🎉 Aperture Data Studio Version 3.0 - Almost here

Aperture Data Studio v3.0 is almost here and we're very excited to share this update with you.
Full release notes will be added once the download is available.

First to note: v3.0 is like any other quarterly release but you will have to have moved to cloud licensing. If you upgrade without a cloud license token applied (or ready to apply) you will be unable to login and use the product!

Before downloading, installing and upgrading you should ‘Switch to cloud licensing’ in your current Aperture Data Studio installation and apply the license token from your Experian Self Service Portal account. If you do not yet have an account / token or are unsure, then speak to your Experian contact before upgrading.

What are some of the exciting enhancement that will be available in v3.0?

📒Data Catalog and Governance solution

Data Catalog and Governance is a new licensed module for Aperture Data Studio designed to support in contextualising DQ results, govern data usage and ultimately drive greater trust in your data assets. It enables you to catalog your data assets, create a common understanding of terms, set ownership and accountability and continuously monitor data quality results in the context of business impact. Available in UK and Australia/New Zealand.

Govern your business rulesets by promoting them to the catalog. Associate validation results with business process impact and measure the impact of data quality failures to drive action within your organisation. Use Ownership to determine which catalog changes require approval and notifications to stakeholders. Harvest metadata within the catalog through our connectors.

This new module is underpinned by a flexible metadata model that can be configured to your specific needs and adapted to reflect your organizational structures. It can also evolve over time providing you with an ability to take an adaptive and progressive approach to governing your data.

We also offer accelerator packages to fast-track implementation by pre-loading objects for specific use cases including templated: data model configurations, workflow templates, rule libraries, matching rules and more! Speak to your Experian contact if you’re interested in these.

🤖 Gen AI functionality

Aperture Data Studio’s (optional) new generative AI functionality is finally available to everyone. It is a significant accelerator when learning how to use Data Studio and when creating new objects such as Functions. E.g. build a Function or validation rule by describing it and opting to use AI to generate the Function for you.

Or, when exploring data in the Explore mode grid you are now able to describe the action you would like to take, e.g. calculating something like "show total and average sales by country" or how else you might want to manipulate the data. Opting to use AI will send this description and then generate one or more Actions that can be interacted with to ensure they are showing the correct result at each stage. They can be manually adjusted if necessary to ensure they are calculating the correct result.

📜Workflow scripting (in preview)

For more technical users, used to writing and working with SQL scripts, it is now possible to create and update a Workflow using PRQL script. The script is turned into a visual Workflow with individual steps. Supported steps are Source, Transform, Filter, Sort, Join, Sample, Group. It is possible to convert a scripted Workflow to be a regular Workflow so that it can be further developed using the canvas.
If you're interested in previewing and trying this feature please speak to your Experian contact.

And more…