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We have been completely booked and unable to actively blog! This means we have moved all ET1 development into the nights, blogs are reduced to aggregations of change. As a consultancy our first duty is to help our clients.
ET1.2 introduces AICA, aka CATO AI. Cato AI is our latest innovation in artificial intelligence, which allows you to begin utilizing our 30+ AI Agents to solve problems from querying the database, filtering, and even building charts automatically. From Text to ETL/Charts, all in one user experience. AICA is a nick named for an essential process that keeps your brain alive, CATO is AICATO or CATO AI. It’s just a few nick names for our chat bot, and it’s brains, which we will elaborate on more in the future!
Last but not least, ET1.2 introduces the ability to deploy workflows or entire databases of workflows. Workflows, meaning your end-to-end ETL process, the charts, and it only requires the press of 1 button. This is a leap forward in analytics engineering, the ability to develop solutions using our app.
There’s more to ET1.2 than we can fit into one blog, but here’s a few highlights I find most important. Like deploying from local to cloud, I have to tell you about that.
Electron aka LOCAL or Offline
In some instances Electron needs to be online, like using a process that downloads a package, or logs into the cloud service (which helps with deploying, explained below).
Electronjs is a powerful open source framework that allows us to create a local installation using our native web application, and allows us to create installers that package PostgreSQL with our technology.
We are no stranger to the world of electron apps, given our first solution we released is Electron, called Canopys Task Scheduler.
Like Canopys, we are starting with the Mac installer first. Contact us to begin testing, the electron version - it’s free, don’t be shy.
Adoption
Bringing Electron to our codebase is a big driver for the future of adoption, helping end users explore the software in an untethered approach, and enabling the cloud variation to be all within the same roof.
This is huge, we don’t have to recreate our software because we want to build a local installation, well - not entirely. The local electron implementation of ET1 enables anyone to use the software exactly as if they are using the cloud variation. It’s the same engine under hood, and that’s important to ensure data quality + consistency.
Lineage (Electron Only)
Lineage view is a local only (online + electron = to avoid unnecessary package downloads, we may turn it offline depending on the overall size of the installer) feature of Electrons ET1.2 build. We want to beta test this app here in local for now!
To make life easier, I’ve added a Lineage tab, to help automatically understand the relationships across 30 (example) tables. This tab will automatically generate this visual/map, and give you a visual understanding of your relationships. If you click on any of the circles it will automatically create + test all the SQL to build the joins necessary.
When clicking a circle, a new UX pops open, a GUI screen that lets you create SQL based on what can be automatically assumed about the tables in this database.
Hovering to gain join types.
Color coded join types.
AICA aka CATO AI.
AICA or CATO AI has two meanings. Cato sounds like cat, and that’s cool, however Cato also comes from the word Cactus, a favorite plant of ours in the great state of Texas. Also, Cato means wise.
CATO AI comes packaged with a cluster of AI Agents, over 30 agents designed to be wise and easy to build around.
Also, the medical Context (Anterior Inferior Cerebellar Artery - AICA) fits well because AICA helps supply your brain, passing signals in the pons, and also supplies blood to the cerebellum. Given how CATO AI can build from end-to-end, it does feel a bit of the brain to our software, and AICA (CATO AI) fits well into this mix.
AICA helps end users quickly develop from database, to ETL, to charts, and charts automatically create dashboards think of AICA as the BRAINS and guidance, and CATO AI as the output.
CATO AI is only available online and currently not added to the electron application. Perhaps BYOK (bring your own key) will be the future, but for now it’s limited to online alpha testers to continue future testing.
Deploy
Deploy databases full of workflows and data_cache or just send 1 workflow + data_caches associated.
Workflows are end-to-end database, to ETL, to chart, to dashboard… Sending your development to the cloud enables you to collaborate online.
To deploy from offline Electron build to online, you will need to login to ET1 (we use github Authorization, enabling your github or google accounts to be your login/credentials).
Deploy requires a login; Login to ET1 is essential to maintain persistence, collaborating with people online, and ultimately sharing your work.
Dashboards
Charts in ET1 automatically generate dashboards. In ET1.2, dashboards are created without any effort. This process helps end-users create dashboards instantly as they develop their ETL solutions in ET1!
Dashboards are an essential tool in analytics, and designed to be shared with your executives, managers, and any team around the organization.
Groups
Groups helps you organize your databases and database solutions in one place.
Groups online allow you to create clusters of databases (nested in projects + branches), workflows, and dashboards inside of PostgreSQL.
Groups offline allow you to create clusters of databases, workflows, and dashboards inside of PostgreSQL.
Workflows are nested in the workflows tab!
Group based training
For offline is interactive and helpful to users who may not be familiar with analytics.
Training will enable users to get in-app experience using the software in a subtly gamified approach.
The main difference between online, and offline is the cost of storage/CPU usage + online has the ability to create more organizational assets. Offline has the lineage tab feature for testing purposes across any table per databases, which is not attached to the online version, and explained above.
Online: Groups have projects, branches, and databases nested within.
Offline: Groups only contain databases.
Thank you for learning more about ET1, to learn about the software, check out this ET1 Overview.