Merge pull request #566 from Crunch-io/release-notes-2025.01

Create 2025.01 release notes

content/release-notes/2025-02-03.md

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+date = "2025-02-03T10:00:00-07:00"
+publishdate = "2025-02-03T10:00:00-07:00"
+draft = false
+title = "Release 2025.01"
+images = ["https://crunch.io/img/logo-1200x630.png"]
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+
+### **Crunch web application**
+
+- Fixed an issue that occurred when viewing numerous folders in the web app and the last folder would sometimes fail to display. All of the folders now display correctly, including the very last one.
+- Added a new homepage showing recent activity and quick links to helpdesk articles. The folder sidebar was updated with a link to the new homepage. See the [feature announcement](https://crunch.io/dev/features/crunch-homepage/) and [help article](https://help.crunch.io/hc/en-us/articles/33367288303629-The-Crunch-homepage) for more information.
+- Personal folders were migrated and are now *regular* folders in Crunch. The migrated folders show in the folder sidebar with all other folders and can now be shared with other users. Empty personal folders were removed and Personal folders will not be created automatically for new users going forward.
+- Fixed how tabs are included in [PowerPoint exports](https://help.crunch.io/hc/en-us/articles/10238296214669-Exporting-a-dashboard-to-Excel-or-PowerPoint): previously, a PowerPoint export of a 3-way table of arrays would only include the first tab. The handling has been updated to include *all* of the tabs in the PowerPoint export.
+
+### **API endpoints and API reference**
+
+- When creating datasets/views/forks, the `owner`in the request payload is no longer supported. `Project`is now required and must be included.
+
+### **SDKs (rCrunch, pyCrunch, and sCrunch)**
+
+- There are two noteworthy API changes for users performing data processing tasks in Crunch:
+    1. There is no longer a "Personal Project" to put datasets, which previously was the default place for creating datasets. This affects both creating/uploading new datasets, and making forks of existing ones.
+        - **Creating datasets**: The system won't know where to put a new dataset unless you specify a folder or "project". Going forward, rcrunch will by default error if you don't specify a project (either by a string path `newDataset(df, project = "/My Project/")`, or a project  `newDataset(df, project = projects()[["My Project"]]))`. There is also an option to add a path to the environment variable `R_CRUNCH_DEFAULT_PROJECT` (or option `crunch.default.project`) to use when no project is specified.
+        - **Forking datasets**: Previously, forks were created in your personal project by default, unless the project was specified by URL. Going forward, they will be created in the same folder as the source dataset unless you specify a project as mentioned above.
+        - **Finding datasets by name**: As a consequence, finding a dataset by name (e.g., `loadDataset("ds name")`) will no longer be useful, because it only finds datasets in your personal project or shared via "direct share", which is also being deprecated. Instead, you must load datasets by ID/URL or with the path from a project.
+    2. *Until further notice —* The ability to convert a "derived" variable into a "materialized" one is soft deprecated (e.g., via `is.derived(ds$var) <- FALSE`). Rcrunch is preparing for this by changing these behaviors now:
+        - **Creating variables**: Because we've seen that it's a common pattern to create a derived variable and then immediately convert it to materialized, it's now possible to set an environment variable (`R_CRUNCH_DEFAULT_DERIVED`) or the option `crunch.default.derived` to FALSE so that newly created variables are materialized from the start. It's also better documented in functions like `VarDef` and `deriveArray` that allow you to set the derive flag.
+        - **Updating `is.derived()`**: Will warn once per session that this is deprecated.
+        You can install now via `remotes::install_github("Crunch-io/rcrunch")` or it should make its way to CRAN in in the coming 2–6 weeks, depending on other items for the longer CRAN release cycle.
+
+### **Crunch Automation**
+
+- Crunch Automation previously imposed a restriction on schema-breaking changes such as `drop` and `rename`, preventing common workflows such as variable deletion-and-re-creation. These restrictions have been relaxed, but users should exercise caution when making backward-incompatible changes that could render other variables or user artifacts invalid.
+
+### **Help desk and website improvements**
+
+- Created a [new article](https://help.crunch.io/hc/en-us/articles/33292641414669-Crunch-Logical-Schema) that defines the canonical Crunch schema to support both existing and new datasets provided by Crunch users.