What's new
Learn about the latest features, improvements and bug fixes in our product.
Last updated
Learn about the latest features, improvements and bug fixes in our product.
Last updated
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.
November 21st, 2024
New Deployment Methods
You can now deploy your own instance of CARTO fully inside of Snowflake, as a Native App using Snowflake-managed Container Services.
From additional security benefits (from a closed environment within Snowflake) to streamlined installation, there are multiple reasons to be excited about this new deployment method, currently in BETA for specific customers.
Learn more about deploying CARTO within Snowflake using Container Services in our documentation or read about it in our blog post.
November 21st, 2024
New Builder
Builder users can now modify the location or connection of data sources directly in Builder without breaking the map configuration. This ensures that maps retain their overall configuration, as long as the fields in the updated data source have the same name and type.
For map components such as style properties, widgets, or interactions that rely on properties not found in the updated data source, the configuration will gracefully fall back to its default settings, ensuring the map remains functional.
This functionality allows users to repurpose their maps effortlessly, even when the data source location in their data warehouse changes—eliminating the need to recreate maps from scratch. Learn more in our documentation.
November 11th, 2024
New Builder
Admin users can now define custom color palettes for their CARTO organization, removing the need to manually add custom color styling in each new Builder map individually. This is a quick and easy way to apply styles consistently across various maps, available to all Editors within an organization.
Custom color palettes can be created from the Settings and are applied directly in CARTO Builder. For more information, see our article on creating and applying custom color palettes.
October 31st, 2024
New Workflows
We are thrilled to announce that CARTO Workflows now supports direct connections to Databricks, significantly enhancing our integration capabilities for the Databricks platform. This new feature empowers Databricks' vast community of data engineers, data scientists, and analysts to seamlessly perform geospatial analysis within CARTO Workflows.
This release caps off a series of Databricks-focused updates rolled out over recent months:
We have introduced support for SQL Warehouses and Unity Catalog in CARTO connections.
Made Databricks connections available in Builder and other maps across the platform, as well as geospatial applications developed with CARTO.
Enabled table preparation and tileset creation for high-performance visualizations.
Workflows for Databricks leverages Databricks Spatial SQL, Apache Sedona and the CARTO Analytics Toolbox to make geospatial analysis easier and more performant than ever for data scientists, engineers and analysts on Databricks. Being a cloud-native integration, CARTO pushes down all processing to Databricks, profiting from the massive computation capabilities.
By embedding these tools directly in Databricks, we are breaking down the geospatial data silo, making geospatial insights more accessible and actionable for enterprise teams.
October 17th, 2024
Improvement Builder
Navigating large geospatial datasets is now faster with our upgraded Table Widget, featuring search, highlight, and zoom capabilities.
You can now easily search for specific features within the Table Widget, making them quick to locate. Hover over a table row to instantly highlight the corresponding feature on the map, and with a click, the map will automatically zoom to and center on that feature.
We’ve also improved the widget’s configuration, allowing you to label, format, and reorder columns without altering your data source.
October 15th, 2024
New Builder
Many times, a single basemap doesn't fully meet all of your mapping needs. Now, with the new basemap selector in Builder, users can easily switch between different basemaps available in your organization. This feature allows you to tailor the visual context of your maps to specific use cases, enhancing the overall data exploration experience.
_carto_point_density propertyOctober 14th, 2024
New Builder, CARTO for Developers
We’ve added a new styling property, _carto_point_density, for point dynamic tiling sources, perfect for visualizing point density. You can use this property in Builder or your custom apps to style your points by radius, fill, or stroke color, making your maps more insightful and visually appealing. Learn more about it in our documentation.
October 9th, 2024
New CARTO for Developers
Developers using CARTO + deck.gl are scaling and accelerating their geospatial apps with powerful layers, using live data from their cloud data warehouse. Now, they can also add scalable, interactive charts and widgets to their geospatial applications.
This is what we love about the new CARTO Widgets:
Use flexible and scalable data models to achieve exactly and quickly what you need: From scorecards to bar charts, tables, time series, and everything in between.
Bring your own UI: Use your favorite charting library or custom HTML components.
Easily sync your widgets with the deck.gl map.
Seamlessly use widgets to filter the map and other widgets, fully leveraging your cloud data warehouse computing power.
Built with JS and Typescript, they are fully compatible with the framework of your choice (Angular, React, Vue...), adding minimal dependencies.
We're excited to see what you build! — To get started, head over to the technical documentation or check the new examples for CARTO Widgets.
October 7th, 2024
New Builder
We've introduced a new functionality in Builder to dynamically visualize your point data as clusters, helping you gain deeper insights and uncover trends more effectively. By aggregating point data into clustering, you can:
Reduce Visual Clutter: Automatically group nearby points into clusters as you zoom out, helping you maintain clarity and readability, even with dense datasets.
Enhanced Performance: Clustering improves performance by reducing the number of individual features rendered, making it easier to handle large datasets without compromising speed.
Meaningful Aggregation: See patterns emerge as points are grouped into clusters, helping you identify hotspots, trends, and areas of interest quickly and effectively.
Interactive Exploration: As you zoom in and out, clusters dynamically adjust, revealing individual points as you get closer, giving you seamless interaction with your data at different scales.
October 4th, 2024
New Accounts
We've introduced a new toggle in the settings that allows Admins to enforce SSO within their organization. When enabled, every single user in that organization will have to authenticate using Single Sign-On, regaldless of their role. Users that try to authenticate with other mechanisms, such as User/Password and Google Account will not be allowed to log in.
For more details, check out our section on SSO.
September 26th, 2024
New Workflows
We’re pleased to introduce several updates to Workflows designed to improve both functionality and security:
Export Data from Any Node
A new Export button is now available on the Data tab for every executed node in your workflow canvas, allowing you to export data directly. This asynchronous export process can be tracked via the Activity Panel, similar to how exports are managed in Builder.
Enhanced Security for Enterprise-Ready Components
In line with our ongoing platform-wide security initiative, we've implemented the following updates:
Send by Email now works without requiring attached data, offering more flexibility in workflow automation.
You can now specify a custom bucket location when using the Send by Email component, giving you control over where your data is sent.
Export to Bucket no longer uses public buckets. Users are now required to specify their own bucket locations, ensuring more secure data management.
These updates make Workflows an even more powerful tool for enterprise users while maintaining a focus on security and ease of use.
September 11th, 2024
New Workspace
Users can now require viewer credentials for their Snowflake OAuth connections. When this option is enabled, anyone accessing data through the connection — whether they're consuming maps, running workflows, or using the data explorer — will need to authenticate with their own credentials.
This ensures that security policies set in the database, such as Row-Level Security, are enforced. For more details, visit our section on Sharing connections.
August 30th, 2024
New Workspace
As organizations roll out CARTO to different teams and larger groups of users, it becomes increasingly important for administrators to understand and monitor how their organization is using CARTO, and this is now easy, powerful and flexible thanks to the new CARTO Activity Data feature
Administrator can now easily export (manually or programmatically via API) a comprehensive data collection of everything that happened within their CARTO organization.
The new Activity Data can be then analyzed to deeply understand things like:
Basic engagement indicators: weekly active users, workflows run per week...
Most used features: most used workflow components...
Quota consumption: who is consuming more quota and why
And many more insights about your CARTO organization
Want to get started? Head over to the CARTO Activity Data documentation. Make sure to also check the full Activity Data Reference, as well as the Examples where we share practical guides and SQL queries on how to analyze this data.
July 31st, 2024
Improvement Workspace
We've introduced an improved flow for transferring user assets (maps, workflows, connections, etc) when deleting a user or when downgrading an Editor/Admin to Viewer. From now on, Admins will be able to select the specific user that will receive the assets.
For more information, check our documentation on Deleting users and Managing user roles.
July 31st, 2024
New Builder
We've introduced a new functionality in Builder to dynamically visualize your point data as H3 aggregations, helping you gain deeper insights and uncover trends more effectively.
By aggregating point data, you can:
Simplify Complex Data: Aggregate large volumes of point data into meaningful patterns and trends, making it easier to interpret and analyze.
Enhance Performance: Improve rendering times and performance, especially with large datasets, by reducing the number of individual points displayed.
Identify Hotspots: Quickly identify areas of high density or activity, helping you make data-driven decisions.
Visual Clarity: Reduce visual clutter by grouping nearby points, providing a clearer and more informative map visualization.
Simply select this new visualization type and enjoy the benefits of aggregated data visualization, all with exceptional performance thanks to CARTO's native support for spatial indexes.
July 29th, 2024
Improvement Builder
We are excited to introduce an improved panel in Builder for configuring your layers. This update significantly enhances the UI and UX of this panel, making the experience of creating visualizations in Builder even more enjoyable and efficient.
The redesigned panel features a cleaner layout and includes a new 'Data' section at the top. In this new section, you can define the spatial definition of the data source linked to your layer. This is especially useful if your source contains multiple spatial columns or if Builder cannot recognize the spatial column by looking at our default conventions.
Learn more about the spatial definition of your sources here. Also, explore our updated documentation section for layers to get the most out of this update.
July 29th, 2024
New Workflows
We are pleased to announce the integration of our collection of Workflow templates directly within the CARTO Workspace. This feature aims to streamline your workflow creation process, making it faster and more efficient to access and utilize pre-built templates.
Integrated Collection: Access a wide range of workflow templates hosted on the CARTO Academy website, now readily available in the CARTO Workspace.
Simplified Process: Users no longer need to visit the Academy site to download and import templates. The new feature allows you to easily recreate templates by selecting ‘New Workflow > From template’ within the Workspace.
Enhanced Usability: This integration ensures that all available templates can be accessed with just a few clicks, promoting best practices and facilitating quicker setup of workflows.
This feature is designed to ease the learning curve by providing immediate access to valuable workflow templates that illustrate both building blocks for common geospatial analytics and more complex use cases, like industry-specific analysis for Telco, Insurance, Retail and CPG, Out of Home advertising, etc
July 19th, 2024
New Builder
We are excited to introduce the zoom to layer functionality in Builder, which allows you to easily zoom to the layer extent, providing an immediate view of your dataset. When layers are filtered by widgets or parameters, the zoom focuses on the filtered data, ensuring you see exactly what's relevant.
Additionally, we have incorporated a "Show only this/Show all layers" feature, allowing you to quickly toggle all layers on and off with a single action, especially useful for maps including multiple layers.
Whether you're exploring vast datasets or gathering insights on geospatially distributed features, these new features will ensure a better exploration experience! Learn more about this feature in our documentation.
July 15th, 2024
New Workflows
We are excited to introduce a powerful new set of components in Workflows that significantly enhance your geospatial data processing capabilities. These components are designed to facilitate the creation of various types of tilesets, allowing for efficient visualization and analysis of large spatial datasets. Here are the key features:
Create Vector Tileset
Generate vector tilesets from point, line, or polygon tables, enabling smooth and interactive map experiences.
Create Point Aggregation Tileset
Aggregate point data along with their properties into tilesets, ideal for visualizing dense point data on maps.
Create Quadbin Aggregation Tileset
Generate tilesets by aggregating quadbin indices, providing a fast and scalable way to manage spatial hierarchies and visualize large datasets.
Create H3 Aggregation Tileset
Utilize H3 hexagonal indexing to create aggregated tilesets, perfect for detailed spatial analysis and representation.
These new components enable you to transform your spatial data into highly efficient and scalable tilesets, which can be seamlessly integrated into your mapping applications. For more detailed information on how to use these components, visit our documentation.
June 28th, 2024
New Workspace
We are happy to announce a new system that allows users to classify and filter maps and workflows in the CARTO Workspace with tags. With this new feature, editor users will be able to create, apply and filter maps and workflows by tags, considerably improving the organization of assets within CARTO. With this new enhancement:
You can create, apply and remove tags by editing the Map/Workflow properties from the Workspace;
We have added a tag filter to the Workspace so you can filter by one or several tags;
Once a tag filter is applied, you can copy the URL for sharing that Workspace view internally;
Tags will be automatically removed when they are no longer applied to any map or workflow.
June 28th, 2024
New Analytics Toolbox
We are thrilled to announce our new functions for line of sight and signal propagation analysis in the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery. These new procedures, available in the telco module, enable network planners to run coverage analysis natively within BigQuery. With this functions users can now assess the geographical areas where current or potential new network's signal is available and evaluate its quality.
This release includes procedures for:
Path profile analysis to evaluate the line of sight and identify potential obstructions between two points;
Path loss estimation of a signal as it propagates through an environment, with options for the Close In and Extended Hata models.
Learn more about these new features in our documentation, and start testing them by following our step-by-step tutorial.
June 28th, 2024
New Analytics Toolbox
We are excited to announce the addition of two new space-time analyses available in the statistics module of the Analytics Toolbox for BigQuery:
Space-time hotspot classification, to classify hotspots based on changes in their intensity over time, such as strengthening hotspots, declining hotspots, occasional hotspots, and more;
Time-series clustering, to identify locations with similar temporal behaviors.
Learn more on how to perform these spatiotemporal analyses by exploring our tutorials for space-time hotspot classification and time-series clustering.
June 20th, 2024
New Builder, CARTO for Developers
We are thrilled to announce density heatmap visualization supporting very large scale point-based datasets! This new feature allows you to render massive point datasets as a heatmap in a scalable and performant manner. Available now in Builder, you can easily identify hotspot patterns and gain insights from your data.
Developers can also build their own large-scale heatmaps in their apps using CARTO + deck.gl, with the new heatmapTileLayer (Experimental). Learn more from our documentation and examples.
June 19th, 2024
New Workflows
We are excited to introduce enhanced data importing capabilities in CARTO Workflows. This new release includes a variety of features designed to simplify and expand the ways you can import data into your workflows, providing greater flexibility and functionality.
Import from URL Component
This new component allows users to import data directly from a public URL. It is compatible with BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, and PostgreSQL. By leveraging the CARTO Import API, this component ensures seamless data integration across different database systems.
The Import from URL component supports workflows that run on a schedule or are executed via API, providing more robust and automated data management options.
Sunset of Previous Method
The previous data importing method, which was limited to UI-based operations, will be deprecated. The new Import from URL component provides a more versatile and powerful alternative.
Quick Import from your desktop
Users can now quickly import files from their computers directly into the workflow canvas. This feature supports drag-and-drop functionality, making it easier to integrate local files into your workflows.
Files uploaded in this manner remain accessible within each workflow, ensuring consistent data availability and management.
June 3rd, 2024
New Builder
We are thrilled to announce a powerful new feature for Workflows: the ability to connect your workflows with external API services. With this new capability, we enabling use cases like the following:
Retrieve Data from External APIs: Augment your datasets by pulling in information from APIs such as Google Environment APIs, government, cadaster, parcel data, and other specialized data sources.
Trigger Actions via API: Automatically trigger external processes, send notifications, or execute commands directly from your workflows, like:
Notify on chat applications: Send real-time notifications to your company's channels to keep your team updated on workflow executions.
Integrations with automation tools: Integrate with automation tools to trigger external actions from a Workflow execution.
Send data from your Workflows to external APIs: Use data from any node in your workflow to build the body for a request.
Leverage all this new functionality by using the new HTTP Request component: A dedicated Workflows component that facilitates making requests to external APIs, providing enhanced versatility and extensibility. It uses the http_request module from the CARTO Analytics Toolbox.
It also supports custom expressions and variables to embed logic directly into component settings using SQL operators combined with variable and column values.
May 16th, 2024
New Builder
A basemap is a crucial component of any map, providing essential context, spatial features, and the visual foundation for your creations. To meet the unique needs of each organization, we now enable you to bring your own basemap directly into your CARTO organization.
Admin users at CARTO can now upload custom basemaps and tailor the basemap gallery options available to Editor users in Builder. Unleash your creativity and enjoy an enhanced map-making experience while maintaining a cohesive and consistent selection of basemaps throughout your organization. To learn more about how you can upload custom basemaps to the CARTO platform and the supported formats, check this page. For a step-by-step guide on custom basemaps, check out our new tutorial in the Academy.
May 14th, 2024
Improvement Builder
We are excited to introduce a set of enhancements in CARTO Builder designed to further improve the performance of our interactive map visualizations. With these improvements, Builder will:
Load only essential properties: Builder will now load only the essential properties from your tables or SQL queries when they are needed in the map. This reduces unnecessary data transfer and speeds up processing.
Reduce tile requests: The number of tile requests has been significantly reduced, resulting in faster map loading times and a smoother user experience.
Limit simultaneous queries: To enhance stability and prevent overload, Builder will limit the number of simultaneous queries, ensuring a more reliable performance.
These enhancements are part of our ongoing commitment to providing the best possible experience with CARTO Builder.
April 29th, 2024
Improvement Workspace
We believe that all paths to success start from the CARTO Workspace, and the path to successfully developing powerful geospatial apps isn't an exception. With this in mind, we've carefully redesigned the experience when accessing the Developers section, and these are the highlights:
New Overview with a curated list of documentation, guides and examples.
A simplified Credentials system to manage all your authentication methods.
This change unifies the management of API Access Tokens and OAuth Clients (previously known as Applications) in a single section, making more clear what each method is best for.
A new list containing all your API-enabled Workflows, for easy access.
Additionally, we've simplified the way that organizations decide the content in their Applications section. Before, it was a mix of developer credentials and apps registered by the administrator. Now, administrators in CARTO are in full control of managing Applications, including the visibility/sharing settings.
Developer credentials created before April 25th have been duplicated as applications to maintain the same visibility level as previously. Read more here.
April 24th, 2024
New Workspace, Workflows
We're happy to introduce a suite of powerful new features that are set to enable working with raster data in CARTO. Before these were available, working with raster data required using external CLI applications and dealing with SQL queries manually in order to leverage the analytical capabilities of the CARTO Analytics Toolbox for Snowflake and BigQuery.
Import Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs: We have made raster data ingestion processes a lot easier: with our latest enhancements, you can now effortlessly import Cloud Optimized GeoTIFFs to Snowflake and BigQuery via both the Import API and the Workspace UI. This provides a streamlined and efficient method for ingesting raster files into BigQuery and Snowflake, ensuring optimal storage efficiency and fast query access.
Raster Tables in Data Explorer: Dive deeper into your raster data in the data warehouse with full support for raster tables in the Data Explorer. Gain access to a specific set of metadata and custom actions for raster tables.
Workflow Components for Raster Analysis: Take your spatial analyses to the next level with our new Workflow components designed specifically for working with raster data sources. Whether you're looking to extract raster values or perform complex intersect and aggregate operations, our new components, including "Get Raster Values" and "Intersect and Aggregate Raster", provide you with the tools you need to unlock valuable insights from your raster datasets.
April 17th, 2024
New Builder
We’ve launched a new feature that allows you to download detailed PDF reports of your interactive Builder maps. These reports capture everything from the current map extent to widgets, parameters, and the map description.
Whether you're sharing insights with colleagues, presenting to stakeholders, or documenting your analysis, this new feature packs the richness of your interactive maps into a portable, easy-to-share format.
April 11th, 2024
Improvement Workspace
A new AI-powered help assistant can now be found in the Help sidebar, available at all times from CARTO Workspace, Builder and Workflows.
It will provide quick answers based on our documentation and will link to the most relevant resource. With our documentation evolving and growing in size and depth, this AI-powered tool will save precious time and will guide you in the right direction without leaving CARTO. Ask anything!
March 31st, 2024
New Builder
This new feature simplifies the map-making process by letting Editor users switch seamlessly between editing and previewing. With Preview mode, these users can easily see how the map will look like to viewers, allowing them to review and refine it before sharing. This smooth workflow ensures that maps are well-presented and meet the highest standards of clarity and effectiveness.
Additionally we've enhanced our map-sharing functionality to deliver a smoother and more intuitive experience. This update focuses on streamlining the process of sharing maps with others, ensuring a more seamless interaction. Dive into the details of these improvements in our documentation.
March 27th, 2024
New CARTO for Developers
A new major version of deck.gl is out. deck.gl is the open-source visualization library that powers all CARTO visualizations, and one of the main components of CARTO for Developers.
For a complete changelog, visit the official deck.gl what's new.
To address breaking changes, read the official deck.gl upgrade guide. Changes in the CARTO module are also addressed there.
We have also published a complete set of new examples using CARTO + deck.gl.
We're very happy to see CARTO joining efforts with many other contributors from the vis.gl and OpenJS Foundation communities. Read more about this release in the CARTO blog.
March 21st, 2024
New Workflows
With this new capability, analytical pipelines created with Workflows can be scheduled so they are executed on a specific period:
Hours: The workflow will be executed every X hours, at o'clock times.
Days: The workflow will be executed every day at a specific time.
Weeks: The workflow will be executed weekly, on a specific day, at a specific time.
Months: The workflow will be executed monthly, on a specific day, at a specific time.
Custom: Use a custom expression to define the schedule.
CARTO leverages native scheduling capabilities on each data warehouse to provide this functionality in all CARTO Data Warehouse, BigQuery, Snowflake and PostgreSQL connections.
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.
February 29th, 2024
New Workflows
During the last few weeks, we’ve been progressively adding new and improved components in CARTO Workflows:
Case When component for supporting column values based on conditional expressions.
Edit Schema component (replacing Refactor Columns): clean schemas, rename and cast columns.
Added ‘Append’ mode to Save as Table.
Added ‘Maximum distance’ setting to K-Nearest Neighbors.