OLAPObjects Publisher Newsletter
Published by The Brittenford Group
February 13, 2003
OLAPObjects Publisher NewsletterPublished by The Brittenford GroupFebruary 13, 2003 |
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| About this newsletter | About OLAPObjects Publisher | Top 5 Tips | New Features | Contact | Top |
This newsletter is intended for clients and prospective clients of The Brittenford Group, who are already using, or considering deploying OLAPObjects for iTM1 for web enabling their iTM1 applications. OLAPObjects for iTM1 has now been on the market for over 2 years, and is a proven technology being used in production at almost 30 sites (with close to 1,200 licensed ports) for diverse applications including
In short, OLAPObjects for iTM1 with its unique ability to design and maintain complete web pages from Excel using OLAPObjects Publisher, is now a mature product that can be used to web enable any iTM1 application.
The functionality that we put in OLAPObjects for iTM1 and OLAPObjects Publisher is driven entirely by our customers' needs. Please help us to determine what your web publishing needs are by taking a few minutes to fill out our on-line survey at http://www.olapobjects.com/Survey/Survey.asp?SurveyID=2&UserName=CRA.
All data entered in this survey is for the internal use of The Brittenford Group (Adonix, Applied Analytix and Creeth, Richman & Associates) only, and will be kept in the strictest confidence. Thank you for your participation.
| About this newsletter | About OLAPObjects Publisher | Top 5 Tips | New Features | Contact | Top |
OLAPObjects Publisher is an Excel add-in that lets you take an iTM1 report or input schedule created in Excel, and publish it to the web as a dynamic web page with a secure live connection to your iTM1 server - with no programming required!
Built on the OLAPobjects for iTM1 platform developed by Creeth, Richman & Associates OLAPObjects Publisher turns the familiar environment of Microsoft Excel into a powerful and easy to use web development environment. The underlying technology, OLAPobjects for iTM1, is the leading platform for integrating Applix iTM1 OLAP databases with Microsoft supported web technologies, with almost 1,200 ports licensed worldwide.
If you are an existing OLAPObjects Publisher user, have a look at the Top 5 tips section, to see how many of them you are aware of!
If you have not yet deployed OLAPObjects for iTM1 and OLAPObjects Publisher, maybe some of the new features due out in version 3.0 this quarter will help you to decide!
| About this newsletter | About OLAPObjects Publisher | Top 5 Tips | New Features | Contact | Top |
Anyone who has seen a demonstration of OLAPObjects Publisher knows how easy it is to create a web page from an Excel iTM1 report.
Often however, a demonstration is too short a time period to cover all OLAPObjects Publisher's many features in any detail, not to mention all the small things that can make life easier. We have therefore compiled the following Top 5 list of lesser known tips for this inaugural edition of the OLAPObjects Publisher newsletter.
| You can create hyperlinks on your reports either by using the Excel HYPERLINk function, or by using Insert > Hyperlink from the Excel menu. The HYPERLINK function is the recommended method because what you build is always what you will get. If you use Insert > Hyperlink you may occasionally find that your links have stopped working because Excel has made some assumptions about the locations of your files behind the scenes. Usually this takes the form of replacing a relative hyperlink with an absolute one. You can use the HYPERLINk function to link to anything you have access to on the web, not just other web pages you have published. |
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And many others. You can even build complicated IF() expressions, and if there is something you need that is not
supported, let us know. We can probably add it very quickly, or provide you with an alternative approach.
E-mail support@olapobjects.com at any time with suggestions or questions.
The on-line help file (go to TM1 > OO Publisher > Help in the Excel menu with iTM1 loaded to get to it) includes a full list of supported Excel functions as well as tutorials on how to do just about anything OLAPObjects Publisher lets you do. |
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Next time you publish to the web using OLAPObjects Publisher, look at the Range Selection Method section.
By default it is set to Selected range indicating that the range to publish will default to whatever was selected when
the publishing dialog box was invoked. If you change the Range Selection Method to Named range
any predefined Excel named ranges that begin with the characters OOP and OOI
will be found, and will be come the default values of the Range to Publish and (optionally) the Input range, respectively. In other words, you can set up predefined named ranges using this naming convention before you publish, and each time you republish the worksheet, you can do so in fewer mouse clicks. |
| And neither does the range to publish! When creating a web report or an input schedule, you have to specify the range to publish and (optionally) an input range on the Excel worksheet. You can use the control key to select multiple sub-ranges on different parts of the same Excel worksheet. The only constraint is that the input range should be contained within the range to publish (or it will not be published!). |
| Did you know that you can control what people input into an Excel cell using data validation? To get to this feature in Excel, go to Data > Validation.. in the menu. This functionality is supported by OLAPObjects Publisher as well. Any cell you set up in Excel to validate against a list in the worksheet (the list does not need to be in the published range) will, if in the input range of the published web page, also validate input - complete with the validation drop down list of allowable entries. |
| About this newsletter | About OLAPObjects Publisher | Top 5 Tips | New Features | Contact | Top |
OLAPObjects for iTM1 3.0 is currently being beta tested at selected sites, and will be available by the end of Q1 2003. Besides some dramatic performance enhancements in the underlying technology (network utilization improvements of 100% - or more - have been measured at client sites), OLAPObjects Publisher now has some exciting new features, while remaining very easy and intuitive to use.
Here are the main new OLAPObjects Publisher features:
| Charts | The ability to include standard pie, bar and line charts on a report |
| Zoom | The ability to zoom in and out of a report on the web using a right click menu |
| Fit to page | The ability to resize the web report to the size of the screen, using a right click menu |
| Freeze panes | The ability to freeze row and column headers while scrolling the rest of the report |
| Hide rows and columns | The ability to hide rows or columns using the right click menu |
| Customized headers & footers | A template in which customized headers and footers can be created, to appear on all published reports. These would typically include company logos and standard links to other web pages |
| Menu bar integration | The menu bar created with the OLAPObjects Publisher menu builder is now automatically integrated with all published reports |
| Collapsible select drop downs | Drop down controls now display hierachical relationships and permit the expansion and contraction of consolidated elements |
Please do not hesitate to contact us to find out more about these new features, or if you would like to register for a webinar to see the new features in live action. Webinars will be scheduled closer to the release date later this quarter.
| About this newsletter | About OLAPObjects Publisher | Top 5 Tips | New Features | Contact | Top |
OLAPObjects for iTM1 is marketed by The Brittenford Group of companies. To evaluate or purchase OLAPObjects for iTM1, or for more information on our products and services, please contact your Brittenford Group consultant, or:
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Creeth, Richman & Associates, Inc.
530 Danbury Road Wilton, CT 06897, USA Phone: +1 (203) 563-0760 Fax: +1 (203) 563-0770 E-mail: info@CreethRichman.com www.creethrichman.com |