RPI v7.0 release notes
Overview
Available November 2022
Redpoint Interaction (RPI) v7.0 represents a major change to the product’s architecture. For the first time, RPI is able to be hosted in a containerized environment.
RPI v7.0 supports a greatly limited set of connectors when compared to v6.6, with the focus primarily on integration with Google.
RPI v7.0 does not support an upgrade path from a previous v6.x version.
Major enhancements: this section describes the significant changes that have taken place in RPI v7.0.
Supported plugins: this section details the initial set of external provider integration plugins supported in RPI v7.0.
Other enhancements: this section documents other features added in RPI 7.0.
Any assets exported from an RPI version prior to v7.0, which support thumbnails (e.g., image assets), cannot be imported in RPI v7.0 and above.
Major enhancements
This section describes major changes to RPI in version 7.0.
Containerization
RPI services have been converted to a set of Linux container images. The concept of an RPI Node no longer exists; RPI Execution and Node Manager images can be started as required.
Note that RPI is now built on v6.0 of the Microsoft .NET framework.
User story reference: 14504, 16675
Deployment
Deployment API
A new RPI Deployment API has been published. It provides endpoints that allow you to:
Deploy and manage an RPI cluster
Deploy, manage, audit and import files into RPI clients within a cluster
Enter and exit maintenance mode
Full details of the API can be found in its Swagger documentation (accessible from the Configuration Home Page).
User story references: 15350, 15477, 16036, 16171, 16212, 16350, 16443
Configuration Home Page
A new Configuration Home page has been made available.
From here, a series of links allow you manage the JSON payloads to be included in calls to the following RPI Deployment API endpoints:
Manage cluster
Install cluster
Deploy client
In addition, links provide access to interfaces to manage the following appsettings files:
Interaction
Execution service
Node manager service
RPI Realtime
Each of the above is carried out in a web interface, exposing a series of properties. Setting the properties dynamically changes an accompanying JSON representation of the endpoint call body or appsettings file, which can be copied for later usage.
Links also provide access to the RPI Deployment Swagger documentation and deployment files.
User story references: 15335, 15683, 15700, 15701, 15702, 15703, 16792
Server Workbench Deprecated
The RPI Server Workbench application has been deprecated. The functionality it formerly exposed is now available at:
The API endpoints mentioned above.
A new Clients tab within the Configuration interface.
All core system configuration settings are now exposed as AppSettings.
Note that the Queue Providers tab has been renamed Realtime Queue Providers. A new Queue Listener Providers tab is only displayed to cluster admins and facilitates the setup and management of queue listener queues.
User story reference: 14511, 16675
Data Project Designer Deprecated
The RPI Data Project Designer (‘Data Intake’) has been deprecated, and the feature has been removed from the product.
User story reference: 15647
New Email Service Provider – Eloqua
Support has been added for a single new email service provider (Eloqua).
User story reference: 15647
New Cache Provider – Google Bigtable
Support has been added for a single new cache provider (Google Bigtable).
User story reference: 16243
Supported plugins
The following external provider connector plugins are supported in RPI v7.0.
Operational Databases
Microsoft SQL Server
Data Warehouses
Microsoft SQL Server
Google BigQuery
User story reference: 15586
Support has been added for Map Item attributes
User story reference: 16868
Auxiliary Database
Google BigTable
User story reference: 15610
NoSQL Database
MongoDB
User story reference: 15488
Data Onboarding Channels
Google Ads Customer Match
User story reference: 15495
Realtime Cache
External Content Provider
Google Cloud Storage
User story reference: 15561
Web Adapters
Google Analytics
User story reference: 15507
PURL
Queues
Google PubSub
User story reference: 15574
Rabbit MQ
User story reference: 15510
Caches
Cassandra
Google BigTable
User story reference: 16243
MongoDB
User story reference: 15488
Redis
User story reference: 15509
SQL Server
User story reference: 15622
Other enhancements
This section describes additional enhancements to RPI in version 7.0.
Channels
An email channel’s Recipient email address property can now be populated using a PII vault attribute.
User story reference: 16180
A new Validate Channels button has been made available at the Channels configuration interface's toolbar. Clicking it creates any missing channel sync tasks and database tables for the currently configured channels.
User story reference: 16722
Catalog
A new client system configuration setting – AdditionalDWSchema – has been introduced. This list property allows for the provision of one or more additional data warehouse schemas to be included in the database catalog.
User story reference: 15842
Zendesk reference: 85165
Selection Rules
Basic Selection Rule
A new Realtime tab has been added at the SQL Database Definition configuration interface. The Realtime mode property exposed therein allows specification of whether basic selection rules using the current definition will query the database directly, or in-memory.
User story reference: 15951
When a basic selection rule's audience definition is configured with metadata attributes, a new Metadata Contact Rule group is available, which is populated with criteria accordant with the defined metadata attributes. A record is deemed to be targeted when it fulfils a metadata contact rule criterion based on the existence of a production offer history record with appropriate metadata value(s). The feature applies in both SQL and realtime modes.
User story reference: 16292
A new Enable realtime output checkbox has been exposed at the Audience Definition configuration interface's Details tab. When checked, offer history is output to the realtime cache. This allows for the utilization of contact rule criteria at a basic selection rule used in a realtime context.
User story reference: 1040
NoSQL Selection Rule
The ability to specify that RPI should use in-memory queries for realtime execution instead of querying the database has been exposed at the NoSQL DB Collection Definitions configuration interface.
User story reference: 16041
Queues
An Event Name attribute tag is now included when messages are posted to a Google Cloud Pub/Sub queue.
User story reference: 16869
Operations
When a cluster admin views entries in the Server & Client Log operations interface, non-client specific entries are displayed. A Tenant Name column is also shown (set to 'Cluster' at non-client entries).
User story reference: 15479
Realtime
A link to the RPI Realtime Web Client documentation can now be configured in the service's appsettings file. It is then displayed at the RPI Realtime home page.
User story reference: 15368
Zendesk reference: 83467
When making calls to RPI Realtime endpoints, the client ID no longer needs to be passed in explicitly; rather, it is now configured at RPI Realtime appSettings.
User story reference: 15389
The Visit, Parameters, Cached Attributes and Events RPI Realtime endpoints have been updated to use the Identity object.
User story reference: 16449
A new PluginAssemblyPath setting has been made available at RPI Realtime appsettings. This allows for the specification of an additional path in which RPI Realtime will look for plugin assemblies.
User story reference: 16482
New RPI Realtime appsettings have been added to enable and configure the queue listener 'Listen for realtime events' functionality, which is now provided by the RPI Realtime service, and not the Web events importer system task.
User story reference: 15818
Smart Assets
Inbound Realtime mode is now supported at the Audience Segment Smart Asset.
User story reference: 15948
Miscellaneous
RPI now supports v3 of Redpoint Automated Machine Learning (AML).
User story reference: 15945
Microsoft Azure KeyVault can now be used to persist appsettings values and passwords used by RPI.
User story reference: 15975
The same applies at Google Secret Manager.
User story reference: 16448
Integration with Azure Log Analytics can now be configured in RPI services' appsettings/web config files. Logs are pushed into Azure Monitor under 'Application Insights'.
User story reference: 14506
RPI now supports the use of Azure App Configuration to store configuration name/value pairs or JSON configuration sections. These are used to overwrite values in existing configuration files or environment variables. Confidential information can be stored in Azure Key Vault.
User story reference: 14545
RPI services have been updated to expose Readiness and Liveness HTTP endpoints, to facilitate Kubernetes probe integration.
User story reference: 15741
The RPI logging framework has been refactored, with log entries being added to daily local files when the client is unable to log into the server.
User story reference: 14510
RPI's Maintenance Mode feature has been enhanced. When a server is in maintenance mode, a cluster admin user is able to log in. Similarly, such a user is not logged out of RPI when logged in and RPI enters maintenance mode.
User story reference: 15757
Details of alerts are now able to be published to Azure PubSub.
User story reference: 16195
The authentication method to be used by RPI is now configured entirely in the web services appsettings file. The EnableRPIAuthentication setting is used to enable or disable RPI native authentication. If enabled, the use of a MachineKey to generate tokens is no longer supported (a certificate is used instead). Active Directory Federation Service (AFDFS) is no longer supported.
OpenID Connect providers KeyCloak and Okta are supported.
User story reference: 14947