Welcome to the BlueConic product release notes. Find the latest new features in the BlueConic platform, new connections, and updates to our APIs.
BlueConic platform status
Visit status.blueconic.com for current status updates for the BlueConic platform.
What's new in BlueConic with Release 84 (R84)
The R84 BlueConic release will be delivered to servers from May 6 to May 23, 2022. New and enhanced features include:
- New IP check feature added to profile merge rules
- Access control enhancements for AI Workbench notebooks
- Data sensitivity settings to control access to PII (personally identifiable information)
- Updates to Single Sign-On (SSO) features to include the Force Authentication setting
- Enhancements to Timeline event settings
- REST API updates
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud connection adds support for PGP encryption
- Google BigQuery connection adds support for nested tables in event exports
- New Google Cloud Storage connection
Check for matching IP addresses during profile merging
Profile merging features help you combine duplicate profiles that likely belong to the same individual. New features allow you to choose from three levels of IP checking when creating profile merge rules. You can now choose from three levels of IP checking when creating profile merging rules:
- No IP check: Neither profile’s IP address is checked by the merge rule.
- Regular IP check: Profiles can be merged if either both profiles have an IP address in common, or at least one profile has no IP address (default choice).
- Strict IP check: Profiles will be merged only if they have one IP address in common.
Learn more about using IP checking for merge rules.
Control access to PII with updated user roles and data settings
This release contains two enhancements to help you control access to and visibility of sensitive data in BlueConic.
- A new data sensitivity setting to identify PII (personally identifiable information) in BlueConic.
- A new setting for user roles lets you specify which BlueConic user roles are able to view PII.
New data sensitivity setting for PII
With this release, we added data sensitivity settings that control who can access or see personally identifiable information (PII). When you define profile properties, groups, and Timeline event types, you can specify whether the item will contain PII or Non-PII content. Data stored with data sensitivity set to PII will be visible only to BlueConic user roles that you have granted access to PII.
See Data visibility settings for PII for details.
Updated user role settings for access control
To help control which users potentially have access to personally identifiable information, or PII, we've updated some of the User Roles settings in BlueConic. You can access control for PII by BlueConic user role. Select Settings > Roles and choose an existing role or add a new role by clicking Add role. On the Role page, you can select whether a BlueConic role should have access to PII.
- Data sensitivity-PII: In order to view PII in BlueConic, a user's BlueConic role must be set to the appropriate data visibility.
- Insights and Dashboards: The ability to email BlueConic Insights now requires user permission for email notifications, which is a new permission underneath the "Insights" permission. See the Users and roles documentation for details.
- Audit Event API access: The BlueConic Audit Event API can only be accessed by BlueConic users with appropriate privileges.
- AI Workbench notebook code editor: A new user permission has been added for BlueConic roles underneath "AI Workbench" called "Notebook editor." Users with this permission checked are able to edit AI notebook code directly in the platform. Without this permission, users may view, edit, and save the parameters of AI notebooks, but not the code. This will help limit any accidental changes to notebooks that could occur from incorrect access.
At the top of the role access settings, there is now a checkbox for PII (Personally Identifiable Information) under "Data visibility." Users with roles that have this option checked will have access to view data that is marked PII (in the profile property expert settings, group type, or timeline event type definition). If this option is not checked for a role, those users will only be able to view data that is not considered PII. This new feature will allow you to be able to safely share data with all types of BlueConic users while maintaining privacy, compliance, and control.
Note about existing BlueConic users' roles: Existing BlueConic users have the data visibility option checked by default. We recommend that BlueConic application managers review permissions for their BlueConic user roles.
See the BlueConic roles documentation for details on these settings.
Single Sign-On feature supports force authentication option
BlueConic administrators setting up single sign-on (SSO) for BlueConic users at their site can now use the Force Authentication feature for users authenticating via OKTA and OneLogin, and via Azure Active Directory. This option gives administrators greater control over how BlueConic logins work with SSO. (Force authentication is not supported for Google Workspace.)
Enhancements to Timeline event type settings
Recent platform updates make it easier to create new custom Timeline event types in the UI. With this release, new settings for BlueConic Timeline event types provide even greater control over how Timeline events are stored. This release includes two new settings for Timeline event types:
- You can use the new retention period setting to control how long Timeline events are stored in BlueConic.
- You can specify whether Timeline event properties contain PII (personally identifiable information) using new settings for data sensitivity (PII vs non-PII). Note that in order to view data classified as PII, a BlueConic user's BlueConic role must include data visibility for PII.
REST API Updates for BlueConic Timeline Events
Updates to the BlueConic REST API include new APIs for creating and updating Timeline events. For details and examples see the API documentation for creating and updating one or more profiles, including new Timeline strategies and updated examples.
Note: Developers building BlueConic plugins will find that Timeline event type definitions include retention period and priority fields. See the XML Definition File for Plugins for details.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud Connection updates
We recently added support for PGP encryption to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud connection. You can now add a PGP private key and public key for encrypting data transfers to and from Salesforce Marketing Cloud for improved security of data imports and exports.
Google BigQuery Connection updates
With recent updates to the Google BigQuery connection, you can now import and export BlueConic Timeline event data to nested tables via the Google BigQuery Connection.
Note that from within the Google BigQuery connection, you can see related Timeline event types in the Related items section in the righthand panel.
New Google Cloud Storage Connection
The new BlueConic Google Cloud Storage connection allows you to enrich BlueConic profiles or groups with data from CSV files stored on and retrieved from your Google Cloud account. You can also use this connection to export CSV files containing your BlueConic profile data to your Google Cloud account.
By allowing BlueConic to share information with other data storage providers, you can create or enhance user profiles by importing data to BlueConic groups and running scheduled batch imports and exports. Contact your Customer Success Manager to learn more.