Mid-November saw the release of version 4.3 of the SAS BI clients. BI Dashboard 4.3 has been adapted to use Flash technology – that means you can now use Flash interactivity to gain insight. There's a very informative SAS Global Forum paper on this subject by SAS's Michael Thomas and Gordon Hirsch; it's entitled Interactive Dashboards: Powered by Flash and the SAS Programmer.
The use of Flash makes a tremendous positive difference to the appearance and usability of SAS dashboards. However, be aware that you'll need Flash version 10 to make use of BI Dashboard 4.3. Without this pre-requisite you'll not get to use BI Dashboard 4.3! You can check your version of Flash (in Internet Explorer) by right-clicking on a Flash element on any web page, e.g. at the top of the Adobe Flash Player home page. If you have version 10 you will see "About Adobe Flash Player 10..." in the pop-up menu.
If you're planning an upgrade to version 4.3 of BI Dashboard, make sure you read Knowledge Base article 40474. SAS BI Dashboard 4.3 moved to an RIA architecture (as well as other significant back end changes), which means that there are some major usage differences between version 4.3 and version 4.2. The SAS note explains some of the differences, and provides a single point of reference to other usage notes that highlight the differences between version 4.2 and version 4.3. Despite the interface change, the core engine remained in place so the high performance of previous versions is maintained.
