NULL Handling

Hi Guys,

We are heavy users of the TARGIT tool here in Brazil.
A large part of our operation is built within TARGIT, using complex and relatively large ETL processes and data models.

We always keep our TARGIT installation up to date with the latest version—both to support the TARGIT Brazil team with report sharing and to benefit from the new features released in the tool.

Unfortunately, after an update we performed earlier this year, we started facing a small issue affecting both the front end and the ETL.

We noticed that after version 24.06.19002, there was a significant change in how TARGIT handles SQL syntax related to NULL values.

Previously, it was not necessary to handle NULLs in the WHERE clauses. However, starting with version 24.09.03003, it has become mandatory to explicitly handle NULLs in these conditions.

We don’t recall seeing any release notes about this change. We only discovered it after receiving feedback and complaints from end users.

The issue is that, in the past, when using InMemory or Me (Builtin), a clause like WHERE DESCRIPTION <> 'TEST' worked perfectly, filtering out only the records where DESCRIPTION was equal to 'TEST'. Now, this same clause no longer works as expected—it also removes rows where DESCRIPTION is NULL, unless we apply a workaround like:
WHERE ISNULL(DESCRIPTION, 'X') <> 'TEST'.

This change has impacted not only our ETL processes but also the front end. When we apply a filter using <> in a dimension, all NULLs are also removed from the result set.

This is causing us a major headache, as we are having to go through all our tables and update every dimension to handle NULLs explicitly. It makes the data processing slower and adds significant rework to all import processes.

We would like to understand if this is a permanent change or a system bug.
If it is indeed a permanent change, we strongly suggest making this information more visible in your release notes and documentation, as it represents a major shift that significantly impacts both ETL development and the end-user experience.

Attached is an example from the front end for your analysis

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Thank you for your attention.  
Please let me know if you need any additional information or clarification.

Best regards,
Tiago Felsky Silveira