snowflake by the end of April 2018.
  
• If you need any help migrating your MySQL transformations, contact support@keboola.com.

These steps will allow us to deprecate a piece of the legacy infrastructure and focus on the state of the art technologies. The Snowflake storage backend and transformations have significant performance and scaling benefits, so your projects will run faster than on MySQL without any extra charge.

New Features

• We are pleased to announce a significant speed boost to Snowflake load to workspace (also speeding up Input Mapping inTransformations). For tables with primary keys the speed difference is up to 80%.
• We have also simplified our database extractors, as we mentioned here last week.
• Fixed CSV Import. The component generates meta-data now.

Minor Imporvements

• We have updated our Terms and Conditions.
  Per section 14.3 of our Master Software Subscription Agreement, we would like to notify you of a change to the Agreement and its new version released November 10th. The purpose of this change was to provide further protection to Client Data and to comply with requirements of some third party providers (namely Google). We do not consider this change to be a material change, however we are obliged to provide you with this notification. There is no action required from you in relation to this change if you accept it. We are setting out the original and revised language for your review below. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns at legal@keboola.com.
  
  Original (version from March 16th, 2016):
  6.7.1. Permitted Use of Client Data. Keboola will only use and will cause all Affiliates and Keboola employees, agents, subcontractors and representatives to only use Client Data for purposes of performing the Services. Keboola shall follow Client instructions when processing Client Data and will not use Client Data other than as authorized by this Agreement. 
  
  Updated (version dated November 10th, 2017):
  6.7.1. Permitted Use of Client Data. Keboola will only use and will cause all Affiliates and Keboola employees, agents, subcontractors and representatives to only use Client Data for purposes of performing the Services. Keboola shall follow Client instructions when processing Client Data and will not use Client Data other than as authorized by this Agreement. Client Data which Keboola downloads (with permission granted by Client during component configuration) from Google, Facebook, Twitter or other third party APIs ("Third Party Data") are stored and handled the same as Client Data under this Agreement. Third Party Data will not be shared anywhere (it remains stored securely on Keboola systems) until Client decides to share that data (for example, by configuring Data writer to Client or third party systems). Client can delete all Third Party Data and data source configurations from Keboola storage anytime. This section shall be read along side with and be subject to the provisions of sections 6.9 (Retention and Deletion) and 6.10 (Compliance with Law) of this Agreement.

We're very pleased to announce the arrival of simplified database extractors.  (Available for MySQL, MSSQL, PGSQL, Redshift, Snowflake, Oracle and IBM DB2)

Configuring the new extractors can not be any easier.  All you need to do is select the tables you want to import and ... that's it! 

Facebook is deprecating Marketing API v2.9 on Monday, November 13, 2017 thus any api call to v2.9 will fail with error.

The latest version is now v2.10.

The migration should only require changing the api-version parameter in all existing configurations of our Facebook Ads Extractor. However, since there may be some breaking changes, we strongly recommend to change the api-version in your configurations manually, review any possible changes and take the appropriate actions.  For more details on the new version, please read Marketing API Changes in v2.10 in the Facebook API Changelog.

Possible breaking change might be renaming of action_link_click_destination breakdown types as follows:

• app_store_clicks => click_to_app_store
• deeplink_clicks => click_to_app_deeplink
• website_clicks => click_to_website

In other Facebook news, they have announced version v2.11 of Facebook Graph API and Facebook Marketing API, for more info read changelog here.

New Features

• Finer granularity in all input mappings. The Days parameter was renamed to Changed in last and you can set the interval of changed data to as short as 10 minutes. Please note, that combining a legacy Days value with a new Changed in last is not allowed (eg. in a transformation chain, where the same table gets imported multiple times, all input mappings have to use the same filter type).

Minor Improvements

• All new transformations come with a predefined boilerplate that will help you at the start. It is especially useful for Python and R transformations.
• Sliced tables in Storage console (eg. exports from a Snowflake backend) are now merged when downloaded.
• Database extractors display the name of the query that failed in their error messages.

Updated Components

• Oracle DB Extractor and Writer are now available in the EU region.

Fixes

• Input Mapping modal has autofocus in the Source field when opened.

All things have to come to an end and Keboola Academy’s GoodData training is no exception. But don’t mourn, we are working hard on a new education program. Its main focus will be Keboola Connection.

Keboola Academy courses will be available for purchase until December 31, 2017. After that, you won’t be able to purchase new courses, but you’ll still be able to access your already purchased courses for another two months. Courses will be shut down completely on February 28, 2018.

If you have any questions, please contact us via support@keboola.com.

New Applications

Dark Sky Extractor

Dark Sky is the new name for the old Forecast.io service. So we have prepared a new extractor for it.  It allows you to look up the weather anywhere on the globe. You can use our migration tool to migrate your existing configurations from the deprecated Forecast.io extractor.

For more information, please see our documentation.

Currency Extractor in EU region

This extractor is now also available in the EU version of Keboola Connection.

Features

• Dropbox Writer now allows you to specify a custom destination folder name for uploaded data.
• We have added the ability to configure your own OAuth credentials.  We did this because we are still waiting for quota limits increase for the Google Analytics API for our Google Analytics Extractor.  So now your extractor can run under independent quotas.
• Tableau Writer now uses the new version of Google Drive and Dropbox Writers to upload data to Tableau.
• Removed 8 kB script size limit in Rstudio/Jupyter sandboxes
  
• Improved handling errors in Rstudion/Jupyter sandboxes. Invalid package names will now throw an error with an explanation instead of an application error.
• Read-only bucket credentials to your Redshift backend are now deprecated. See this more detailed post about accessing your data since April 18, 2018.

Fixes

• Table import events in the Storage panel once again have a link to the imported file.
  

Failures

Unfortunately on Sunday we had some problems with our storage for KBC Events, which delayed execution of jobs.  We apologize for any inconvenience that may have caused.

We have been experiencing temporary technical difficulties today since this morning (~ 3:00 AM CET)

Some jobs may have failed as a result.

We're working on resolving the problem and will update here with further information when we have it.

Thank you for your understanding.

Update 14:00 CET, October 22, 2017:  All systems have returned to normal operations and all jobs are now being processed normally.