Spectrum Spatial (SSA/LIM)

Hi All! 

We are well behind on updating SSA (currently 2019.1), and intend to do so later this year. I was just wanting to know if SSA 2024 is in the works and when that might be due, or would v2023 be the more stable way to go. 

Also, has much changed in the versions over the years? Just curious if there are any major new features of note as it's very rare to come across screenshots of the program. In particular has any of the following been implemented:

• Global map/base layer groups
• Ability to turn on and off symbols in a thematic map layer
• Changes to linkouts? Or is PBLinks still the main method?
• Print view changes? (more template sizes, higher resolution export and customisations)
• Infotemplates changes? E.g. Ability to add expandable groups for attributes? Or is that still requiring manual coding
• Editing? Forms designer now available? or still xml based? new field types and options? 

Any feedback from users of the newer version would be much appreciated!

Cheers!

Hi Timothy,

Here is my list of significant changes for each release, this doesn't include bug fixes or minor changes which you will need to refer to release notes for.

SSA 12.2 New Features

• SSA Extensibility - From this release onwards, SSA has introduced a new extensibility platform that allows third parties to customize the product. This framework is based on the Angular 4.2.6 component model. New components can be created and added to Spectrum Spatial Analyst to provide new or different functionality.

• Designer for Map Information Templates - SSA 12.2 has introduced a Template Designer interface for creating new information templates on tables.

  • This functionality is available to the administrator only

  • Templates can include:

    • Column Selections from the table

    • Bar Charts

    • Pie Charts

    • Street Imagery

    • Any Other Text

• Adding Spectrum Layers - The Add Layer option now allows users to add Spectrum Spatial Layers along with adding Local Files (CSV, XLS, Geojson, KML file along with metadata options files) to the map. Users can browse and add any layers that they have permission to see.

• Multi-select Feature - The Multi-select feature can be accessed from Add panel and from the overflow menu of each layer in the legend. Users can manually click and select multiple features from a layer to show on the map information panel. The Multi-select feature is available for named layers, vector layers and query layers.

• Merge and Split Annotations - Merge and Split is a functionality that enables a user to select polygon annotations on the map and perform operations like merge, intersect, subtract and split. The Merge and Split feature is enabled only when there are two or more polygon annotations drawn on the map.

• Zoom to the entire layer - In the Map Legend Panel users have a new quick launch option to zoom to the extents of all the data in a layer.

SSA 12.2 S01 New Features

• See on Map feature - You can now highlight record on the map by clicking "See on Map" button.

• Zoom and Scale Visibility - SSA used to support only zoom visibility constraints, but now it will support the scale visibility constraints also.

• Add Layers - You can now enable or disable adding of Spectrum Spatial Layers and Local Vector Layers individually from Admin Console

SSA 2018.2 New Features

In this phase the creation of SSA map configurations (now called map projects) has been moved out of the SSA Admin Console and into the SSA end-user application.

• Viewing and saving map projects as an end user in SSA : End users are able to load and view Map Projects. They can now also save a map project for re-use. A project can be opened from the home page, by specifying its name as a URL parameter or by using the project drop down menu at the top of the legend panel. A project can be saved (if admin has enabled this capability in the functionality profile) by clicking the "Save as new project" or "Save project" which is on both the options panel, and in the overflow menu at the top of the legend. The saved project will include the changes they have made to it. It will be available only to them, and cannot in this release be shared to other users. Users cannot overwrite admin created projects.
  Users can re-order layers at the group level: Users are now able to re-order layers at the group level in SSA by dragging them up and down. The changes made are persisted if the user saves their project.

• Users can expand and collapse all layers at once: Users are now able to expand and collapse all legend items at once.

• Maps in differing projections: When creating Map Projects, admins can now choose and add base maps, WMS and Tile maps that are in different projections to each other. They can choose which projection is used for the view in SSA and the other maps will be re-projected on the fly to match the chosen projection. Furthermore, if a raster layer is added from Spectrum such as an MRR – it will also be re-projected. Previously raster layers served from Spectrum Spatial had to be created in the same projection as the SSA map to be shown.

• SSA Admin Console

  • Map Configurations: The Map Configurations tab is removed and is now replaced by the map project management in SSA

  • Functionality Profiles: A new functionality profile tab has been added. The functionality settings that used to be specified directly in Map Configurations are now saved as a new Functionality Profile and continues to be defined in admin console. When creating a Map Project in SSA you can browse and pick one of the Functionality Profiles created here to use. A single Functionality Profile can be re-used by many Map Projects.

  • Third party WMS and Tile services: New tabs have been added for Tile Services and WMS. These are still configured in Admin Console but now each one can be saved as a third-party WMS or Tile layer. In SSA you can then pick and add them to Map Projects either as base maps or business maps, the same way that Spectrum Spatial maps and layers are added. The same tile and WMS layers created here can be added to and re-used in many Map Projects, without having to define them for each and every project.

  • Support for Single Sign On: It is now possible to configure single sign on (SSO) for SSA. The SSO integration for SSA requires SSO to be set up to Microsoft ADFS in the Spectrum Platform as a pre-requisite.
    
    

SSA 2019.1 New Features

• Removal of Admin Console: The functionality in the Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst Administration Console has moved to Spectrum Spatial Manager on the Project Properties tab.

• Print templates: The user interface (UI) for designing print templates has been re-written with significant improvements over the previous designer.

• Query management: New parameterized views in Spectrum Spatial Manager replaces the administrator-defined queries created in the Administrator Console. Parameterized views use full SQL syntax (such as OR conditions and table joins).

• Map Projects: You can still manage Map Projects on the Project Settings dialog in Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst, but the project definitions and permissions now persist into the Spectrum Spatial repository as Named Map Projects.

• Find Nearest: The Find Nearest functionality is simplified; you do not have to create a separate Find Nearest configuration and associate it with a map project. Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst has a new tab on the Project Settings dialog to specify if a layer is available for Find Nearest search.

• Stretching of External Tile Basemaps: Third-party basemaps can now have a maximum zoom level set so that Spectrum Spatial will stretch this last level rather than going blank when a user zooms in to far.

SSA 2020.1 New Features

• Have a new look and feel:

• Uploading Data: allows users with admin and sub-admin roles to upload data tables from their computers and save them to the Spectrum Spatial repository. They can add the data to a new table or replace an existing table on the repository.

• Customize the Label text: Allows you to customize the label style for non-raster spatial layers. You can now choose the desired label column and modify label properties. • You can apply your style to the map label and save it with your map project. • This feature enables you to define a style that fits with the theme of your map. You can choose the appropriate font, color, pattern, etc., for your labels.

• Ability to Save Annotations to a Map Project: After you draw an annotation and apply various styles to the annotation like color, size, and pattern, etc., and then save the map project, the annotations will also be saved. The project preserves all annotations in the current state, along with the queries created on the annotations.

• Enhancement to Address Search: users benefit from typeahead suggestions and more accurate geocoding when searching for an address on the map / Ability to search within specified limit.

• See on Map : functionality showed inconsistent behaviour and was not always highlighting the chosen feature.

• Support for zoom visibility constraint in Thematic and Query layer.

• Thematic map performance enhancements.

• Enhancements made to the Multi-select feature.

• Support for directly entering longitude and latitude for searching.

• Ability to turn border off while creating Individual and Range thematic.

SSA 2022.1 New Features

• Map information for individual rings in annotations : you can also see Map information on individual rings of Drive time, Drive distance, and Concentric circle annotations. An additional overflow menu appears, on each ring, which enables you to view the Map information for the chosen ring only

• Support for External WMTS services: Administrators can now configure access to third party WMTS (Web Map Tile Service) services from the Project Properties page, and then add it as a layer to Spectrum Spatial Analyst. The administrator can configure authenticated and unauthenticated WMTS services.

• Adding Custom Components: Add new injection points on the left and right panels. Specify the order of the custom component inside parent component.

• Allow Sub-admin to use template designer tool: Sub-admin can now access the Template Designer tool to create and edit callout templates so that those templates can be used to show the map information. Previously, only administrators could access the Template Designer tool.

• Displaying Data Bind Result in Custom Template: In Spectrum Spatial Analyst, the data bind table information appears in the left panel as key-value pair. To improve the display of this information, you can apply a custom template to the data bind table. For example, you can apply a template created using the Template Designer tool.

• Creation of a Sector Annotation using bearing-based angles

• Ability to create Individual Thematic Layers for up to 500 unique values : Previously, the limit was 50 unique values.

• Supporting the latest version of the Google Maps API, which prevented Google maps from loading and appearing correctly.

• Enhancements to the Raster Map information: Map information for line or polygon annotations now shows information for MapInfo Multiresolution Raster (MRR) layers. (Line Profile / Line Statistics / Region Statistics). 

SSA 2023.1 New Features

• Support Digest authentication for an External WMS:

• Ability to Customize the Login page and template designer: It is now possible to brand the Spectrum Spatial Analyst login page and the template designer page in Spatial Analyst using the CSS file.

• Ability to delete map information templates: possible to delete a map information template from within the template designer.

• Custom template support for MRR tables: With the support for showing raster statistics, Spectrum Spatial Analyst now supports custom template definitions for Multi-Resolution Raster (MRR) tables.

------------------------------
Duri Bradshaw
Spatial IT Consultant
Insight GIS

Original Message:
Sent: 07-30-2024 00:59
From: Timothy Righetti
Subject: Is SSA 2024 due soon?

Hi All! 

We are well behind on updating SSA (currently 2019.1), and intend to do so later this year. I was just wanting to know if SSA 2024 is in the works and when that might be due, or would v2023 be the more stable way to go. 

Also, has much changed in the versions over the years? Just curious if there are any major new features of note as it's very rare to come across screenshots of the program. In particular has any of the following been implemented:

• Global map/base layer groups
• Ability to turn on and off symbols in a thematic map layer
• Changes to linkouts? Or is PBLinks still the main method?
• Print view changes? (more template sizes, higher resolution export and customisations)
• Infotemplates changes? E.g. Ability to add expandable groups for attributes? Or is that still requiring manual coding
• Editing? Forms designer now available? or still xml based? new field types and options? 

Any feedback from users of the newer version would be much appreciated!

Cheers!

Hi Timothy,

Here is my list of significant changes for each release, this doesn't include bug fixes or minor changes which you will need to refer to release notes for.

SSA 12.2 New Features

• SSA Extensibility - From this release onwards, SSA has introduced a new extensibility platform that allows third parties to customize the product. This framework is based on the Angular 4.2.6 component model. New components can be created and added to Spectrum Spatial Analyst to provide new or different functionality.

• Designer for Map Information Templates - SSA 12.2 has introduced a Template Designer interface for creating new information templates on tables.

  • This functionality is available to the administrator only

  • Templates can include:

    • Column Selections from the table

    • Bar Charts

    • Pie Charts

    • Street Imagery

    • Any Other Text

• Adding Spectrum Layers - The Add Layer option now allows users to add Spectrum Spatial Layers along with adding Local Files (CSV, XLS, Geojson, KML file along with metadata options files) to the map. Users can browse and add any layers that they have permission to see.

• Multi-select Feature - The Multi-select feature can be accessed from Add panel and from the overflow menu of each layer in the legend. Users can manually click and select multiple features from a layer to show on the map information panel. The Multi-select feature is available for named layers, vector layers and query layers.

• Merge and Split Annotations - Merge and Split is a functionality that enables a user to select polygon annotations on the map and perform operations like merge, intersect, subtract and split. The Merge and Split feature is enabled only when there are two or more polygon annotations drawn on the map.

• Zoom to the entire layer - In the Map Legend Panel users have a new quick launch option to zoom to the extents of all the data in a layer.

SSA 12.2 S01 New Features

• See on Map feature - You can now highlight record on the map by clicking "See on Map" button.

• Zoom and Scale Visibility - SSA used to support only zoom visibility constraints, but now it will support the scale visibility constraints also.

• Add Layers - You can now enable or disable adding of Spectrum Spatial Layers and Local Vector Layers individually from Admin Console

SSA 2018.2 New Features

In this phase the creation of SSA map configurations (now called map projects) has been moved out of the SSA Admin Console and into the SSA end-user application.

• Viewing and saving map projects as an end user in SSA : End users are able to load and view Map Projects. They can now also save a map project for re-use. A project can be opened from the home page, by specifying its name as a URL parameter or by using the project drop down menu at the top of the legend panel. A project can be saved (if admin has enabled this capability in the functionality profile) by clicking the "Save as new project" or "Save project" which is on both the options panel, and in the overflow menu at the top of the legend. The saved project will include the changes they have made to it. It will be available only to them, and cannot in this release be shared to other users. Users cannot overwrite admin created projects.
  Users can re-order layers at the group level: Users are now able to re-order layers at the group level in SSA by dragging them up and down. The changes made are persisted if the user saves their project.

• Users can expand and collapse all layers at once: Users are now able to expand and collapse all legend items at once.

• Maps in differing projections: When creating Map Projects, admins can now choose and add base maps, WMS and Tile maps that are in different projections to each other. They can choose which projection is used for the view in SSA and the other maps will be re-projected on the fly to match the chosen projection. Furthermore, if a raster layer is added from Spectrum such as an MRR – it will also be re-projected. Previously raster layers served from Spectrum Spatial had to be created in the same projection as the SSA map to be shown.

• SSA Admin Console

  • Map Configurations: The Map Configurations tab is removed and is now replaced by the map project management in SSA

  • Functionality Profiles: A new functionality profile tab has been added. The functionality settings that used to be specified directly in Map Configurations are now saved as a new Functionality Profile and continues to be defined in admin console. When creating a Map Project in SSA you can browse and pick one of the Functionality Profiles created here to use. A single Functionality Profile can be re-used by many Map Projects.

  • Third party WMS and Tile services: New tabs have been added for Tile Services and WMS. These are still configured in Admin Console but now each one can be saved as a third-party WMS or Tile layer. In SSA you can then pick and add them to Map Projects either as base maps or business maps, the same way that Spectrum Spatial maps and layers are added. The same tile and WMS layers created here can be added to and re-used in many Map Projects, without having to define them for each and every project.

  • Support for Single Sign On: It is now possible to configure single sign on (SSO) for SSA. The SSO integration for SSA requires SSO to be set up to Microsoft ADFS in the Spectrum Platform as a pre-requisite.
    
    

SSA 2019.1 New Features

• Removal of Admin Console: The functionality in the Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst Administration Console has moved to Spectrum Spatial Manager on the Project Properties tab.

• Print templates: The user interface (UI) for designing print templates has been re-written with significant improvements over the previous designer.

• Query management: New parameterized views in Spectrum Spatial Manager replaces the administrator-defined queries created in the Administrator Console. Parameterized views use full SQL syntax (such as OR conditions and table joins).

• Map Projects: You can still manage Map Projects on the Project Settings dialog in Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst, but the project definitions and permissions now persist into the Spectrum Spatial repository as Named Map Projects.

• Find Nearest: The Find Nearest functionality is simplified; you do not have to create a separate Find Nearest configuration and associate it with a map project. Spectrum Spatial™ Analyst has a new tab on the Project Settings dialog to specify if a layer is available for Find Nearest search.

• Stretching of External Tile Basemaps: Third-party basemaps can now have a maximum zoom level set so that Spectrum Spatial will stretch this last level rather than going blank when a user zooms in to far.

SSA 2020.1 New Features

• Have a new look and feel:

• Uploading Data: allows users with admin and sub-admin roles to upload data tables from their computers and save them to the Spectrum Spatial repository. They can add the data to a new table or replace an existing table on the repository.

• Customize the Label text: Allows you to customize the label style for non-raster spatial layers. You can now choose the desired label column and modify label properties. • You can apply your style to the map label and save it with your map project. • This feature enables you to define a style that fits with the theme of your map. You can choose the appropriate font, color, pattern, etc., for your labels.

• Ability to Save Annotations to a Map Project: After you draw an annotation and apply various styles to the annotation like color, size, and pattern, etc., and then save the map project, the annotations will also be saved. The project preserves all annotations in the current state, along with the queries created on the annotations.

• Enhancement to Address Search: users benefit from typeahead suggestions and more accurate geocoding when searching for an address on the map / Ability to search within specified limit.

• See on Map : functionality showed inconsistent behaviour and was not always highlighting the chosen feature.

• Support for zoom visibility constraint in Thematic and Query layer.

• Thematic map performance enhancements.

• Enhancements made to the Multi-select feature.

• Support for directly entering longitude and latitude for searching.

• Ability to turn border off while creating Individual and Range thematic.

SSA 2022.1 New Features

• Map information for individual rings in annotations : you can also see Map information on individual rings of Drive time, Drive distance, and Concentric circle annotations. An additional overflow menu appears, on each ring, which enables you to view the Map information for the chosen ring only

• Support for External WMTS services: Administrators can now configure access to third party WMTS (Web Map Tile Service) services from the Project Properties page, and then add it as a layer to Spectrum Spatial Analyst. The administrator can configure authenticated and unauthenticated WMTS services.

• Adding Custom Components: Add new injection points on the left and right panels. Specify the order of the custom component inside parent component.

• Allow Sub-admin to use template designer tool: Sub-admin can now access the Template Designer tool to create and edit callout templates so that those templates can be used to show the map information. Previously, only administrators could access the Template Designer tool.

• Displaying Data Bind Result in Custom Template: In Spectrum Spatial Analyst, the data bind table information appears in the left panel as key-value pair. To improve the display of this information, you can apply a custom template to the data bind table. For example, you can apply a template created using the Template Designer tool.

• Creation of a Sector Annotation using bearing-based angles

• Ability to create Individual Thematic Layers for up to 500 unique values : Previously, the limit was 50 unique values.

• Supporting the latest version of the Google Maps API, which prevented Google maps from loading and appearing correctly.

• Enhancements to the Raster Map information: Map information for line or polygon annotations now shows information for MapInfo Multiresolution Raster (MRR) layers. (Line Profile / Line Statistics / Region Statistics). 

SSA 2023.1 New Features

• Support Digest authentication for an External WMS:

• Ability to Customize the Login page and template designer: It is now possible to brand the Spectrum Spatial Analyst login page and the template designer page in Spatial Analyst using the CSS file.

• Ability to delete map information templates: possible to delete a map information template from within the template designer.

• Custom template support for MRR tables: With the support for showing raster statistics, Spectrum Spatial Analyst now supports custom template definitions for Multi-Resolution Raster (MRR) tables.

------------------------------
Duri Bradshaw
Spatial IT Consultant
Insight GIS

Original Message:
Sent: 07-30-2024 00:59
From: Timothy Righetti
Subject: Is SSA 2024 due soon?

Hi All! 

We are well behind on updating SSA (currently 2019.1), and intend to do so later this year. I was just wanting to know if SSA 2024 is in the works and when that might be due, or would v2023 be the more stable way to go. 

Also, has much changed in the versions over the years? Just curious if there are any major new features of note as it's very rare to come across screenshots of the program. In particular has any of the following been implemented:

• Global map/base layer groups
• Ability to turn on and off symbols in a thematic map layer
• Changes to linkouts? Or is PBLinks still the main method?
• Print view changes? (more template sizes, higher resolution export and customisations)
• Infotemplates changes? E.g. Ability to add expandable groups for attributes? Or is that still requiring manual coding
• Editing? Forms designer now available? or still xml based? new field types and options? 

Any feedback from users of the newer version would be much appreciated!

Cheers!