# Changelog 8/28/2023: Role-based auth and new advanced features

By Conor McCarter, Co-founder — Aug 28, 2023

> Prequel now supports role-based authentication (or "identity federation") for AWS or GCP destinations, including Redshift, Athena, S3, BigQuery, and Google Cloud Storage.

## Role-based Authentication

Prequel now supports role-based authentication for AWS or GCP destinations, including Redshift, Athena, S3, BigQuery, and Google Cloud Storage. This secure method allows customers to grant access directly to a given AWS IAM Role or GCP Service Account rather than sharing credentials. The platform will continue supporting credential-based authentication, and existing connections can be upgraded safely.

## Frontend improvements

We've enhanced usability by adding the ability to sync and force refresh specific models on a per-destination basis, plus options to edit destination connection details directly in the interface.

## Magic link improvements

For teams using magic links, two optional fields were added to the generation flow:

- **Create as disabled**: Magic link submissions can create destinations as "disabled" for manual validation before backfill starts.
- **Redirect after submit**: Users can be directed to a specified URI after submitting.

## Advanced features

Several power-user features rolled out over the summer:

- **Backfill windows**: Configure maximum data batch sizes to process backfills in fixed chunks, minimizing resource bursts.
- **Max concurrent transfers**: A throttling mechanism limits simultaneous transfers (default: 10).
- **Broader source query support**: Custom query specification for reading source data, useful for partition pruning and predicate pushdown.

## Bug fixes

- Duplicate form submission prevention
- Enhanced validation for error-prone fields like `host`, `region`, and `bucket_name`
- Improved SSH tunnel performance and connection stability