Macrobond 1.6

The new version can be installed directly via the Macrobond platform by clicking the yellow line that appears on the screen or by selecting Check for update on the Help menu. If you need assistance, a description of how to upgrade is provided by the IT-department, which may be found here. Simply click Upgrade for further instructions.

Selection of new functionality

Links to charts in Microsoft Office documents

You can now select to make charts that you copy to Microsoft Office documents to be a link to the source document instead of containing a copy of the document. The benefit is that you can make changes in one place and it will affect a number of Office documents.

If your document has been saved, you can select “Copy as a link” in the Copy special dialog for charts:

Please use this feature with care. It is easy to forget in what Office documents a chart is used and you might change it by accident. It also makes it more difficult to share Office documents since other users might not have access to the documents you have linked to.

Database browser and Analysis tree panes

You can now hide the Series browser and Analysis tree panes separately by using the Pin/Unpin buttons. There are also corresponding commands in the View menu.

When a pane is hidden, there will be a button to the left that you can use to slide it out.

Shared list of named chart sizes

Previously the list of favorite chart sizes was stored on your computer. Now you can store named sizes in your personal account and company store instead. In this way you will see the same list if you use Macrobond on several computers and you can easily share named sizes with other users within your organization.

Function suggestions in the Formula editor

It is now easier than ever to write formulas in the Formula editor. You will get suggestions of functions as you type and you can easily pick a suggestion by using the arrow keys and pressing Enter.

Selection of week days

We have added support for selecting the days of the week to use for daily series. New options have been added in a number of places:

• When you select the frequency Daily in the Series List, you can select what weekdays to use:
  

• There is a corresponding setting when downloading series by using the Excel add-in.
• When you create or edit a series in the Account in-house database there is a new option to select the weekdays.
• There is a corresponding setting when uploading series by using the Excel add-in.

Search by description

When you select a time series, there is a new action in the Action bar called “Search by description”. This action will use key words from the series description and search for them by using the Search activity. This can sometimes be a useful way of finding related information. In the Search activity you can then add or remove words to limit or widen the search.

Technical changes

Microsoft .NET Framework 4

The Macrobond application now uses Microsoft .NET Framework 4 instead of 3.5. This means that .NET 4 must be installed on your computer before you can install Macrobond 1.6 or later. You will get a message if it is not installed when you try to upgrade or install Macrobond.

In most cases .NET 4 is already installed. If it is not, you can find it as an optional component called “.NET Framework 4 Client Profile” in Windows Update. You can also find it here: http://www.microsoft.com/net/download.

Please note that .NET Framework 4 is not an upgrade or replacement of older version of .NET Framework. Any older versions will still be installed and other applications using those versions will continue to do so and will thus not be affected in any way.

The new framework does not come with any automatic benefits for the Macrobond application, but it has enabled us to improve the performance of many calculations by using some of the new features.

Upgrade always requires administrative rights

Most of the updates of Macrobond do not require administrative rights on Windows Vista and Windows 7, but the upgrade to version 1.6 does. Further upgrades from for 1.6 will once again use patches that do not require administrative rights.

HTTPS is used by default

Previously we used http as the default communication protocol, but you could switch to https manually. Now we have changed to use the https as the default. You can configure the protocol in Settings dialog found on the Edit menu.

SQL Database Connector

There have been a couple of enhancements to the SQL Database Connector.

You can now use any characters (except control characters) in series names. You might need to adjust your configuration file to enable this.

You can use null for metadata when using column mode. Previously you had no way to tell that a piece of metadata was not present.

For more details see the document about the SQL Database Connector at: https://redir.macrobond.com/go/technicalInfo.

Selection of new content

ONS

Data from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been added as a separate database. Due to the large amount of data we are releasing it category by category. Once we have added all the data we aim to add we will communicate this separately.

LME

Additions from the London Metal Exchange (LME). Over 8000 new series, covering for instance futures contracts in four different currencies, detailed warehouse stock data and additional official price fixings.

Sentix

Two surveys from sentix have been added. The monthly sentix Economic Indices and Asset Class Sentiment survey.

ECB

Additional data on assets and liabilities of MFIs and Investment funds from ECB added under Banking & Credit.

STEP Market

Data for the Short-Term European Paper (STEP) market has been added for Euro Area. Amounts outstanding under Banking & Credit – Debt Securities and yields for new issues under Interest & Exchange Rates.