World Meteorological Organization

We would like to announce the official release of  WIS2 in a box 1.1.0! This release provides new features, numerous bugfixes, and important updates in support of WIS2 compliance. 

Users are strongly suggested to update to version 1.1.0 at their earliest convenience. 

See WIS2 in a box 1.1.0 release on GitHub for release notes and instructions for updating existing wis2box installations. 

In this Newsletter we highlight the main new features in WIS2 in a box 1.1.0. 

Automatic validation of discovery metadata prior to publication 

To ensure wis2box only sends notifications for valid WCMP2 records on the ../metadata topic, wis2box will automatically test for compliance before publishing the record (using the pywcmp tool). Invalid records will result in ERRORs printed in the logs.  

To trigger validation for existing discovery metadata records after updating wis2box, users are encouraged to republish records using the command “wis2box metadata discovery republish”. 

Support for adding a license for recommended datasets 

In wis2box 1.0.0 it was possible to publish invalid WCMP2 records when the user selected data-policy=Recommended without providing a URL referring to their license. To address this issue, the wis2box dataset editor now provides an input field for the license URL when “recommended” is selected as the WMO Data Policy: 

See “Adding a license for recommended datasets” in the new documentation for additional information on how to publish recommended data. 

Topic Hierarchy dropdown to align with official WIS2 Topic Hierarchy 

To avoid users from publishing data using an invalid WIS2 Topic Hierarchy, the dataset editor now provides a dropdown for users to select valid sub-discipline topics based on the discipline topic selected.  

To access this option, select Template=other in the “New dataset: Initial information”-popup, then select a valid sub-discipline-topic from the dropdown-menu: 

To publish data on a different (not yet approved) sub-discipline-topic, select “experimental” in the dataset editor to specify  a sub-discipline topic as free-text: 
 

Support for “metadata only” datasets in the dataset-editor 

If “other” is was used as the template, the user will have the new option to select “Publish metadata without WIS2 data notifications”. This option can be used to publish discovery metadata only;  meaning no associated data notifications will be sent for the given dataset. 

In this case, no WIS2 Topic Hierarchy is required and instead the user is required to provide at least one data access link: 

Support for deleting records in the Global Discovery Catalogue 

To ensure that outdated WCMP2 records in the WIS2 Global Discovery Catalogues can be deleted, this release enables users to send a deletion request to the GDC for a given discovery metadata record. See the new section “Maintaining discovery metadata” in the documentation for more information

New default csv2bufr template for CLIMAT 

This release includes an additional template to support CSV to BUFR conversion for CLIMAT data: 

The definition of the new csv2bufr template for CLIMAT can be found at climat-template.json in csv2bufr-template-v0.4 

Manual file upload using the wis2box-webapp 

This release allows users to manually trigger the data ingest process to upload files using a new “Upload File”- interface in the wis2box-webapp. 

To use this feature, select the new “Upload file” option from the left-hand menu and follow the steps provided in the interface: 

Updating existing wis2box-instances

See the update instructions in the GitHub release notes.

WIS2 in a box training and support 

The WIS2 in a box training webpage has been updated to align with the latest release. New users of wis2box can use the training webpage to become familiar with WIS2 and the features of wis2box. 

WMO is committed to continuously supporting WIS2 in a box. We are actively working on new features, bugfixes and compliance updates based on feedback from WMO Members. 

The WMO Secretariat can be contacted with any queries related to WIS2 and wis2box using the dedicated email: wis2-support@wmo.int  

Please report any bugs found in wis2box on the wis2box issue tracker on GitHub. 

Last update on 25 August 2025