Hello all,

I begin to use webfocus v.4.3.6. In my firm, it has been configurated restrictively.

Anyone who wants to make a query has to go through a home made software that allows you to make queries one by one.
Drill down function implies that several queries are done, so i have a problem. I would like to make OLAP, but "offline".
The solution i'm thinking about is to create a single .FEX, on this file i will do a query with drill down enable. This way i 'd like to get an .html file that can be
read without using webfocus or any database. Of course the informations will be critically restricted, but that's a beginning.

My question: Is it possible? or do i have to generate manually each page of the drill down? (one by sub-query?)
To sum up... i would like to create a cube that could be used offline.


Thanks a lot for all your replies.

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

bonjour laurent, here is one way to approach your situation, and a very widely-used one.
To make an html file , park it somewhere on a server, allow users to go to it, and click on elements. These clicks are hyperlinks that issue calls to the WebFocus CGI, run a focus program (focexec, or "fex" as we call them), passing parameters.
Do 3 things:
1. write this command in your fex, somewhere up at the top
SET FOCEXURL = http://yourservername/cgi-bin/ibi_cgi/webapi.dll
Note that this is the call to the webfocus cgi. I use isapi, you might use servlet or cgi, so adjust as you need.
SET FOCEXURL = HTTP://yourservername/ibi_apps/WFServlet
2. write your fex with the drill downs specified in the style sheet, eg:
TYPE=DATA,COLUMN=MYVAR,focexec=MYNEWFEX(&MYVAR1=MYVAR /
&MYVAR2=SOMEOTHERVAR ),$
3. write your fex to create a named html file which you filedef to some nice place on your server
FILEDEF MYTAB DISK D:\INETPUB\WWWROOT\MYTAB.HTM
...
Now when your user opens the MYTAB file with a browser, the drilldowns will work, they will have the complete address of the ibi_cgi engine that will run focus and then execute the drilldown fex you have stated.
Nice thing, this works for email too. So if you use Outlook and want your user to be able to drill down from an email, this SET FOCEXURL command is all you need to turn your drill-down-ordinaire into a cool drilldown that runs focus.
Now, about OLAP, i can't help you.. OLAP is pure web focus managed reporting environment, and i don't think it works independently.

Merci beaucoup Susannah, but i'm affraid that's not the solution. CGI means to be online.

let's imagine I want my travelling employees to have some important datas on their mobile laptops, but they have access to the net only once a day.
So basicly, they will download a classic "drill down ordered DB"; each morning this html, or maybe pdf file, is updated.They don't have WF on their laptops.
thanks for any reply.

Have you considered creating an Excel Pivot Table? It will give you all of the drill down/OLAP funtionality and will work completely offline.

ah, je comprends. oui, encore une fois i agree with wfuser, a pivot table is a great idea. Totally portable, if your users have EXCEL 2000 or higher.
Look up and study PIVOT and PAGEFIELDS in your manuals; For best results, make all fields except your initial BY and ACROSS fields into PAGEFIELDS;
Because this pivot table that focus makes is really XML and not plain excel; so your users can drag-and-drop fields out of the page area, but cannot drag-and-drop BY or ACROSS fields into the page area, unless those fields were there to begin with; Slight nuance in working with xml pivots.

thanks a lot WFUser and Susannah, i'm gonna study this solution

Laurent, as you study this pivot thing, here's a bit of handy info: There's another difference between a pivot table you make yourself in your own excel sheet, and a pivot table that is xml and focus-made; The pivot table you make yourself can be contained in the same worksheet as the data, typically on two separate tabs.
However, a pivot table made in xml is many separate files; If , say, you
ON TABLE PCHOLD AS MYTAB FORMAT EXL2K PIVOT
PAGEFIELDS whatever
CACHEFIELDS whatever
END
you will get a file called MYTAB, and a directory called MYTAB with a bunch of other relevant files;
So, making the whole thing portable for your users is a bit tricky, you need all the files;
You've probably tried this all out and discovered this already. I'm wondering if report caster's ZIP feature would put all the needed files into one .zip file; I've not tried that, but it might work . You could then email the whole package to your offline users.
Does anyone else know???

Here's a solution to this issue from the RC 7.1 manual:

Distributing an Excel Pivot Table
For ReportCaster to successfully distribute a report using the EXL2K PIVOT format, the
procedure you are scheduling must contain the “SET WEBARCHIVE=ON” command.
This command ensures that the WebFOCUS Reporting Server creates a single output file
rather than a main file and a cache file.

Joey

Thanks Moogle, this solved my issue!

quote:

“SET WEBARCHIVE=ON”

Blast from the past!