Author: Deba Chatterjee
Date: May 14, 2019
Originally published on the Fauna blog.

The FaunaDB team is very pleased to announce the availability of the latest version of the Cloud Console. This release brings multiple enhancements in usability, performance, and usage reporting. The section below summarizes some of the highlights of this release.

Usability Improvements

The main focus of this release is to improve the Cloud Console user flow to make it more intuitive and consistent across views. We hope this improves the learning curve in performing basic CRUD operations.

Refactored CRUD Workflows

This is the biggest user-facing change from the previous release. The resource creation and edit workflows are now simplified with dedicated screens. Be it a database, a class, or index, the most commonly used options for any resources are exposed to the user in the UI. So getting started with FaunaDB becomes very simple and straight-forward.

Improved Index Creation and Querying UI

When observing interaction with our previous index screens, we noticed some users were having difficulty with how to create and execute indexes. We implemented a two-fold improvement on how to define terms and values, coupled with a query interface enhanced to simplify and maximize UI layout and vertical space.

FQL Tab

We have also added an FQL tab that provides the Data portion of an equivalent FQL query for any object creation statements. Someone new to FaunaDB will find this feature very useful in learning FQL. As you go through the different CRUD workflows, you can toggle between the simple and FQL tabs to learn more about the equivalent FQL statements.

Improved Mobile Browsing

In refactoring the basic CRUD operation workflows, we've also improved mobile viewing so that you can perform all the same operations on smaller devices with greater ease. Overall navigation across the Console has been improved and made consistent across the various resource pages.

Performance Improvements

Improved Class Index Creation Times

When you create a new class, you can now choose to create an empty class index at the same time. Just keep the class index checkbox selected and one will be ready right away! Normally, index creation in FaunaDB is an asynchronous operation competing with other tasks, so it can take a few minutes to get active. With this change, class indexes become active right away and can be used in queries from the get-go. Soon, we will improve the creation time for all other indexes as well.

Reduced Footprint Improves App Load Times

We've also streamlined dependencies to reduce the Console application footprint. This reduces browser load times so that your experience doesn't suffer due to high page load times--even at slow network speeds.

Improved Usage Reporting

A few months ago, we moved our cloud usage reporting from a point-based system to usage-based pricing. Users have since requested usage reporting to be made part of the console landing page so that they can have an accurate picture of their activity at any given time. This release adds granular usage reporting to the dashboard with options for you to view your total $USD usage over the last 7 days, the current billing period, and the previous billing period. After you surpass your free usage tier, you will also now receive monthly invoices based on the new usage-based pricing.

We plan to introduce new features to the Cloud Console at a regular cadence. If there is something you’d like to see, please reach me at product@fauna.com. I’d love to talk to you.