What's New
We are busy enhancing ALTR, but nothing is ready to be released just yet. Check back next week!
Resolved Issues
An error occurred when you tried to view the System Audit page in UTC time zone. To fix this issue, we encoded dates and now use the correct UTC format without a time zone offset, allowing you to view records on the System Audit page as expected.
New Features
You can now configure custom roles when connecting Snowflake object tags in the UI by turning on the ADVANCED: Enable custom roles switch for the tag. Learn more.
Enhancements
The Administrators page has been restored when SCIM is enabled for your organization to allow those who manage users to see a full list of who has access to ALTR. You are still unable to add or edit administrators, which is existing behavior and required for SCIM.
The UI has been updated to reflect Microsoft’s renaming of Azure Active Directory to Microsoft Entra ID.
We are busy enhancing ALTR, but nothing is ready to be released just yet. Check back next week!
New Features
You can now import new allowed values for a Snowflake object tag into ALTR by clicking the Refresh Allowed Values button on the Tag Details page. This feature makes new allowed values available when defining ALTR policies. Learn more.
New Features
You can now set up detokenization on Snowflake object tags through the ALTR UI. You can also continue to perform this task through the API. Learn more.
Enhancements
If you navigate to the Tags page without first connecting a data source, the page now kindly reminds you to connect a data source before continuing.
If you click Contact Support on the Data Sources page, instead of a new email message displaying, the Contact Support modal now displays and uses the email address associated with your account to message ALTR Support. This change provides a more user friendly experience.
Resolved Issues
When you clicked the Help Center icon on a page during the Snowflake Partner Connect onboarding and contacted support, the Email field did not require a valid email address. For a smoother user experience, the Contact Support modal now opens and uses the email address associated with your ALTR account to message ALTR Support.
New Features
You can now disconnect a tag from the ALTR UI if you no longer want ALTR to enforce access governance to columns with that tag. Refer to Disconnecting Tags for more information.
Enhancements
We update two terms throughout the ALTR UI to align with industry standards:
“anomaly” to “alert"
“permission” to “privilege”
New Features
We updated our online documentation to include an optional step to restrict the ALTR service user access to our IPs, providing a more robust security strategy. Refer to ALTR's Snowflake Service User for more information.
Enhancements
The Help Center icon, which displays on every page in the ALTR UI, has been updated to include What’s New. We also renamed the menu link labels and consolidated the two documentation links for a cleaner user experience.
To improve the onboarding of new ALTR users, we updated the Organization Name page by removing the Copy Organization ID button because it caused confusion. Now, when you reach this part of onboarding, enter your organization name and continue.
Enhancements
The classifier list on classification reports now displays in order of most columns to least to allow you more efficiently consume and understand the data.
New Features
As an ALTR administrator, you are now able to refresh the list of key-value pairs allowed on a Snowflake object tag via the API. When the refresh is triggered, ALTR ingests any new allowable values present on the indicated Snowflake object tag. This feature allows you to create policies on new tag values without having to run an object tag import.
Enhancements
The tabs on the Data Management page were reordered and now display as Classification Report, Tags, Columns so you first land on the Classification Report instead of Columns. This change provides a better first-time user flow for adding new data as the tabs now display in the order of tasks to be performed.
New Features
You can now define policy directly on tag names in order to control policy at the tag level without specifying each value; access is the same for all values associated with that tag. On the Create Lock page, Tag Name and Value is the default option, but you can now optionally select Tag Name only. Refer to Creating Column Access Policies in ALTR for more information including use cases for each policy option.
Resolved Issues
The columnName in the clientScatteredFields table, which stores the governed columns, was set to varchar(45) so any columnName with more than 45 characters was truncated. This name truncation caused errors, including a failure to disconnect columns. To fix this issue, the character limit on columnName was increased from 45 to 255.
New Features
You can now connect Snowflake object tags through our UI on the Tags page. Using ALTR’s Tag-Based Policy integration enables easy scaling of data masking and avoids complications relating to schema name changes and data cloning. You can continue to perform this task through the API, but our recommendation is to use the UI. Refer to Connecting Tags for more information.
Enhancements
Two videos were replaced by text to provide a better, always-up-to-date user experience:
Introduction on the Onboarding pages
You're here early on the Classification Report, Column Management, and Analytics pages
Resolved Issues
An issue with the CORS preflight handler prevented access to the Tags page when using the Microsoft OS. To fix this issue, the Tags page is accessible as expected.
Resolved Issues
We fixed an issue that restricted an underscore (_) from being in a Snowflake hostname. We now permit underscores in Snowflake hostnames.
New Features
We now offer the ability to view the status of ALTR-connected Snowflake object tags through our UI on the new Tags page ( → → ). Users can continue to perform this task through the API, but our recommendation is to use the UI. Refer to View Tag Connection Status for more information.
Resolved Issues
We fixed an issue that when a classification job failed, the backend cache was not cleared, which displayed an In Progress status in the UI. Now when a job fails, it is correctly marked as failed in ALTR’s UI.
Enhancements
We made several enhancements to the Classification Report page to provide a better user experience:
Charts were removed to allow ample space to display the full classification names and because the third-party chart component used in ALTR is no longer being maintained.
Number of Total Columns now displays instead of the Percentage of Columns to accurately communicate the status of the classification process.
Page text and a video displayed when a classification scan had not run; however, this information was misleading to users because it was not clear where to go to run a classification report. The text has been updated and video has been removed. Additionally, videos have been removed from the Analytics and the Data Management Columns pages.
Resolved Issues
We fixed an issue where an unintentional scroll bar appeared at the bottom of the Classification Report page when there were 10+ classification reports. Now this scroll bar does not appear.
New Features and Improvements
Minor technical and stability improvements.
Bug Fixes
N/A
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
ALTR's UI has been updated to standardize the styling of modals across the application.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where invited ALTR administrators were not properly entering a "pending" state. This prevented customers from re-sending invite links to ALTR administrators after the original invite had expired.
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
Minor technical and stability improvements.
Bug Fixes
N/A
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
The ALTR UI now automatically trims whitespace when submitting Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) codes during login.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that would occasionally cause classification jobs to stall.
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
ALTR has released a new version of System Audit Logs! ALTR customers can now access additional detail on actions taken within the ALTR platform including which administrator took an action, when it occurred, and what was changed. The new System Audit Logs can be found in ALTR's UI under → . This interface enables users to access up to one week's worth of events at a time. See the System Audit Log Documentation for more information. The new System Audit Logs contain events starting January 2024. To access previous System Audit Logs, contact ALTR Support.
The API Endpoint for Custom Audit Logs now returns a more useful error when submitting payloads that breach the endpoint size limit.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where schema object caches failed to update if there were more than 80 schemas within a database.
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
N/A
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where audit logs would not properly trigger for Vaulted Tokenization V2 Endpoints
Deprecation
N/A
New Features and Improvements
ALTR Support is now proactively notified when a customer reaches their tokenization limit.
ALTR's Management API has been updated with a new endpoint that enables API users to programmatically identify other ALTR configuration APIs.
ALTR's Management API OpenAPI Specification (Swagger documentation) has been updated to better communicate the new Snowflake Detokenization Policy functionality.
Bug Fixes
Resolved numerous issues in the Vaulted Tokenization API that caused 500 errors.
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
ALTR's Vaulted Tokenization API will now throttle excessive usage of endpoints. Applications or users that erroneously make too many requests will now be throttled.
ALTR has improved the user experience for force disconnecting columns to align with other areas of the product.
Bug Fixes
N/A
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
ALTR's Tag Masking API now reports improved error messages when it encounters a problem connecting, disconnecting, or updating a Snowflake Object Tag.
ALTR's Upgrade Page has been updated to account for recent changes to ALTR's free and Enterprise tiers.
Big Fixes
Fixed in-product verbiage that incorrectly labeled System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM).
Fixed an issue where users were unable to update the name of a connected column in ALTR.
Fixed an issue that caused poor performance of ALTR's User Groups endpoints in the Management API.
Fixed an issue where ALTR's Tag Masking API reported past states for tags if they had been previously disconnected and reconnected to ALTR.
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
Users can now use ALTR's user interface to indicate tokenized data. This can then be used to control access to detokenize data via Column Access Policies. To mark a column as tokenized, check the option when connecting or editing a column.
Single Sign-On (SSO) and System for Cross-Domain Identity Management (SCIM) have been moved to ALTR's Enterprise tier. Now, all Enterprise or above ALTR customers can utilize SSO and SCIM.
The limit for free-tier ALTR accounts has been increased to 3 data source connections, from 1. This enables free-tier ALTR users to get even more value from the platform.
Extension functions for Snowflake data masking have been updated to include information on the Snowflake Object Tag that dictated access control. This enables users of ALTR's Snowflake Object Tag integration to customize masking behavior based on the value of the Snowflake Object Tag.
Custom Role functionality for Snowflake data masking has been updated to include Snowflake Object Tag information. This enables users of ALTR's Snowflake Object Tag integration to customize role behavior based on the value of a Snowflake Object Tag.
Enforcing ALTR security policies on columns in views is no longer in beta.
Bug Fixes
Several bugs were fixed that caused errors in the Vaulted Tokenization API.
Deprecations
N/A
New Features and Improvements
ALTR's Snowflake Object Tag integration now supports custom roles. This enables ALTR customers to customize which role(s) are considered for access control. Custom Role functionality is only available when configuring tags from ALTR's Tag Masking API.
ALTR has updated in-product verbiage relating to API keys to better communicate the relationship between API key names and secrets to HTTP Basic Authentication.
Bug Fixes
ALTR fixed an issue where users could submit partial phone numbers for administrators.
ALTR fixed an issue where users could enter invalid email addresses for administrators.
Deprecations
N/A