does anyone have Portable Analytics working? and does it do any reorganization, i.e. aggregation by a chosen variable? or does it just sort/filter the observed dataset?
How big a dataset can it handle? bigger than a pivot table?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: susannah,

Download the following manual for information on portable analytics.

WebFOCUS/iWay New Features
Version 7 Release 1.3
DN9400232.0206

pg 2-114 Creating an HTML Active Report
pg 2-120 Using an HTML Active Report

dude, is that a yes or a no

Susannah,

Just looking at 7.1.3 now and targetting Active Reporting. One thing to be aware of is that I think it requires yet another license to enable it to be used.

However, it appears that you can use a combination of active reports, OLAP and expanable reports.

From the manual -

An HTML Active Report is a report that is designed for offline analysis. When using an HTML Active report you can:
❏ Interact with the data, using analysis options similar to those found in an Excel workbook, without any connection to a server.
❏ Work offline without any additional plug-ins or programs. HTML Active Reports are self-contained reports, meaning they contain all of the data and JavaScript within the HTML output file. Packaging the data and the interactive functions in the HTML file also makes the output highly compressible for e-mail and transparent to security systems.
❏ Save the report on a local machine with the packaged interactivity. Since no connection to a server is required to view the data or use the analysis options, you can save and use the report anywhere.

When working with an HTML Active report, you can:
❏ Filter or highlight data.
❏ Sort data within any column in ascending or descending order.
❏ Apply calculations to columns and choose the location to display results.
❏ Control the display of data by hiding columns, freezing columns, limiting the number of rows per page, and using graphic visualization to compare column values.
❏ Create a variety of simple or advanced charts (pie, line, bar, or scatter) and roll-up tables.
❏ Apply a global filter on multiple reports within the same HTML page.
❏ Export report data.
❏ Restore original report settings.

So I would hazard a guess that the answer is Yes?

Freeze frames (just like Excel) is also possible.

Recommended rows for IE is only 5000 but 20000 for Firefox and Netscape. - See TM4625

T

thanks T, ive read the same, and seen the demos, just still dont see anything that looks more advanced, like picking a field to aggregate on. 5k limit makes it too small to be useful.

All, there are a lot of thing you can do with active reports. a big plus is that there is not additional overhead on the backend server or the web server as you are processing against the html output directly. Also you can email the html file and the user can then process it however they want.

Hope this helps

thanks, but we're looking for a specific example of something other than sorting and filtering, such as aggregation by a selected variable.

TS,

The whole idea of reduced impact on the servers was what I was hoping for with AHTML but with a recommended limit of 5000 rows by 15 columns for IE it is unlikely to prove that valuable when measured against cost of license.

T

From the aforementioned doco:

You can perform calculations on data in an HTML Active Report. Types of calculations that
you can apply are:
❏ Count all, which counts the number of occurrences of the field.
❏ Count distinct, which counts the number of distinct values within a field.

For numeric fields you can also apply:
❏ Sum, which sums the values of all the fields in the column.
❏ Avg, which computes the average value of the field.
❏ Min, which generates the minimum value of the field.
❏ Max, which generates the maximum value of the field.
❏ % of Total - Computes a field’s percentage based on the total values for the field.

Calculations are applied to the entire data set and to the filtered and/or expanded data in
the report. What this means is that reports that have filters applied or are not fully
expanded will have two results appear for calculations. The first is the calculation for the visible data (that is the data that currently appears in the report output). The second is the result for all values in the report even if they are filtered out or are not currently showing in an expandable report.

still no sign of aggregation.

Speaking of cost, what is the pricing for Active Reporting?

Can developers get access (gratis) for evaluation purposes?

Do pigs fly?

I did see an example somewhere over the last few days, but I don't seem to be able to find it again .

T

I wanted to triple check your request before replying...it is not unlikely that you may be eligible to receive an Active Reports trial license. For more information regarding Active Reports or a trial license please contact your local Information Builders branch sales representative.

what a sweetheart you are
we gotta go to 7 first.
i was just thinking of a couple of prospective clients for you, folks who send us data in Cubes and in Pivot Tables, who are looking for an alternative(s); But i think the 5k record limit and the just-sort, no-aggregate would not be an enticement.

Susannah,

Here in the UK, we had a User Group meeting last week and Gerry was there, so I took the opportunity to question him regarding the limit for IE (don't forget that with FF it's 20K rows). Gerry confirmed my suspicion that it is due to the fact that IE can't handle too much data (and these are my words) great overburdened beast that it is.

What was also confirmed was that Dev Studio has Active reporting built into it's stand alone server capability.

When you say aggregation, do you mean summation of a section of the report? If so you can filter out records and sum, avg, max, min etc. on the filtered records. You can also create charts on the fly as well, although the ability to resize the chart window is limited. A good product but bad limitations.

BTW, Hollywood, the new graphics look good.

T

p.s. check your PM

uh
i'ld be ever so happy to check my PM if i knew what a PM was?
i mean by aggregation...to what extent can this thing be positioned as a replacement for a cube, with its cool "zero-client"ness

Susannah,

PM - personal messaging

T

It seems that aggregation is limited to SUMmming, and no calculated fields can be recalculated at summation (or what they call rollup) levels , such as growth rates or %difs; at least i've yet to see a demo of such.
so it seems as yet a zero-footprint way to get a small amount of reorganized data into xml. The fully-populated columns on export is quite nice, and necessary, and unheralded in the demos i've seen;