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collect Opal 2.7 Released

We are pleased to announce that Opal 2.7 is now available. Opal is OBiBa’s core database application for biobanks.

The main new features are related to a better support of time series and longitudinal data both at import/export time and when deriving variables. Multilines can be encountered in data sources with tabular format (CSV, SPSS and SQL) when there are multiple line entries per entity. Opal now handles this type of data as follow:

  • import: when several lines per entity are detected, the variables are considered to be "repeatables" and extracted data are value sequences,
  • export: when some variables are "repeatables" (i.e. associated data are value sequences), one line per entity/sequence occurrence is written at exportation time,
  • derivation: if a variable is defined in more than one of the tables joined in a view, the value extracted from this variable will be a value sequence. Many derivation script methods have been added or improved to facilitate value sequences handling.

A presentation explains what the multilines term refers to:

Other notable changes are:

  • file download: it is now possible to specify an encryption key when downloading a file or a folder. Downloaded content can be decrypted using the 7-zip open source program available for free on all systems. This is a lightweight data protection convenient for data exchange on secure platforms,
  • files and folders can be renamed,
  • the embedded web server Jetty has been upgraded to version 9 for improved security (tested with testssl ),
  • Maelstrom Research variable taxonomies download now requires a registration key and the acceptance of the associated license .

See Opal documentation for installation and operation instructions.