Tuesday, December 9, 2014

File Encoding in the Next Generation Outline Extractor

We had a couple of issues reported with the output of the Next Generation Outline Extractor where the exported file did not work properly as a load file. After some investigation, we found that the file encoding was incorrect. We were encoding the files using the Unicode/UTF-8 format. We chose this encoding so that we could write all characters in all languages, but we did not consider that UTF-8 is only valid for loading Unicode databases in Essbase.

To resolve this issue, we decided to add a configuration to the Next Generation Outline Extractor to allow users to select the file encoding. Here is a screenshot showing the new configuration setting.



As of yesterday, December 8, 2014, the updated Next Generation Outline Extractor is available on our website. The first version to feature this functionality is version 2.0.2.692. Version 2.0.2.692 is available for all Essbase versions from Essbase 9.3.1 forward. We are also happy to announce that his version of the Next Generation Outline Extractor is the first version to support the recently released Essbase 11.1.2.3.505.

If you encounter any issues with the Next Generation Outline Extractor, please don't hesitate to contact our support team at support@appliedolap.com.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Are you ready for Windows 10? Dodeca Is Ready!

Microsoft recently released its first preview version of their next desktop operating system, Windows 10. In our business, we have seen many large companies just migrate to Windows 7 and the general consensus seems to be that Windows 8 is a 'consumer' operating system. In other words, it will be a while before you have to think about Windows 10, but it is our business to be thinking about this now. We have the Windows 10 preview downloaded and installed in our labs. We made a very smart decision years ago when we decided to write the Dodeca client layer in .NET technology because it works in Windows 10 unchanged!

We are ready. Will you be ready?

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Kscope15 Abstract deadline is Wednesday, October 15!

Kscope15 abstract submission will close in just a few days and the ODTUG content teams want you!

I am sure there are many of you who have never done a presentation at a conference and may not feel comfortable speaking in public. Well, I have a secret for you, despite the fact that I won the Best Speaker Award at Kscope14, I share your discomfort with speaking. What works for me, however, is that I only speak about topics that I know very well. Do you have some area of expertise that you know really well? If you do, please share it! It will be fun and all of your peers who learn something new, from you, will appreciate it!

With that, take the next step and click here to submit session!

Friday, September 12, 2014

Next Generation Outline Extractor Webcast - Oct 8th!

I am doing a repeat of my Kscope15 'Best Speaker' award-winning presentation as part of the ODTUG webcast series. Here is the official announcement from ODTUG:

Wednesday, October 8, 2014 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT

Next Generation Essbase Outline Extractor Tips and Tricks
Tim Tow, Applied OLAP

The Next Generation Outline Extractor is the follow-up to the classic OlapUnderground Essbase Outline Extractor used by thousands of Essbase customers. This session, which was the highest-rated session at Kscope15 in Seattle, explores some of the new capabilities of the Next Generation Outline Extractor, including command line operations exported directly to a relational database. Attend this session to learn how to leverage this free utility in your company.
Make you you sign up to join my on October 8th; you can register here!.

Monday, March 24, 2014

What's New in Dodeca 6.7.1?

Last week, we released Dodeca version 6.7.1.4340 which focuses on some new relational functionality. The major new features in 6.7.1 are:
  • Concurrent SQL Query Execution
  • Detailed SQL Timed Logging
  • Query and Display PDF format
  • Ability to Launch Local External Processes from Within Dodeca

Concurrent SQL Query Execution

Dodeca has a built-in SQLPassthroughDataSet object that supports queries to a relational database.  The SQLPassthroughDataSet functionality was engineered such that a SQLPassthroughDataSet object can include multiple queries that get executed and returned on a single trip to the server and several of our customers have taken great advantage of that functionality.  We have at least one customer, in fact, that has some SQLPassthroughDataSets that execute up to 20 queries in a single trip to the server.  The functionality was originally designed to run the queries sequentially, but in some cases it would be better to run the queries concurrently.  Because this is Dodeca, of course concurrent query execution is configurable at the SQLPassthroughDataSet level.

Detailed SQL Timed Logging

In Dodeca version 6.0, we added detailed timed logging for Essbase transactions.  In this version, we have added similar functionality for SQL transactions and have formatted the logs in pipe-delimited format so they can easily be loaded into Excel or into a database for further analysis.  The columns of the log include the log message level, timestamp, sequential transaction number, number of active threads, transaction GUID, username, action, description, and time to execute in milliseconds.

Below is an example of the log message.

Click to enlarge


Query and Display PDF format

The PDF View type now supports the ability to load the PDF directly from a relational table via a tokenized SQL statement.  This functionality will be very useful for those customers who have contextual information, such as invoice images, stored relationally and need a way to display that information.  We frequently see this requirement as the end result of a drill-through operation from either Essbase or relational reports.

Ability to Launch Local External Processes from Within Dodeca

Certain Dodeca customers store data files for non-financial systems in relational data stores and use Dodeca as a central access point.  The new ability to launch a local process from within Dodeca is implemented as a Dodeca Workbook Script method which provides a great deal of flexibility in how the process is launched.

The new 6.7.1 functionality follows closely on the 6.7.0 release that introduces proxy server support and new MSAD and LDAP authentication services.  If you are interested in seeing all of the changes in Dodeca, highly detailed Dodeca release notes are available on our website at http://www.appliedolap.com/resources/downloads/dodeca-technical-docs.