> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.startree.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Data Portal Release Notes

This page tracks Data Portal release notes. Each entry covers new features and enhancements shipped in that release.

## July 1, 2026

### New Features

* **Task status summary in the task manager**\
  The task manager displays a count of tasks in each state — total, completed, running, waiting, error, and others — so operators can assess cluster-wide ingestion health at a glance.

* **Trigger Purge and File Ingestion tasks from Data Portal**\
  Run Purge and File Ingestion tasks directly from Data Portal, with progress tracking, failure highlighting, and minion resource usage linked to Grafana.

### Enhancements

* **Locked-down data modeling for External tables**\
  For External table-related workflows, the Data Modeling step no longer allows editing columns, adding transformations, or editing the ingestion configuration once a table is created, preventing changes that External tables don't support.

### Bug Fixes

* **Clearer RBAC policy error messages**\
  Deleting or updating a policy that's still attached to roles now returns the actual reason for the conflict instead of a generic "Request failed" error.

* **Readable errors in Query Console**\
  Query Console errors no longer get buried under long query text, making the actual error message easier to find.

* **Complete, scrollable connection error messages**\
  Errors when creating a new connection now display in full and are scrollable, instead of being cut off.

***

## June 12, 2026

### New Features

* **In-product documentation and tooltips**\
  Tooltips and inline guidance have been added across Data Portal pages and actions, explaining key fields and workflows without leaving the UI.

* **Dictionary-encoded indexes on External Tables**
  External Tables now support the full range of Pinot indexes — including dictionary-encoded types — and you can add and configure all of them on UI.

* **More power to Query Analyzer**\
  The Query Analyzer now prioritizes query correctness and draws on richer context — your SQL, table schema, execution plan, and many more guidance — to deliver sharper, more specific suggestions with every analysis.

### Enhancements

* **Richer External Table detail view**\
  The External Table detail view now shows the next scheduled ingestion run and the underlying connection details (data source and catalog), alongside existing status and progress indicators.

* **Preload enabled by default for tiered External Tables**\
  Tiered storage for External Tables now enables preload by default, improving query performance on cold-tier data without manual configuration after table creation.

* **StarTree index hidden for upsert tables**\
  The StarTree index option is no longer shown for upsert tables, where it is not supported.

* **Clearer Query Analyzer responses**\
  Query Analyzer output is less verbose, focusing on actionable optimization suggestions rather than excessive model detail.

* **Analyze Query scoped to highlighted text**\
  Analyze Query in the Query Console now runs only on highlighted text in the editor, so you can analyze a specific statement without sending the entire query buffer.

### Bug Fixes

* **Cluster Manager config panels load for all cluster names**\
  Fixed instance configuration panels returning 404 when the Helix cluster name was not `pinot`.

***

## May 6, 2026

### New Features

* **IAM role authentication for External Tables**\
  External Table setup now supports IAM role authentication, so you can connect to AWS data sources using instance or cross-account roles without embedding long-lived credentials in the workflow.

* **RBAC-aware Data Portal**\
  Data Portal now enforces RBAC permissions across table creation and listing, table metadata views (schema, indexing, connections, and additional config), and Query Console (SQL editor and table list). Users only see and can act on resources their role allows.

### Enhancements

* **Streamlined navigation for non-admin users**\
  Security Manager, Pinot Components, and Zookeeper are hidden for non-admin users. Data Portal Swagger API docs are now accessible to all users.

* **Manual segment reload after configuration changes**\
  Data Portal no longer automatically reloads segments after every schema, config, or index change. Rapid concurrent reloads could cause race conditions and failed segment reloads; after making changes, reload segments manually when ready. The UI prompts you to reload once all changes are complete.

* **Clearer authentication error messages**\
  Authentication failures now show actionable guidance instead of opaque errors. The auth service retries up to three times on transient failures before surfacing a message.

### Bug Fixes

* **Chronological sorting for timestamps**\
  Fixed time-based sorting across Data Portal — including the Segment Reload Status popup — so entries sort in true chronological order.

***

## April 20, 2026

### New Features

* **Scheduling for External Table ingestion**\
  Building on Run Now and Pause Ingestion from the previous release, External Table tasks now support configurable ingestion schedules via the minion task schedule API. Pause and resume ingestion by adding or removing the cron schedule from the task configuration.

* **Visibility into Table Storage Usage**
  The interface displays table size, segment count, and historical growth patterns, helping operators monitor capacity and understand how tables are growing. This makes it easier to identify tables consuming significant storage and plan for capacity needs.

### Enhancements

* **Input guardrails for External Table configurations**\
  Added validation guardrails to protect against bad inputs and parameters during External Table setup, reducing the risk of misconfiguration. Includes safety checks for user parameters, detection of bad schemas or unsupported datasets, credential validation, and proper error codes with response messages.

* **RBAC: GetTenant added to default roles**\
  The `GetTenant` permission is now included in default RBAC roles, resolving an issue where table creation could fail at the final step due to missing tenant access.

* **RBAC: GetRunningQuery permission missing from default read policy**\
  Fixed an issue where users with read-data permissions could not view running queries due to a missing `GetRunningQuery` permission in the default policy. The authentication check now includes the workspace in the resource identifier as per the allow rule.

### Bug Fixes

* **Unsaved changes lost during table creation**\
  Fixed a bug where pending schema or configuration changes were silently discarded if not explicitly applied before proceeding to the next step in the table creation wizard.

## March 25, 2026

### New Features

* **[Query Analyzer](/corecapabilities/ai/query-analyzer/overview) integrated into the Query Console**\
  The Query Analyzer is now embedded directly in the Data Portal Query Console. Click **Analyze Query** on any query to get AI-powered insights — optimization suggestions, stage-level execution details, and plan analysis — without leaving the console. This is a beta feature and is disabled by default. Contact your StarTree account team to have it enabled for your environment.

* **Share saved queries via a reference URL**\
  Saved queries can now be shared with teammates using a shareable reference URL. The query detail view also tracks and displays who created and last modified the query.

* **Default instance role authentication for S3 Data Lake source**\
  When an S3 bucket is in the same AWS account as the cluster and the cluster role already has direct access, you no longer need to configure explicit IAM keys or a cross-account IAM role. A new default authentication mode automatically falls back to the cluster's instance role, reducing setup overhead for same-account S3 configurations.

### Enhancements

* **Ingestion observability for External Tables**\
  The External Table detail view now surfaces rich ingestion state: status (`RUNNING`, `COMPLETED`, `FAILED`, `IDLE`), next scheduled run, ingestion progress (segments generated vs. total discovered files), the last synced file checkpoint, and any error messages. This makes it significantly easier to monitor and debug External Table ingestion without external tooling.

* **Addition of StreamNative Kafka connector support**\
  The StreamNative Kafka connector has been added to the Data Portal, allowing users to connect to Kafka clusters and ingest data into Pinot tables.

* **Clearer error messages when task details are unavailable**\
  When task details for a specific table cannot be found (for example, when no active task exists), the task manager now shows a meaningful, user-friendly message instead of surfacing a raw 404 error.

***

## March 11, 2026

### New Features

* **Raw S3 Parquet data lake support (Beta, enabled on demand)**\
  Data Portal can now help connect Pinot Query Engine to S3 Parquet datasets as a S3 data lake source. Point to an S3 location and query it using Pinot Query Engine.

* **Iceberg REST catalog support — AWS Glue and S3Tables (Beta, enabled on demand)**\
  Query Iceberg tables using Pinot Query Engine. Data Portal now supports connecting to Iceberg REST catalogs backed by AWS Glue and AWS S3Tables, using REST endpoints with AWS SigV4 authentication.

### Enhancements

* **Dark mode**\
  Data Portal now supports dark mode, improving usability in low-light environments and for those who prefer a darker UI.

* **Swagger UI for Data Portal APIs**\
  The Data Portal Swagger UI is now exposed alongside Pinot's Swagger, giving you a single place to browse and test Data Manager APIs. You can now use this to manage connections to your data sources.

* **Deleted segments no longer appear in Data Portal**\
  Fixed a discrepancy where segments deleted from an offline table could still appear in Data Portal. Data Portal now correctly reflects the empty state after deletions.

## February 18, 2026

### New Features

* **Configure tiered storage directly in Data Portal**\
  Introduced support for configuring Pinot tiered storage from Data Portal. Users can enable or disable tiered storage, configure tiers following [documented best practices](/corecapabilities/manage-data/set-up-tiered-storage/setup), and rely on sensible defaults where appropriate.

* **Broker and server tenant configuration in the UI**\
  Added the ability to configure broker and server tenants for tables directly from Data Portal, removing the need for manual edits to accomplish cluster-level configuration.

* **Retention time configuration**\
  Introduced controls to set and adjust table retention time (defaulting to 10 years), giving users direct control over data lifecycle policies without leaving the UI.

* **MAP data type — end-to-end support**\
  Added full support for the Pinot `MAP` data type across the stack. The Data Modeling UI lets users define MAP fields with key/value specs, validation rules, and index constraints (JSON index supported; some index types restricted). Query Console renders MAP column values as JSON for easier inspection.

### Enhancements

* **Saved queries no longer auto-run on click**\
  Saved queries are no longer executed automatically when clicked. Users can now open a saved query to review or edit it before choosing to run it, reducing accidental execution of heavy queries.

* **Support for newer Kafka consumer implementation**\
  Updated the default Kafka consumer implementation in Data Portal to use the newer `KafkaFactory` class from Apache Pinot. This aligns with current best practices and improves compatibility with newer Kafka and Pinot deployments.

### Bug Fixes

* **Long double values no longer show as "Invalid Number"**\
  Fixed an issue where certain long double values (for example, `97.60000000000001`) were incorrectly displayed as "Invalid Number" in query results. These values now render correctly.

* **Stale ingestion status in the Data Portal UI**\
  The table ingestion status could appear outdated even while ingestion was running. The table details view now refreshes more frequently, giving users an accurate, up-to-date status.

* **Pinot Preview API hanging on S3 files**\
  Resolved an issue where the Pinot Preview API could hang when previewing data from S3. The preview experience for S3-based sources is now more reliable.

* **Clearer permission error for running queries**\
  Improved error handling in Query Console when a user is missing the `getRunningQueries` permission. Queries continue to run successfully with clearer, less disruptive messaging instead of a confusing 403 popup.

***

## January 15, 2026

### New Features

* **Protobuf descriptor file support for real-time tables**\
  When creating real-time tables with Protobuf data, users can now point to a descriptor file (for example, a file on S3) instead of requiring a schema registry URL. This aligns Data Portal with common Protobuf deployment patterns and removes the need for manual overrides.

* **Cancel queries from the editor**\
  The query editor now attaches a unique client query ID to each execution, enabling cancellation of that specific query mid-flight without going through a separate API call.

### Enhancements

* **Text index support in index configuration**\
  Extended index configuration to include text index options via Pinot APIs, improving query performance and search flexibility on free-text fields.

***

## January 9, 2026

### New Features

* **Query observability**\
  Operators can now see all running queries alongside their metadata and total runtime via Pinot's query APIs, filling a key gap for managing long-running or expensive queries.

### Enhancements

* **Richer Table List view**\
  The Table List now surfaces operational details at a glance: ingestion status with a clear definition of "healthy", disabled table indicators, data source details (bucket, topic, or saved connection name), table size, and segment count. Real-time tables that have no scheduled next run show "N/A" rather than a misleading value.

* **Inline IAM setup guidance for S3 and Kinesis**\
  The S3/Kinesis connection flow now includes sample IAM and trust policies with placeholders for StarTree and bucket details, plus a link to the [full IAM role setup guide](/corecapabilities/ingestdata/recipes/iam-role-s3). Users get step-by-step guidance without leaving Data Portal.

* **Group claims visible in the user menu**\
  When RBAC is enabled, the user menu now shows the group claims from the authentication token alongside the user's email. A summary of groups is shown by default with an option to expand all. When RBAC is off or the token carries no group claims, the UI handles this gracefully.

* **Stale error messages cleared on retry**\
  When a user retries an action after a failure, the previous error toast is now dismissed before the new attempt resolves. This prevents stale errors from lingering and makes the outcome of each retry clear.

***

## December 17, 2025

### New Features

* **Visual query execution stats and EXPLAIN PLAN**\
  Building on the stage-level stats introduced in the previous release, Query Console now surfaces EXPLAIN plan visualizations alongside execution stats for all query types, making performance debugging significantly easier.

* **Cleaner execution details with a dedicated JSON tab**\
  Execution details are now organized into tabs, with raw JSON in its own tab and the table widget standardized across the app.

* **Type-ahead search in all dropdowns**\
  Every dropdown in Data Portal now supports inline filtering — type a few characters to narrow a long list of options. Loading indicators appear inside the dropdown while data is being fetched.

### Bug Fixes

* **Transformation rules consistently enforced across views**\
  Fixed an inconsistency where transformation functions could be applied to existing fields in JSON View even though Table View blocked it. Validation is now enforced at the API level regardless of which view is used.

* **Query execution metadata no longer returns empty values**\
  Resolved an issue where the Query Console SQL API sometimes returned zero or empty values for query timings and stats.

***

## December 10, 2025

### New Features

* **Stage-level stats for multi-stage engine queries**\
  Query Console now includes `stageStats` in the JSON response and a visual representation of the stage stats when running queries with the multi-stage engine. This gives users detailed per-stage execution stats for performance tuning and troubleshooting without needing a separate tool.

### Enhancements

* **Smarter segment builder defaults based on schema width**\
  Data Portal now automatically sets `columnMajorSegmentBuilderEnabled` based on table schema width — disabled for tables with fewer than 40 columns, enabled for wider schemas. Commit-time compaction defaults to off, with the option to enable it when turning on Upsert during table creation. This avoids a one-size-fits-all configuration and improves out-of-the-box performance.

* **Consistent default indexes across all ingestion flows**\
  The Upload File ingestion flow now applies the same default index configuration logic used in other ingestion paths. Tables created from uploaded files get sensible indexes automatically, reducing the need for manual tuning after setup.

* **JSON and text columns default to no-dictionary**\
  JSON and text columns are now marked as "no dictionary" by default, with JSON index enabled where appropriate. This prevents the segment bloat that occurred when these column types were incorrectly assigned a dictionary, and aligns default behavior with best practices for JSON and text workloads.

***

## December 4, 2025

### New Features

* **Folder selection for batch sources**\
  When adding a batch source in Data Portal, you can now browse and select folders directly using a folder picker instead of typing paths manually. This makes source configuration faster and reduces the chance of path errors.

* **Partial results in Query Console**\
  When some segments are unavailable, Query Console now displays the partial results alongside a clear error message, rather than showing only an error.

### Enhancements

* **Ingestion type renamed from "Standard" to "Append"**\
  In the Additional Config section for real-time tables, the ingestion type previously labeled "Standard" is now called "Append". The new label better describes how the mode works and reduces confusion when choosing between Append, Upsert, and Dedupe.

* **Ingestion failures surface explicitly**
  Ingestion flows now default to `"continueOnError": false`, so failures are surfaced immediately instead of being silently skipped. This makes it easier to catch and act on ingestion issues early.

* **More reliable file pattern handling**\
  The ingestion backend now correctly prioritizes `includeFilePatterns` when present, ensuring ingestion follows the configured patterns and avoids picking up unintended files.

***

## November 11, 2025

### New Features

* **Tableau available as a dedicated client**\
  Tableau is now listed as a first-class client in the Clients page, with a tailored connection URL generation flow. This removes the need for manual URL construction when connecting Tableau to StarTree.

* **Clients section moved into Data Portal**\
  Client connection management has moved from MyApps into Data Portal, so all client setup and configuration is accessible from one place within the main UI.

***