A little more than 200 days ago, on 30 May 2012, we released version 1.0 of Disco. In these 28 weeks, we have released 30 updates to Disco, which means there has been more than one update per week on average! However, over all that releasing I have forgotten about an old tradition here at Fluxicon: Sharing information about updates with you here on our blog.
Today we are proud to announce the release of Disco 1.3.0. This update fixes a number of bugs and adds new features, but first and foremost it once again greatly improves the performance of Disco. You can download an installer package for Windows or Mac OS X from www.fluxicon.com/disco
Disco is also automatically checking for software updates, and downloading them in the background. When you are running Disco and it shows you the blue update banner above, you can take a break to install the update, and then start using the latest version right away. Since Disco keeps your complete project data and settings persistent, you can continue right where you left off. If you prefer to keep working with your current version for now, Disco will install the update the next time you start it up.
Keep reading to learn about some of the most important changes in Disco 1.3.0.
Performance
When we ask our users what they like most about Disco, the most frequent response is that it’s so easy and fun to accomplish very complex and impressive analysis results with Disco. A very close second response is the fact that Disco is breezing fast, even with monumentally big data sets.
In fact, we consider performance and speed an integral part of usability. If you have to wait for your computer between every step, you will begin to hesitate before trying something out, and it will ultimately make you much less productive. This is why it has been our priority for Version 1.3.0 to make Disco, once again, even faster.
Disco now contains even smarter algorithms and data structures, and it is now even more optimized to use all available CPU cores and memory on your system, to ensure that you get the best experience available.
With Disco 1.3.0, it is now more than 1.5x faster to import an event log from a CSV file. You will notice this speedup especially when you are loading a large and complex event log.
Disco is the only commercial process mining software with a custom-designed event log database, our Octane log management layer. This allows us to optimize precisely for the performance profile required for process mining, and to go way beyond what a general-purpose database is capable of.
For example, in Version 1.3.0, Disco now switches seamlessly between four types of log storage containers, which are each optimized for different machine capabilities and log characteristics. And the best part is, you don’t have to know or care about it to get the best performance – it just works.
Filtering your datasets is an essential part of the Disco experience. Since you can quickly create copies of a dataset, and filtering is so easy and fast, Disco makes it easy to quickly drill down into your data and answer your analysis questions.
With Disco 1.3.0, filtering your log is now more than 2.7x faster than with our previous version 1.2.19. Note that we always measure the time from start to finish, from clicking the “filter” button until you see your complete analysis results, because that’s what you really care about when using it.
When you start Disco, everything in your project is exactly how you left it the last time. Even if you export your project and give it to a colleague, he will find it just how you left it. This is an important feature for us, and so we’re happy to tell you that, with Disco 1.3.0, your project will now be restored more than 15x faster.
Sometimes when you’re working with a dataset in Disco, you want to quickly review the filter settings. With large and complex datasets, though, showing the filter dialog could sometimes take longer than a minute. In Disco 1.3.0, we made the filter dialog more than 50x faster, so that it should now always appear instantly.
These are just some examples of the performance boost that Disco 1.3.0 brings. When you start using Disco after this update, you will notice that it has become much faster all across the board, especially for big data aficionados. As a bonus, we have made progress feedback much more accurate all over Disco. So, in the rare cases where you will still have to wait for Disco, you now get a much better idea of how long it will take.
Map View
It always makes us happy to see that the user base for Disco is very international. For us it is important that Disco works around the globe, which is first and foremost manifested in Disco’s comprehensive Unicode support for event log data.
In Disco 1.3.0, we have finally fixed the last place where we had a problem with Unicode data. The map view pop-over now correctly displays path relationships between activities with right-to-left language names. This means, data with Hebrew and Arabic activity names now finally get the same full support in Disco as all other languages.
Project View
The next one may be a small feature, but quite a number of people have been asking for it. In the project view in Disco 1.3.0, you can now re-arrange the list of your datasets using drag and drop:
Simply click on a dataset in the list and keep your mouse button down. Move the dataset to your desired location, and then let the mouse button go – presto!
Various other changes
Here is a short list of some smaller changes that are included in Disco 1.3.0:
-
Improved launcher for the Windows platform.
-
When importing from CSV, you can now set a timestamp pattern even if the sample contains no data.
-
Improved in-app help and onboarding experience.
-
Various bug and UI fixes.
-
Includes updates to various support libraries.
Thank you!
We believe that Disco is the best process mining software available today. It is easy to use, fast, and made by experts who have researched process mining and developed process mining software for more than eight years now. We work hard every day to keep things that way, and we think that this update extends Disco’s lead significantly.
Honestly, though, we don’t care much for how great Disco is when compared to other solutions. What is important to us is that Disco is the perfect tool for you, our customers and users. Your feedback, bug reports, and kind words make developing Disco a real joy. We would like to say a big thank you to everybody who has placed their trust (and their money) in Disco and in us – it has been a blast!
Download Disco 1.3.0 today, and let us know what you think about it in the comments!
Christian W. Günther
Product, development, and everything else
Christian creates software which is easy to use, performs great, and is easy on the eyes. He also handles most things design or AV around Fluxicon.
info@fluxicon.com