Mendix Release 10.19 – A New View on Performance and Experience

Studio Pro

View Entities beta

This release provides public beta access to View Entities. This exciting new feature helps you improve the performance of your application while at the same time simplifying development when working with complex large datasets. Whether you’re modeling data grids using data from multiple entities, need to create charts on large, aggregated datasets, or you need to expose data APIs in a flexible and performant way, View Entities will simplify your life.

View entities are named OQL queries that can be used in most places where you now use persistent entities. This means that you can define your query and then connect it to a data grid and it will behave like a persistent entity with full support for filtering, pagination and sorting on top of the query.

Some initial customers have reported up to 10x performance improvements of data grids using multiple associated entities. So, any time you’re building applications on top of big datasets, consider view entities to improve performance.

To help you write OQL queries we’ve added a Run Query button so you can immediately see the effect of your query on the data in your running application. In addition to this the view entity editor also provides autocomplete to help you write queries faster.

View entities behave like persistent entities when used in data grids or other widgets including support for sorting/paging and filtering, and you can also use view entities as entities in other view entities. This helps you create maintainable applications as you can reuse common queries, and you can write simpler queries that are easier to understand.

Please check the documentation for several how-to’s describing a wide range of use cases where view entities can help build better application and faster. Some examples: How to do charting with view entities, how to improve data grid performance with view entities, how to decouple APIs from data with view entities, and how to build multi-language apps with view entities.

Database connector – bring your own database driver

The external database connector now allows you to use any compatible JBDC driver to connect to a database of your choice, which increases the integration options enormously. You can configure the required Java JBDC library in your module settings and then create a new connection using this JBDC driver. In the example below this is used to connect to IBM DB2.

To show the results of your queries during when you’re modelling, your application needs to be running in the background, so the Java database library can be used to execute your query.

Mobile – combining offline and online data available in public beta

Offline-first apps are transforming the landscape of low-code development. They empower our customers to create mobile applications that surpass the capabilities of other low-code platforms. Whether it’s checking ticket information in crowded venues with unreliable connectivity or performing maintenance in areas without cell reception, Mendix’s offline-first apps deliver exceptional performance.

However, building offline-first apps can be more complex than developing purely online apps, and offline functionality isn’t always necessary. This technical challenge cannot entirely be circumvented, so we decided to make it optional instead.

With Mendix 10.19, developers now have the flexibility to choose which entities should be available offline and which should be retrieved directly from the Mendix server. This enables developers to start with a fully online native mobile app or PWA and progressively make more features offline-ready.

Once you enable this beta feature in Settings under New Features, you can use the new “Online” synchronization mode to specify which entities should remain online-only. While we welcome your feedback, we advise against using this feature in production just yet. Please review our documentation to understand its limitations before getting started.

Enhancing application security with Strict Mode

We’re excited to announce the general availability of Strict Mode following its successful public beta launch in Mendix 10.12. Thanks to the positive feedback from our users, this powerful security enhancement is now accessible to everyone.

Strict Mode is designed to bolster your application’s security by restricting data APIs used for direct data retrieval or modification from the front end. This means that only data accessed on a page or within a nanoflow can be retrieved by a user. All other data remains securely blocked, even if access rules would normally allow it.

Enabling Strict Mode in your app’s security settings ensures that application data is protected when not displayed in the user interface. This added layer of security prevents unauthorized access, even if developers overlook configuring access rules, making your applications safer by default. Strict Mode is only available with the React Client.

Data grid 2 – Loaded rows information

We’ve introduced an enhancement to Data Grid 2 that improves navigation through large datasets. When using virtual scrolling or load more buttons, you now have the option to show the number of loaded rows along with the total number of rows. This addition provides important context to the user when working with large datasets.

AI

GenAI for Mendix

We’ve combined three separate modules in the GenAI for Mendix bundle making it even easier to keep your Mendix app up to date with the latest GenAI releases. This new bundle marketplace listing contains:

• ConversationalUI – our GenAI-based chat user interface, Prompt Management, and our Token Consumption Monitor
• GenAI commons – the shared core of all our GenAI modules through which you can interact with any Large Language Model (LLM)
• The new Mendix Cloud GenAI Connector – more info on this exciting release below.

This release also includes a restructured toolbox that improves the developer experience. Lastly, with our new way of storing deployed models, it becomes a seamless experience to switch between model providers such as Mendix Cloud GenAI, (Azure) OpenA,I and Amazon Bedrock at runtime. For an example implementation, check out the newest release of the GenAI showcase app.

Mendix Cloud GenAI resource packs and connector

The new Mendix Cloud GenAI connector (delivered as part of GenAI for Mendix bundle) lets you utilize Mendix Cloud GenAI resource packs directly within your Mendix application for text, RAG, and ReAct use cases. With the Mendix Cloud GenAI resource packages, we offer compute resources for accessing text generation and embedding models as well as providing knowledge base storage using vector databases.

Reach out to us if you would like to learn more.

Prompt management

We’re excited to introduce a new prompt management capability that quickly iterates on prompts at runtime. This means you can change model behavior without any downtime or support from a Mendix developer. It can be used as a tool to collaborate with data scientists, AI experts, and other stakeholders on the prompts used in the application to maintain control over prompt testing as well as prompt version history over its lifecycle.

This new capability is supported by all major text generation models from Mendix Cloud GenAI, (Azure) OpenAI, and Amazon Bedrock.

Prompt management is part of the ConversationalUI module, available on the Mendix marketplace in the GenAI For Mendix bundle.

RFP assistant starter app

The RFP assistant starter app is a great example of how you can use GenAI to handle recurring tasks more efficiently and introduce GenAI-powered knowledge management. Take the RFP (Request for Proposal) process, where a list of questions needs to be answered. Those RFP questionnaires are usually sent out to a service provider to assess their qualification for a project. For the service provider, although each customer asks questions in a unique way, the content is similar across potential customers. The RFP assistant starter app represents a smart and time-saving alternative to manually finding similar responses each time and purely relying on the knowledge management by the respective teams by leveraging GenAI-powered capabilities.

Maia chat now available in Mendix Portal

We’re pleased to announce that Maia Chat is now available in the Mendix Portal, bringing its powerful capabilities to a broader audience. Previously only available in Studio Pro, Maia Chat now supports users across the platform, providing quick, reliable answers to Mendix-specific questions. With its seamless integration into the Portal, Maia Chat is a valuable resource for tasks like project management and app deployment, helping users access specialized knowledge without switching between tools or documentation.

Identity and Access Management

SAML module – easy SSO configuration

Mendix not only helps you develop better software faster, Mendix also helps you to deploy your apps faster. At scale. With the latest version of the SAML module you can do necessary SSO configurations at design- and/or deploy-time. This takes away the need for a local MxAdmin user to log into your SAML-app after deployment and do the (sometimes complex) SSO configurations manually. You can create your SAML configuration microflow and share that across all your SAML applications in your portfolio. This makes SAML configurations automatable and repeatable. Not only for ‘vanilla’ use cases but also when using the more advanced options. Hence, it reduces configuration costs and gives shorter time-to-value for customers building a growing portfolio of SAML-apps.

We’d like to give some credit for this idea to the Municipality of Rotterdam who created their own custom solution to improve the DEVOPS experience with SAML apps!

We’ve also introduced a new mechanism to create end-users in your app using the User Commons module. This is similar to the user provisioning mechanism in the OIDC SSO module, so you’ll have a more uniform developer experience when using either SAML or OIDC SSO. Moreover, this allows you to set the user type of your end-users as either ‘external’ or ‘internal’ automatically based on the IdP from where your end-users are sourced.

And finally, the SAML module now supports management of Java dependencies, which will make it easier for you to do the necessary version upgrades.

OIDC SSO module – default user role

The OIDC SSO module not only enables you to delegate the login process to your IdP, but it also enables your central IdP to make authorization decisions. With the new version of the OIDC SSO module it is possible to configure a default user role for all end-users; this default role is granted in addition to any user role that gets assigned by your IdP.  This means that less user group configuration is needed in your IdP.

SCIM module

If you’re not yet using the SCIM module to have your IdP on-board and off-board end-users from your app automatically, you should give it a try! With the latest version of the SCIM module, we’ve made it possible to not only deactivate employees in your app, but also to remove the associated user records. All SCIM configurations can now be done at deploy-time, so there’s no need for a local MxAdmin user to login.

SSO to the Mendix platform – keypair-based security

If you’ve set up SSO between your IdP and the Mendix platform, your central IT is in control of the login process of your developers, and you can be sure no ‘leavers’ can log in to the Mendix platform nor Studio Pro. When the Mendix platform interacts with your IdP, it uses basic authentication. It’s now possible to have the Mendix platform authenticate itself using a key-pair. If your security policies prefer this higher level of security and you have a Premium platform license, please contact your CSM, and we’ll plan to on-board you for this feature.

Company Onboarding

Did you know that you can set up a custom Mendix onboarding experience or knowledge base for your organization? No worries, many people didn’t! That’s why we have revamped and are re-launching this functionality. Company Admins can access it in Control Center under Company Onboarding.

So, what is it for? Anything you want people who use Mendix at your company to have handy: you can link to guidelines, company manuals, videos, best practices, rules everyone needs to follow, etc. It can be as small as a list of best practices and useful links or as large as your organization’s Mendix knowledge base. As you scale, it becomes increasingly important for everyone who uses a platform to follow the same guidelines and way of working. This is why every user with a Mendix account will be able to see the entry point to this page as a tile on their Mendix Home.

The page is super easy to set up. You don’t need any technical experience or too much time to do it. It consists of a set of building blocks that you can choose and customize any way you want, and you can easily preview your changes to see if that’s exactly what you had in mind.

Once you are ready, just click Publish, and your new page will be visible to everyone in your organization who logs in to the platform. It will be shown on their Mendix Home like this:

Note: For some “older” users the section Get Started with Mendix might be hidden by default. If you don’t see it, you can enable it under Mendix Home Settings (the little cogwheel next to the Create App button).

Are you ready to start your next app?

• Download Mendix Studio Pro.
• Take a closer look at all the features, improvements, fixes, and more in the Mendix 10.19 Release Notes.
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