What's new

Learn about the latest features, improvements and bug fixes in our product.

This page will always reflect the latest changes in the CARTO platform. Older release notes will be archived and are available in the left menu and the search bar.

Support for private embedding of CARTO Builder maps

March 14th, 2024

Improvements Builder

Maps created with CARTO Builder can now be embedded anywhere — even when they're not shared publicly. With private embedding you can restrict and maintain control over who can view these maps when embedded on web pages or apps.

To leverage private embedding simply share your map with the organization or with the specific groups you want to share the map with. These users need to be previously logged-in to CARTO to view the embedded map. Learn more at our Embedding maps documentation.

New Workflows components for low-code geospatial analytics

February 29th, 2024

New Workflows

During the last few weeks, we’ve been progressively adding new and improved components in CARTO Workflows:

Extended support for URL parameters in Builder maps

February 21st, 2024

Improvements Builder

Exciting news – CARTO Builder has expanded its URL parameter capabilities to include widgets, SQL parameters, search locations, and feature selections. Now, when viewers interact with these elements, the URL updates in real time, making it easier to share customized map views. This update opens up possibilities for creating varied views from a single map, simplifying sharing, and minimizing the need for multiple map versions. It also enhances the embedding of maps into websites or apps, providing a seamless user experience without unnecessary redirections.

Distinguish Users by authentication method

February 19th, 2024

Improvements Workspace

We have added a new column to the Users and Groups table of the Organization Settings which displays the authentication method used by each user (Google Account, Username/Password, SSO or Github). This will help Admins better manage their organization, avoid confusion and identify users quickly.

Support for configuring and executing your workflows with an API call

February 8th, 2024

New Workflows

We are excited to announce the release of a comprehensive set of new features in CARTO Workflows designed to provide the ability to trigger the execution of your workflows by calling an API.

  • Variable definition: Define variables that can be used within components' settings. These variables can also be configured as parameters, allowing for inputing dynamic values during API calls.

  • Expression support: Introducing expressions! Embed logic directly into component settings, enabling the use of SQL operators in conjunction with variable and column values from your data.

  • API endpoint for triggering workflows: Enable an API endpoint to initiate a workflow execution. This endpoint exposes all parameters set as variables, facilitating smooth integration.

  • Workflow status polling: Easily monitor the status of workflow execution.

  • Output definition and storage: Define the output of a workflow API execution, which will be stored in a temporary table. The Fully Qualified Name (FQN) of this table is included in the API response for effortless access post-execution. This output can be used along with other options like exporting result to a bucket, saving to a static table or send an email with the result.

  • Controlled caching behavior: Have control over caching behavior across all execution modes: UI, Scheduled (Beta), and via API.

All these elements have been built to enable users to integrate workflows into larger analytical processes, and to embed asynchronous analytical capabilities into web applications.

January 15th, 2024

Improvements Workspace

We have released a set of improvements that affect the experience of new users when they open a shared map or shared workflow for the first time. Previously, you had to invite those users or have them sign up manually. Now:

  • If your organization uses Single Sign-On (SSO), all maps and workflows shared links will redirect to your SSO login page for easier adoption and onboarding of new users

  • The unauthenticated screen for all shared maps and workflows has been redesigned for clarity

  • Users can now login or signup through the map/workflow link, and they will be automatically redirected to the desired map/workflow once successfully authenticated

New CARTO Academy - tutorials, videos and templates to boost your spatial analysis skills

January 11th, 2024

New Documentation

We are happy to announce the launch of our new CARTO Academy, with detailed tutorials, videos and templates to boost your spatial analysis skills and make you a proficient user of the CARTO platform.

Among others, in this new CARTO Academy you will find materials to get you started with Spatial Indexes, tutorials to help you build stunning visualizations and spatial analyses with CARTO Builder, step-by-step tutorials and templates for Workflows, and guides to develop your advanced spatial analysis skills with Google BigQuery, Snowflake and AWS Redshift.

Enhancements to export data from Builder maps

December 20th, 2023

Improvement Builder

We've upgraded the export functionality in Builder maps, shifting the data export process to work in server-side mode for an enhanced efficiency and data integrity. This improvement ensures a more reliable data retrieval experience.

Additionally, when exporting data as CSV, it now includes the geometry column in WKT (Well-Known Text) format, if applicable. This enhancement simplifies data handling and boosts compatibility with various geospatial tools, making integrations smoother.

Looking to leverage this enhanced functionality for RDS for PostgreSQL data sources? Don't forget to set up the necessary S3 bucket integration to enable the export feature. For more details and guidance, check out our documentation.

ML Generate Text component available for Workflows

December 18th, 2023

New Workflows

We have added a new component to Workflows that leverages BigQuery ML Generate Text capabilities to allow embedding Generative AI functionalities into your geospatial analytical pipelines.

It can be used to interpret results from an analysis, using different variables on your data to compose a prompt that will be evaluated on each row.

With this new addition, Generative AI capabilities are handy and readily available from Workflows.

Export Workflows results to a bucket

November 28th, 2023

New Workflows

We have just released a new component in Workflows that allows exporting the result from any node in a workflow to a storage bucket.

The node's data will be exported as a series of files, which URLs will be stored in a table. Just inspect the Data tab in the results panel to access the links to each file.

This component is currently available for all CARTO Data Warehouse and BigQuery connections.

Improvements to the Results panel in Workflows

November 27th, 2023

Improvement Workflows

We have added a few improvements to the results panel in Workflows that are focused on better usability and data exploration capabilities:

  • Renovated, sleeker design;

  • See when the workflow was executed for the last time;

  • Easily find the number of columns and rows of a result;

  • Explore the complete result with pagination for optimal performance;

  • Copy the content of a page to the clipboard, ready to be pasted into a spreadsheet;

  • Analyze statistics of each column:

    • Frequency of the Top 20 categories for string, date and timestamp columns;

    • Maximum and minimum values, average and sum for numeric columns.

  • SQL control code is hidden to facilitate readability.

Find all the documentation about these improvements here.

Support for OAuth connections in Snowflake

November 22nd, 2023

New Workspace

You can now set up an OAuth integration to connect CARTO and Snowflake. This allows users to follow their usual Snowflake login flow (Snowflake OAuth) to set up their connections in CARTO, which has security benefits and is a more familiar process for all Snowflake users.

If you have an external identity provider integrated in Snowflake such as Azure Active Directory or Okta, we also support External OAuth to achieve the same process.

Read more about Configuring OAuth connections to Snowflake.

Measure point-to-point distances in Builder maps

November 16th, 2023

New Builder

We're excited to announce the latest feature in CARTO Builder - a distance measure tool that will allow users to measure distances between two points on their maps.

This new functionality is ideal for a diverse range of use cases, from planning tasks to gaining a deeper understanding of spatial relationships between various map elements.

Style qualitative data using hex color codes

November 6th, 2023

New Builder

In Builder, you now have the capability to style your qualitative data using hex color codes pulled directly from your table or SQL query sources. If you're curious about generating these hex color codes, we've prepared a tutorial to assist you, detailing the steps using either Workflows or SQL. What's especially exciting? The range of possibilities this opens up. Whether you're aligning with your company's branding, looking to automatically style a high number of categories, or exploring diverse color schemes, the choice is all yours.

Collection of Workflows examples

October 25rd, 2023

New Workflows

We have just published a new collection of workflows examples, designed with a hands-on approach to empower users and ease the learning curve for using CARTO Workflows.

It showcases a wide range of scenarios, from simple building blocks for your geospatial analysis to more complex, industry-specific workflows tailored to suit specific use cases.

Take a look at our catalog of workflows examples here!

Improved import capabilities in Workflows

October 25th, 2023

New Workflows

We have added a new mechanism to import a workflow into your account. Just download an example from the gallery, drag and drop into your CARTO Workspace (or browse a file from your computer) and the workflow will be automatically re-created in your account.

And also we have just added a new way to import data into a workflow. Either from a local file in your computer, or from a URL, this new feature facilitates the task of incorporating data into your analytical pipelines.

New Pie Widget available in Builder

October 18th, 2023

New Builder

The new Pie Widget is designed to simplify the visualization of complex categorical data in Builder, making it more user-friendly and insightful.

Thanks to this new feature you can quickly and easily analyze data proportions and category weights, allowing for better understanding of each data category within your dataset. This enhancement empowers users to make more informed decisions by providing a clearer view of their data.

Multiple series and custom temporal aggregations in the Time Series Widget

September 30th, 2023

Improvement Builder

We have upgraded our Time Series Widget in Builder to boost your temporal data analysis experience. These enhancements bring a new level of customization to your data exploration, offering:

  • Enhanced temporal precision: Our upgraded Time Series Widget empowers you with precise control over temporal data aggregation. You can now extract insights using custom time intervals and enjoy greater granularity, resulting in more accurate analyses.

  • Analysis of multiple time series: Unlock the ability to analyze multiple time series simultaneously within the widget, enabling seamless concurrent analysis over time.

New components in Workflows for data enrichment, statistics and retail analytics

September 30th, 2023

New Workflows

We have released a new set of components in Workflows for Data Enrichment:

Each of them allows to enrich different types of geospatial data, and all of them allow using both a Data Observatory subscription or a custom table as source for the enrichment data.

Additionally, we have released a new component for advanced Statistics and for Retail Analytics, initially supported in Google BigQuery:

These additions to Workflows will make it a lot easier to leverage data enrichment and advanced statistical capabilities in CARTO, integrating these complex processes as just another step in a workflow.

Leveraging SSO in applications built with CARTO

September 7th, 2023

Improvement CARTO for Developers

Developers building applications with CARTO can now leverage their existing Single Sign-On (SSO) integration enabled in their organization to authenticate users.

Given the right setup, these applications will now be able to manage existing users and also first-time users coming from the SSO Identity Provider (IdP) that didn't exist previously in CARTO. The experience for these new users is seamless, without any action or step required. This is an extension of the Just-in-time provisioning setting available in CARTO Workspace.

The changes needed to fully leverage SSO and Just-in-time provisioning are covered:

Data Observatory subscriptions as data sources in Workflows

September 5th, 2023

New Workflows

We have just made Data Observatory subscriptions available in the Data Sources panel in Workflows.

This will make premium and public datasets a lot easier to work with: just drag and drop your available samples or subscriptions to the canvas and start building your workflow.

With this new addition to Workflows, the largest catalog of curated geospatial datasets is readily available to be integrated with your cloud native analytical pipelines with just a few clicks. Check this new feature documentation here.

Richer descriptions for Builder maps

September 4th, 2023

New Builder

We're delighted to announce the next level of map description functionality in CARTO Builder: Richer map descriptions with support for Markdown. This upgrade takes our previous map description feature to a whole new level.

With the new richer map descriptions, you're not just adding text; you're crafting a more engaging user experience. The support for Markdown syntax allows you to include various text formats, headers, links, images, and even bullet-point lists, elevating the user's understanding and interaction with your map. To learn how to add Richer Map Descriptions to your maps, click here.

Support for Numeric SQL Parameter

August 9th, 2023

New Builder

We're thrilled to unveil our newest addition to CARTO Builder - the Numeric SQL Parameter, expanding our portfolio of supported SQL parameter types. This innovative feature offers users enhanced interaction with numerical data within Builder.

Leveraging the Numeric SQL parameter, users can seamlessly retrieve single or pair numeric values from a Control UI to update the underlying data sources. It's an excellent option for those requiring to filter data by specific numeric ranges or adjusting analytical outputs based on numerical inputs.

Learn more about how to set up and use SQL Parameters in your maps here.

Functions to create spatial scores and rank CPG merchants in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

August 7th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

We have added the new procedures CREATE_SPATIAL_SCORE and CREATE_SPATIAL_PERFORMANCE_SCORE in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery. With these new functions available in the cpg module, users are now able to generate more insights when analyzing a network of CPG merchants. It's now possible to create scores against business performance metrics or geospatial attributes and rank merchants to understand their performance and business suitability for the CPG brand. You can learn more on how to use these new functions by following this example on "Measuring merchant attractiveness and performance in CPG with spatial scores".

Sharing controls for Applications

July 24th, 2023

New Workspace

We have added the possibility to control the visibility of Applications in CARTO through the usual sharing options (private, entire organization...), including the ability to share an application only with specific groups of users.

This is especially interesting to customize what applications are shown for each user in the CARTO Workspace depending on the groups that they belong to, and also to start developing applications privately, without the app shortcut being shown to other users. You will find more information for these use cases and other details in the Managing Applications section in this documentation.

Mapping groups to user roles in CARTO

July 20th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

Administrators in CARTO now have the possibility to automatically assign a role to their users based on the groups that they belong to. To do so, just enable this feature and map each group to a user role. For example, you can map the group acme_data_analysts to get the editor role in CARTO, and new users belonging to that group will automatically get the editor role as well.

This is a powerful approach to quickly onboard dozens or hundreds of users into CARTO while maintaining effortless and enterprise-grade controls over the privileges of each user. Learn more about mapping groups to user roles.

Viewer credentials mode when sharing BigQuery connections

July 13th, 2023

New Workspace

Previously, whenever you created a BigQuery connection using OAuth ("Sign in with Google") it had to remain private, to prevent other users from impersonating your personal credentials.

With the addition of the new viewer credentials mode when sharing connections, we're unlocking several benefits for organizations using BigQuery:

  • Now you can collaborate in maps using a shared BigQuery OAuth connection

  • Instead of creating one connection per user, you can create just one connection and share it with everyone, with fewer management issues.

  • By requiring viewer credentials, you can leverage row-level security and other policies set in your data warehouse.

Search locations by latitude and longitude in Builder

July 6th, 2023

New Builder We are thrilled to introduce the enhanced Search Location Bar, formerly known as the Address Search Bar. This feature now includes the ability to search for locations using coordinates. Simply input latitude and longitude values, and instantly visualize the corresponding location on the map.

Whether you're exploring remote areas, analyzing specific points of interest, or seeking valuable insights, our coordinate search feature empowers you to navigate with precision and seamlessly uncover new possibilities.

Explain your Workflows with rich markdown notes and custom node names

June 30th, 2023

New Workflows

We have just added a couple of new features in Workflows that are going to improve a lot the explainability of your multi-step analytical pipelines.

  • Rich notes supporting Markdown syntax.

  • Update nodes with more relevant and descriptive names.

June 30th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

Starting today, users with the ability to customize branding and appearance can also remove the CARTO brand and social icons from their public and embedded maps.

This is a setting that is applied to all maps created in the organization. Additionally, administrators can decide whether new users receive the generic CARTO onboarding materials, to further customize the experience for new users. Learn more about how to activate these customizations.

Custom aggregation operations for Formula Widget

June 27th, 2023

New Builder

We are excited to introduce the latest enhancement to the Formula Widget in Builder, which allows users to create their own custom aggregation operations.

This new feature provides advanced capabilities for users to tailor calculations and derive precise insights from their data using SQL Expressions.

With custom aggregation operations, users have the flexibility to define calculations that align precisely with their unique analytical requirements. They can incorporate business-specific formulas and apply complex mathematical operations to single or multiple columns from their data source.

This level of customization empowers users to unlock valuable insights and perform advanced calculations that go beyond standard aggregations.

Define geospatial inputs by drawing custom features in Workflows

June 26th, 2023

New Workflows

While working with Workflows, in some occasions a component needs to be defined as a custom geography (point, line or polygon). This is currently the case with "Table from GeoJSON" but this tool will also be used in other components that might need a custom geospatial input.

We have developed a new tool, accessible through the "Draw features" button to define custom geographies as inputs for components.

This new tool come in quite handy in cases where one or more steps in an analysis have to be defined by a manual input, allowing faster prototyping a providing a much better user experience.

Define a custom schema when importing files

June 20th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

When importing geospatial data to a cloud data warehouse, one of the challenges is to select the correct data type for each of the columns in the file, also known as schema. And in most cases, CARTO automatically does the job for you, because we analyze a sample of the data and infer the data type from it.

For those cases where the automatic detection isn't exactly what you need, CARTO now allows you to manually defined the schema of the imported file, both through CARTO Workspace and Builder, and through our Imports API.

An example where this new feature is useful is when dealing with postal codes, that depending on the country could be automatically detected as numbers instead of strings — it doesn't make sense to calculate the average postal code.

To read more about how to select a custom schema in your imports, read our Importing data documentation.

New batch of components to enable more powerful workflows and provide further flexibility in data transformation pipelines

June 14th, 2023

New Workflows

We have released a new batch of components in Workflows to keep increasing the possibilities and the value of this tool to enable the creation of data pipelines and spatial analyses for our users. The majority of components in this new batch are oriented towards providing more flexibility when manipulating and getting your data ready for the analysis. Here's the list of new components:

  • Multi-Col Formula: it computes new values based on a given expression and a set of fields to apply the expression to;

  • Multi-Row Formula: it creates a new table containing a new column computed using a multi-row formula based on one or several input columns;

  • Find Replace: it finds a string in one column of a table and replaces it with the specified value from another table;

  • Refactor columns: it refactors the columns in a table, allowing to change names and data types, and to select only certain columns from a table;

  • Transpose: it rotates table columns into rows;

  • Text to Columns: it adds new columns based on splitting the text string in a text column;

  • Unique: it separates unique rows and duplicated rows;

  • Row Number: it creates a new table with an additional column containing row numbers;

  • Quadbin To Parent: it adds a new column named quadbin_parent with the value of the parent quadbin at a specific resolution;

  • H3 To Parent: it adds a new column named h3_parent with the value of the parent h3 at a specific resolution;

  • H3 KRing: it returns the neighboring indexes in all directions under the K distance size;

  • H3 Distance: it computes the H3 grid distance between two H3 index column.

New function to generate point-to-point routes for different transportation modes in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, Snowflake and Redshift

June 6th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In the lds module of the last release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, Snowflake and Redshift we have now added the function to CREATE_ROUTES between given sets of origins and destinations (points) in a query, supporting different transportation modes and other advanced parameters. The function generates a new table with the columns of the input query plus a column with the resulting routes. Note that the routes are calculated by calling one of our external location data services providers. This functionality is also available from CARTO’s LDS API.

Space-time cluster analysis now available in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

June 6th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In the last release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery we have available a new set of functions in order to perform space-time cluster analysis, for when data has both a spatial and a temporal component and you want to identify clusters looking at both dimensions at the same time (e.g. hotspots of demand for food delivery services in different periods of the day). Our implementation computes the space temporal Getis-Ord Gi* statistic for each area and timestamp according to the method described in this paper. This is supported now with two new functions in the statistics module of the toolbox, namely GETIS_ORD_SPACETIME_QUADBIN for quadbin indexes and GETIS_ORD_SPACETIME_H3 for H3 indexes.

Focus maps on user's device location

May 16th, 2023

New Builder

Finding your current location on CARTO maps is finally possible. This feature is specially helpful when users require the map zoom in to their current position in a seamlessly manner to obtain insights from their surroundings.

This is how it works:

  1. Click the Focus on User's Device Location button.

  2. Enable Location Services on your browsers if required.

The map display zooms in to your current location and a blue icon indicates your position on the map.

Access to the CARTO Data Warehouse SQL console

May 8th, 2023

New Workspace

The CARTO Data Warehouse is a connection that comes pre-created for every CARTO organization, and it's fully managed by CARTO.

Until this release, it wasn't possible to manage the data available to this connection other than what was already available through Builder and Workflows.

Now, all users can introduce a Google account that they'll use to access the console. Once inside, you can run any SQL query, copy and edit existing tables or use other built-in features to import and migrate your data. Read more on how to get access to the CARTO Data Warehouse console.

New module in the Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake providing access to a set of geostatistical functions

May 5th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

Users of our Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake have now access to a new module named “statistics” offering functions to compute statistical measures on top of your spatial data. In this last release we have added support for computing the Moran’s I spatial autocorrelation and the Getis-ord Gi* statistics used for the identification of hotspots based on an input feature.

Support for operating with H3 indices in the Analytics Toolbox for PostgreSQL

May 5th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In this last release of the Analytics Toolbox for PostgreSQL, we have added a new module named “h3” with a set of functions providing users support for operating over the H3 spatial index. H3 is a multi-resolution hexagonal global grid system with hierarchical indexing developed by Uber, offering important benefits when performing spatial analytics at scale. To learn more about Spatial Indexes and H3 in particular, please have a look at our Spatial Indexes 101 report and our documentation.

New functions to compute the “Area of Applicability” of a model built with BigQuery ML in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

May 5th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

Some areas due to their intrinsic characteristics or the data available are not suitable for running the predictive models given the large differences within the data used when training those models (e.g. training a model on big cities and then running predictions in areas of low population density). We have added new functions in the statistics module to allow users to compute the Area of Applicability (AOA) of a BigQuery ML model. It generates a metric which tells the user where the results from a Machine Learning (ML) model can be trusted when the predictions are extrapolated outside the training space (i.e. where the estimated cross-validation performance holds).

In the case of our Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, this functionality is particularly useful when working with our BUILD_REVENUE_MODEL and PREDICT_REVENUE_AVERAGE procedures of the retail module.

Support for SQL Parameters in Builder

April 24th, 2023

New Builder

SQL Parameters are placeholders that can be used on any SQL Query data source in Builder.

Once defined, the actual value for the parameter can be set through a control UI in the right side panel’s 'Parameters' tab. This allows to manipulate the actual SQL Query through an UI, by both Editor and Viewer users.

Among many different use cases, some applications for this new feature are:

  • Create 'Text' or 'Dates' parameters.

  • Reduce the size of a data source before rendering the map.

  • Allow viewer users to define custom values in the data source in a controlled way.

  • Use the same parameter in one or more queries.

  • Filter a dataset before aggregating it to a spatial index grid (H3 or Quadbin).

Learn more about how to set up and use SQL Parameters in your maps here.

Easier authentication for developers with our API Access Tokens UI

April 21st, 2023

New Workspace

Developers looking to create geospatial applications at scale usually face an authentication challenge: how to build the application so that data is accessed in a granular and secure way. And there are different solutions depending on your needs: from static API Access Tokens for simple, public applications to dynamic authentication using the CARTO login (with or without Single Sign-On).

Today we're making the creation and management of API Access Tokens much simpler, with a complete user interface to create, edit and delete tokens.

API Access Tokens are now the recommended method to start working with CARTO for deck.gl and the CARTO APIs, and we've updated the documentation and API reference accordingly.

Learn here how to create and manage your API Access Tokens.

Optimize your data for geospatial analysis in just a few clicks with our Table Optimization wizard

April 13th, 2023

New Workspace

CARTO is the ideal solution for geospatial visualization and analysis of large scale datasets, due to the scalability of the cloud data warehouses (eg: BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, Databricks...). However, dealing with such large datasets requires special attention into performance and optimizations.

Now, whenever we detect that one of your tables could perform better according to our performance considerations, we'll show a warning in Data Explorer and Builder, and you'll be able to take action immediately.

In just a few clicks, you'll overwrite or generate an optimized copy of your data, that will perform faster and save computing costs.

To understand in detail how these optimizations work, head to the Optimizing your data guide.

Default role for new users and SSO just-in-time provisioning

April 10th, 2023

New Workspace

We are adding two new features for admins to manage new users more easily and predictably:

  • Default role for new users: Admins can now choose which role should be applied to new users, and by default it will be set to "viewers" following the least-privilege principle. Find more information about roles in CARTO and about this setting.

  • SSO Just-in-time provisioning: Admins that have integrated their own SSO login can now decide whether new users will get additional questions when onboarding or not. If it's enabled, we'll just provision their user as soon as they login, without any needed step. This new setting has been included in the documentation about SSO at CARTO.

Supporting labels in tile layers

April 6th, 2023

New Builder

CARTO Builder now supports adding labels to point layers loaded via tiles, with a set of improved features:

  • Support for primary and secondary label on each point.

  • Now using a better typography, increasing readability.

  • Collision control: Now labels are displayed in a way that they don’t collision with each other, adapting dynamically on each zoom level.

  • Custom colors for the font and outline, allowing much better customization capabilities.

Enabling users to create spatial scores using the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

April 3th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In this month's release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, we have published a new functionality that consists of a set of procedures within the statistics module to enable users to create spatial scores (also known as composite indicators or indexes) derived from a combination of different features. We have included 3 different procedures:

Introducing a new Usage quota and a new Location Data Services credits system

March 28th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

In order to give more flexibility to our users, we have removed a lot of the quotas that were feature-specific, such as maps, public maps, apps or connections, and we have replaced them with a combined usage metric, the Usage quota, that will be the main driver of consumption for all new customers through the CARTO platform.

The Usage quota is related to the number of successful API calls, excluding the metadata. Learn more about how it's calculated and how it applies to your subscription in our documentation.

Additionally, we have changed the way LDS credits are calculated. Before, they were monthly and separated by service: geocoding and isolines. Now, we've combined them into a single annual quota that results in more capacity and better flexibility.

Importing geospatial files into Amazon Redshift through CARTO

March 14th, 2023

Improvement Workspace

Starting today, CARTO supports importing geospatial files through an Amazon Redshift connection leveraging the CARTO Import API.

With this new functionality, CARTO users working with Amazon Redshift will be able to quickly get their geospatial data ready for advanced analysis and visualization, from no-code tools like Builder or Workflows to geospatial development libraries such as CARTO for deck.gl.

Additionally, we are giving all customers the option to configure the AWS S3 Bucket used to import files (instead of the default bucket provided by CARTO in cloud instances).

Merchant universe matching analysis to understand market penetration for CPG players available in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery

March 7th, 2023

New Analytics Toolbox

In this month's release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, we have published a new functionality within the CPG module that allows our users to perform the merchant universe matching analysis in order to derive insights on market penetration and to identify expansion opportunities. With this analysis, CPG players can match their current universe of merchants/customers against the total universe of all potential ones on a given market, in order to identify in which merchants their products are still not present.

This analysis is performed with two new procedures in the Analytics Toolbox: UNIVERSE_MATCHING which performs a fuzzy match between two POI datasets based on location and name similarity, and UNIVERSE_MATCHING_REPORT that generates report-like tables summarizing market penetration insights.

New Builder SQL Analyses available for Redshift and Snowflake connections

March 3rd, 2023

New Builder

A set of new analyses have been added to Builder, to reach the same level of support on different data warehouses:

  • Create buffers: Available now for Redshift and Snowflake connections.

  • Intersect and aggregate: Available now for Snowflake connections.

  • K-means clustering: Available now for Redshift and Snowflake connections.

Check the list of analyses available for each data warehouse and further documentation about each of them here.

Enabling users to share workflows with their organization

February 24th, 2023

Beta Workflows

From today, users can start sharing workflows with the rest of users within their CARTO organization; who will then be able to open the shared workflow in view mode, and in the case of Editor users duplicate the workflow and edit the copied version as they wish.

Additionally, we have adapted the Workflows main page in the Workspace to allow searching workflows and managing the existing ones, in line with what’s available in the Maps section.

CARTO Workflows in public beta now with support for Snowflake, Redshift and PostgreSQL

February 1st, 2023

Beta Workflows

From today, customers on Snowflake, Redshift and PostgreSQL have the possibility to use the public beta version of CARTO Workflows with data sources from their data warehouse connections. Note that CARTO Workflows is a new tool that enables users of all types and skill levels to harness the power of cloud data warehouses, spatial SQL, and advanced spatial analytics.

To learn more about this new development, please check our product documentation.

New functions to generate routing matrices and isolines natively in BigQuery

January 31st, 2023

Beta Analytics Toolbox

In the January 2023 release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, we have published a new and improved version of the routing module. This new version includes procedures ROUTING_MATRIX to calculate origin-destination matrices and ROUTING_ISOLINES to compute isolines around a set of locations, both supporting multiple transportation modes (car, bike, and walk). These new functions run on top of CARTO’s road network (derived from OSM segments) that is available as a public subscription in the Data Observatory. Please note that these improvements imply breaking changes with the previous version of the routing module.

To learn more about these new procedures please check our product documentation. We have also published a guide to illustrate how to benefit from this module of the Analytics Toolbox.

Adding raster support in BigQuery with a new module in the Analytics Toolbox

January 31st, 2023

Beta Analytics Toolbox

In the January 2023 release of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery, we have launched in beta our new raster module. This feature offers a set of functions to operate with raster data natively in BigQuery, benefiting from the processing speeds and scalability of this data warehouse.

Alongside the raster module in the Analytics Toolbox, we have also made available our Raster Loader, built in collaboration with Makepath. This publicly available Python library works as a tool for loading and optimizing GIS raster data into cloud-based data warehouses.

In order to learn more about this new module please check our product documentation. We have also published an example that illustrates how to use some of our functionality to combine raster and vector data to solve a spatial analysis.

New space for private data available for every user in the CARTO Data Warehouse

January 26th, 2023

New Workspace

Starting with this release, users that explore their CARTO Data Warehouse connection in Data Explorer will find two datasets (represented as folders) inside their organization data: private and shared.

The new dataset "private" is a unique dataset for each user, and all the tables and tilesets in this dataset will only be available to that user. Private datasets have a unique qualified name that identifies the user, extracted from their email.

The "shared" dataset will remain available to all the editor users in that organization. You can find all the documentation for this feature in the CARTO Data Warehouse documentation.

Search, list view and breadcrumbs when browsing your data in Builder and Workspace

January 24th, 2023

Improvement Builder, Workspace

An important step of most processes in CARTO is to browse and select data sources and data locations:

We have improved the user experience for these cases by adding a search bar that works at every level of your data, adding a new view: the list view, and adding breadcrumbs to help you navigate your data. The list view is similar to the one used in Data Explorer (including the search bar and breadcrumbs) and will now make the experience more consistent across the CARTO platform. If you would rather focus on the hierarchy of your data, the tree view is still available on the top right.

This is especially beneficial if you have a large number of projects/databases, schemas/datasets, or tables and tilesets: where previously you would need to scroll indefinitely, now you can perform a quick search.

Dynamic aggregation of point layers into Quadbin grids

January 23rd, 2023

New Builder

With this new feature, point layers can be transformed dynamically into an aggregated grid leveraging our Quadbin spatial index.

This produces a very significant increment in performance, but also allows aggregating data from the original features to make sure that all data is taken into consideration.

Some highlights:

  • Available for all point tile layers from all data warehouses

  • Implemented with pure SQL in our Maps API, no external dependencies such as the Analytics Toolbox or third-party libraries.

  • It allows aggregating properties from the original points and also the number of points per cell.

  • Inherits all the advantages and features of the previously existing Spatial Index layers.

  • The aggregation happens transparently so no need to manually type any SQL code to aggregate the points.

CARTO Workflows in public beta with support for Google BigQuery and CARTO Data Warehouse

January 18th, 2023

Beta Workflows

Today we are excited to announce that CARTO Workflows is now publicly available in beta with support for Google BigQuery and CARTO Data Warehouse. CARTO Workflows is a new tool that enables users of all types and skill levels to harness the power of cloud data warehouses, spatial SQL, and advanced spatial analytics.

CARTO Workflows provides a visual language to design and execute multi-step spatial analytics procedures, reducing the complexity and the high dependance on specialist knowledge to leverage the power of location intelligence. To learn more about this new development, please check our product documentation.

In the coming weeks we will add support to run CARTO Workflows on Snowflake, Redshift and PostgreSQL-based data warehouses, if you want to know more about that please contact us through our Support team.

New documentation layout

January 18th, 2023

Improvement Documentation

Our documentation portal just got a new look and feel! This new layout should provide the following benefits:

  • Cleaner look that uses more screen space if available

  • A search bar to quickly find content

  • All the documentation is organized and available on the left menu

  • All pages now have an "On this page" index on the right sidebar __ to quickly locate sections

Hopefully, you'll have a better experience using this documentation. If you have any feedback about it, contact us through our Support team. We'll keep working on documentation improvements during the following weeks.

Multiple editor users working on the same map

January 13th, 2023

New Builder

Collaborating on CARTO maps is finally possible, in asynchronous mode. This is helpful in setups such as production-ready maps, where the original owner might be out of the office; or in situations where the data, analysis, and cartography are each accomplished by different users. This is how it works:

  1. The map owner first needs to enable collaboration for that map.

  2. From that moment, all editors with access to the map will be able to edit it.

  3. If two editors try to edit at the same time, the last one will be locked out, with the option of requesting to take over editing.

Happy collaboration!

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