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Spotfire Ideas Portal
Status Will not implement
Product Spotfire
Categories Library
Created by Guest
Created on Apr 1, 2022

Allow the default URL to be configured to be the library path in post 11.4 versions

In 10.10, the default URL when saving an analysis used the library path in the URL. In 11.4, this changed to be the GUID of the analysis included in the URL as opposed to the Library URL. Would like the option to have the default URL be the library path, maybe via a configuration setting.

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  • Guest
    Reply
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    Aug 25, 2022

    There are pros and cons for using both the GUID and Library URL. We should have the option of obtaining both URLs as best fits our use case.

    We frequently release new versions of our dashboards. When we do this we overwrite our dashboards so if users were using the GUIDs then it wouldn't work for them. We also move our old versions of our dashboards to an archive folder. If the users are using the GUIDs they will see an old version of the dashboard. For our use case using the library URL makes more sense.

  • Guest
    Reply
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    Aug 25, 2022

    I think that the argument here is that you changed the behavior and people liked the old behavior, and there's no way to flip back.

    The counter argument to the fact that file names change occasionally is that we we often see new versions of reports being saved with existing names (replacing files) - and often GUIDs will change. We heavily promote using sensible names for reports (no version numbers, for example), and maintaining Library path names is something that the report author is much more in control of - a GUID might change and they would never notice, we've seen that many times since this change happened.

    I understand the security argument and I personally agree that promoting the use of GUIDs is more secure - I'm fine with changing aspects of the product that clearly improve it, but this is really just a preference and it should have been implemented as such.

  • Admin
    Miguel Díez
    Reply
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    Aug 25, 2022

    Hi Ian,

    One of the reasons behind this decision is that quite often the file name changes, leaving that link useless.

    Another reason is that using the filename is considered a security risk, since you may not want to disclose information from the path/filename when sharing the link, and neither make easy to guess the URL for an attacker.

    Most actors providing cloud services use unique IDs in form of hashes for identifying their resources that are user generated (documents, diagrams, spreadsheets,...).

    I hope this clarifies why we took this decision.

    Thanks

  • Guest
    Reply
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    Apr 22, 2022

    This change to use a GUID has made our work really difficult as we relied heavily on the library URL. Can we have this option to switch back please?