Top Banner
INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect
32

INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

Jan 12, 2016

Download

Documents

Roy Johns
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Page 1: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Rakesh GodhaniSoftware Architect

Page 2: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation2INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Agenda

Business case / challenges Fundamentals of EasyAsk BIRT How EasyAsk brings it all together The little extras that go a long way Q & A

EasyAsk Ad Hoc Reporting

Page 3: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation3INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Huge capital investment in business data Few people have access

• Technical barriers– DB schema– SQL– Query/reporting tools

Time• Data – what, where, how to get it, transform it• Reports – layout, fonts, headers, footers,

subtotals, page numbers, etc.

Business case / challenges - Technology

Page 4: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation4INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Business case / challenges - Complicated

More data – more complex• Joins, where clause etc.

IT – Technically savvy• Resource & budget constraints

• Please as many people as possible

Page 5: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation5INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Business case / challenges - IT

IT (cont.)• ‘One report fits many’ approach

– Extraneous columns – clutter– Missing columns/values– Requests for follow-on queries

Further delays

All this results in …

Page 6: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation6INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Business case / challenges - Frustration

USER FRUSTRATION

Page 7: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation7INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Fundamentals Of EasyAsk

Ease of information access to a broader set of users

Lower the technical requirements• SQL

• DB Schema

Talk in a more familiar tongue• Business concepts

EasyAsk Goals

Page 8: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation8INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

EasyAsk is Smart

When talking about concepts, EasyAsk figures out:• Tables, columns, column values

• Relationships (joins)

• Formulas (e.g. age)

• Grouping

• Security

Page 9: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation9INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

EasyAsk Natural Language Ad-Hoc Query

ConceptualView

LogicalView

PhysicalView

DBMS

Translates Natural Language Questions into SQL

English SQL

EasyAsk

Using a dictionary in which each definition shows how the word relates to the database

Page 10: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation10INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Sample Interpretation

Report

Employee

Name

And

Salary

Grouped

By

State

City

(built-in)

Stemmed root of Employees

First & Last Names

(built-in)

Column of Employees

(built-in)

(built-in)

Column of Employees

Column of Employees

Page 11: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation11INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Generated SQL

SELECT PUB."Employees"."State" as "State", PUB."Employees"."City" as "City", PUB."Employees"."First_Name" as "First Name", PUB."Employees"."Last_Name" as "Last Name", "Salary" as "Salary"

FROM PUB."Employees"

ORDER BY 1, 2

Page 12: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation12INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Sample2 Interpretation

Who

buys

Dairy

But

Not

Meat

Products

Cust First & Last Names

Cust.CustID = Orders.CustID

Value of Category Name

(built-in)

(built-in)

Value of Category Name

Table

Page 13: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation13INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Generated SQL

SELECT PUB."Customers"."Company_Name" as "Company Name", PUB."Customers"."First_Name" as "First Name", PUB."Customers"."Last_Name" as "Last Name"

FROM PUB."Customers"

WHERE (exists(SELECT *

FROM PUB."Products", PUB."Line_Items", PUB."Orders", PUB."Categories"

WHERE ("Category_Name"='Dairy') and PUB."Customers"."Cust_Id"=PUB."Orders"."Cust_Id" and PUB."Orders"."Order_Id" = PUB."Line_Items"."Order_Id" and PUB."Products"."Product_Id" = PUB."Line_Items"."Product_Id" and PUB."Categories"."Category_Id" = PUB."Products"."Category_Id") and not exists(SELECT *

FROM PUB."Line_Items", PUB."Orders", PUB."Products", PUB."Categories"

WHERE ("Category_Name"='Meat') and PUB."Customers"."Cust_Id"=PUB."Orders"."Cust_Id" and PUB."Orders"."Order_Id" = PUB."Line_Items"."Order_Id" and PUB."Products"."Product_Id" = PUB."Line_Items"."Product_Id" and PUB."Categories"."Category_Id" = PUB."Products"."Category_Id"))

Page 14: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation14INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Supported Languages

Dutch English French German Italian Portuguese Spanish

Page 15: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation15INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

EasyAsk Review

Masks the complexity of the underlying DBMS

Allows use of accustomed terminology Enables data access to broader set of users.

Page 16: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation16INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

BIRT

Business Intelligence Reporting Tool• Eclipse plug-in – Open source

• Two Major releases

What is it?• Report creation tool

• Reports can be saved & re-executed

• Easy to use layout tool – WYSIWYG

• PDF Generation

Page 17: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation17INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

BIRT Issues

Suffers same pitfalls as all other reporting tools• SQL & Schema knowledge

But it has a query builder• Great for simple lists, BUT as more

information is required, the SQL gets complicated quickly

– Multiple tables, more complex where & group clauses

Page 18: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation18INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

BIRT Issues (cont.)

Query & report tightly coupled• Additional column requires design change

• Easy-to-add parameters to restrict the where clause, but the column display tends to be fixed.

Page 19: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation19INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

How EasyAsk Brings It All Together

EasyAsk Ad Hoc Reporting – Takes a user question and…• Computes the SQL

• Identifies additional information that is used to DYNAMICALLY create a report design

• Report design can be effected by templates (report styles)

• Refreshes the report and presents it to the user

Page 20: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation20INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

THIS IS THE MAGIC!

EACH QUERY RESULTS IN A

CUSTOM REPORT

Page 21: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation21INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Design Information Returned By EasyAsk

EasyAsk Returns• SQL

• English column names and order

• Grouping information

• Identifies columns that need totaling

Page 22: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation22INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

TRANSLATION

ENGINE

Typical EasyAsk Data Retrieval

RETRIEVAL

ENGINE

DBMS

DICTIONARY

QUERY

SQL +

RESULTS

‘percentage of sales by state?’

Page 23: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation23INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Ad Hoc Report Construction

DBMS

DICTIONARY

QUERY

SQL +

REPORT

TRANSLATION

ENGINE

REPORT

ENGINEREPORT

GENERATOR

DATA RET &FORMATTING

TEMPLATE

ENGINEDESIGNREPORT

RETRIEVAL ENGINE

Page 24: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation24INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Sample Report

Page 25: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation25INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

DEMO

Page 26: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation26INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

The Little Extras

Templates• Can change look & feel to mirror your

applications

• Certain rules must be followed– Styles must have well-known names

Header, footer, defaultgroupheader/footer, groupheaderlevel1 … n, groupfooterlevel1 … n

– Must be in <install-dir>/server/reports/templates

Page 27: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation27INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

The Little Extras (cont.)

Template (cont.)• Every custom generated report can have that

look & feel

Emailing Scheduling

Page 28: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation28INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Any Query?

Almost any query• Not crosstabs or comparisons … yet

Let’s not forget charts either.

Page 29: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation29INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

In Summary

Removes the technical hurdles (SQL, DB SCHEMA, Reporting Tool)

Reduces the burden on IT Leverages acquired wealth of information

across a broader set of users Makes life easier for users

• resets focus to making business decisions• provides EASY access to data • removes task of acquiring & formatting the

information with which to base their decisions.

EasyAsk Ad Hoc Reporting

Page 30: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation30INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Questions?

Page 31: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation31INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?

Thank you foryour time

Page 32: INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation32INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?