WebFOCUS is a complete information control system with
comprehensive features for retrieving and analyzing data that enables
you to create reports quickly and easily from real-time transactional
systems, relational data warehouses, cubes, and any ERP or legacy
source.
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InfoAssist is a powerful report generation tool that
enables business users to leverage ad hoc functionality. With InfoAssist,
you can generate highly complex reports, charts, and documents from
any enterprise information source without IT intervention. You can
also analyze multiple reports and charts simultaneously and output
report data in a variety of formats.
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InfoAssist Report, Chart, and Document
Release 8.1 Version 05
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Multi-selecting Files for Deletion in the Query Design Pane. In
the Query Design pane, you can select and delete multiple data fields
at one time. Using the Ctrl key, select two or more data fields,
right-click, and then click Delete from the
shortcut menu.
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Rearranging HOLD File Components. When
working with multiple HOLD files or subqueries, you can change the
order in which they are referenced. When you right-click Files in
the Query pane, the Arrange Files option displays. Click this option
to open a dialog box that enables you to rearrange the order of
your files.
Release 8.1 Version 03
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New Options on the Home Tab. When
working in Document Mode, in InfoAssist, a new group, Clipboard,
has been added to the Home tab. Functions in this group enable you
to cut, copy, paste, and duplicate items in your document.
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Color of Line Indicator in Query Design Pane Based on Theme. When clicking
and dragging fields within the Query Design pane, a line indicator
displays. The color of this line is determined by the theme.
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Addition of Calendar Feature. When
working with full date fields while using Traffic Lights, Filtering,
or Slicers, a calendar icon now displays. The calendar feature enables
you to select a date using a calendar control.
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Support for Microsoft Excel 2007 Added to Chart and Document Mode. Microsoft®
Excel® 2007 output format has been added to the Chart and Document Modes
in InfoAssist. This enables the Excel (xlsx) and Excel Formula (xlsx)
formats in areas of InfoAssist where an output format can be selected.
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Implementation of Dynamic Grouping. The
Dynamic Grouping functionality enables you to create groups of elements
based on the field data type that you select. Once you define a
new group, a higher-level field is created that contains the selected elements.
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New Indicator Line in the Query Design Pane. When
you drag a field to a new location in the Query Design pane, an
indicator line displays. This allows you to preview the placement
of the selected field.
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Addition of Field List Search Functionality. Field
search functionality has been added to the Resources panel in InfoAssist,
enabling you to search for specific fields within a tree or list.
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WebFOCUS Active Technologies reports and dashboards
provide business intelligence (BI) for any computer or mobile device
running a web browser. Active Technologies present data with a variety
of interactive analytic capabilities in a single portable document,
deliverable to any type of mobile device. Users of rich interactive applications
created with Active Technologies can easily manipulate the data,
intuitively explore information, and uncover critical trends and
patterns using device-specific user interface characteristics and
gestures for multi-touch screens.
With Active Technologies, you can quickly develop completely
portable BI applications, deliver interactive reports and dashboards
to any user, and reduce the load on the database and server systems
by allowing users to work in disconnected mode. The built-in analytics include
sorting, filtering, performing data calculations, charting, and
much more.
Release 8.1 Version 05
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Controlling the Sort Order of Filter Values in an Active Technologies Form Control. You
can use the ARFILTER_SORT property in a compound layout report to
control the sort order of the filter values in an active form control
on an active dashboard. By default, the values are sorted in ascending
order (low to high). You can change the setting to descending order
(high to low).
Release 8.1 Version 03
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Filtering an Active Technologies Report on a Dashboard Using Chained Form Controls. You
can use the ARFILTER_ONCHANGE = ON property in a compound layout
report to filter a target active report or chart on an active dashboard with
the values selected in chained active form controls. When the value
of the first active form control in a chain changes, the report
or chart is filtered with the initial value in the second and subsequent
active form controls in the chain.
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Viewing Data as a Chart. When
you run an active report on an iPad, you can tap Chart or
touch the right arrow for the Chart menu option to display a menu
that specifies the default value for the type of chart that will
be displayed and the default aggregation (calculation) that will
be used to draw the chart. Also listed are the columns that are
available for display on the X-axis of the chart (the Group By columns).
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Creating a Heading Area With Controls Using the Dashboard Bar. You can
create a heading area for an active dashboard by adding a page layout
for the dashboard bar (PAGELAYOUT=DASHBOARDBAR). On the page for
the dashboard bar, you can insert Active Technologies form controls,
reports, and charts that are always displayed above the dashboard
tabs.
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Setting the ALPHA Background Color of an Active Technologies Report. You
can set the ALPHA background color of an active report or chart,
and each report or chart object on an active dashboard, so that
the color is transparent. The ALPHA background color includes the
background color of the data in the report or chart, and alternating
background colors. This capability enables you to place an image
in the background of a report or chart. For example, you can add
a watermark behind a report.
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Displaying the Heading in a Rollup Table. When
using a rollup table generated from a tabular active report, you
can either display the heading that is supplied by Active Technologies
or display a custom heading that you supply in the original tabular
report procedure.
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Setting the Default Filter Value for a Column on an Active Technologies Dashboard. This
feature sets the default filter value in an active form control
and at run time automatically applies the filter to the data in
the report and chart objects on an active dashboard. It is an optional
property for an active form control.
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Hiding a Report Object on an Active Technologies Dashboard. You
may need to hide an active report object on an active dashboard.
For example, when you want to display non-data related objects in
the first tab of the dashboard and place report and chart objects
in the subsequent tabs, you can hide the first report object using
HIDDEN=ON syntax in your WebFOCUS code. The data from the hidden
report is still available for use in the global filter or other
filter control.
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Defining Custom Styles for an Active Technologies Report or Dashboard. There
are new Active Technologies classes for styling an active report or
dashboard:
- The class .arLoadingMessage
defines the font style of the Loading message text for an AHTML
report or dashboard.
- The class .arMobileTabBar
defines the background color of the tab area in Active Technologies
for mobile web apps.
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App Studio is a Windows-based GUI development environment
for creating WebFOCUS applications. App Studio provides innovative
features and functions that simplify development, thereby allowing
you to concentrate on interface design, business logic, and data
manipulation. Features include data visualization, color exception
reporting, intelligent drilldowns, and the ability to generate HTML
pages without writing code.
Release 8.1 Version 05M
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Authenticating Through a Local PIV (Personal Identity Verification). You
can now authenticate App Studio users through a local PIV (Personal
Identity Verification) PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) certificate.
PIV was created for use by U.S. federal agencies as a secure and
interoperable credential for user authentication. PKI is a protocol
for managing, distributing, and revoking digital certificates for
public-key encryption.
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Support for WebFOCUS Environments Using SAML or CAS. As
of Release 8.1 Version 05M, App Studio offers support for the following
new single sign on (SSO) providers, when developing against WebFOCUS
environments that are configured to use these providers for pre-authentication.
These pre-authentication providers include Security Assertion Markup
Language (SAML) and Central Authentication Service (CAS).
Release 8.1 Version 05
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Forecast Conditional Formatting. You
can now create conditional formatting and data visualizations for
forecast data. This makes it easy to distinguish between actual
and forecast values in a column. Use the new Forecast selection
from the Traffic Lights drop-down to create Forecast conditional
formatting and preview it in the Report canvas. Use the new Data
Visualization Conditional Styling dialog to set visualizations for
forecasts.
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Using the Autosize Children Option. The
Autosize Children option resizes all components on an HTML page
to automatically fit the maximum available screen space on any monitor
or device where it might be viewed. For example, a single component
will take up one hundred percent of the available space, while two components
will take up fifty percent each. This option is used so that when
your HTML page is run on different devices, components and controls
do not appear off screen and have to be scrolled to in order to
use them.
You can prevent the component from becoming too
small, using the Autosize: min width and Autosize: min height options.
Type the minimum number of pixels for the width, height, or both,
in the appropriate fields. When a component reaches the minimum
width or height that you specified, a scroll bar appears and the
size of the component does not decrease further.
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Calling a Procedure From Another Procedure Using Execute. The Execute
component allows one procedure to execute or call another procedure.
The called procedure behaves as a completely separate procedure,
with its own context. The Execute component allows you to view and
select available procedures, supply values for parameters in the
called procedure, and test the called procedure.
You can add
the Execute component to a procedure from the Procedure View panel.
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Designing Content for Smartphones in the HTML Canvas. You
can design content specifically to be used on smartphones, in the
App Studio HTML canvas, using the new mobile layout options and
enhancements. Content designed in this way is automatically sized,
and takes full advantage of the page-swipe navigation and touch-screen
capabilities of smartphones.
There are two different layouts
for designing HTML output for smartphones, Basic and Advanced.
Basic Mobile Layout. Enables
you to build simple smartphone pages that you can navigate using
graphical icons and page-swipe. The Basic Mobile Layout displays
individual frames from your HTML canvas on individual mobile pages,
by default. You can change this as needed.
Advanced Mobile Layout. Offers
the same features as the Basic, but also gives you the additional
ability to add a table of contents with or without a logo, and add
a logo on each page.
For more information, see the App Studio
Online Help.
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Saving Control Selections in a Browser Session. When
working with controls on HTML pages, you can link the controls so
that they automatically default to the same selected value when
you switch between multiple pages in the same browser session. To
link the controls, you need to assign a common value to the Global name property
for each control that you want to link, as this field enables you
to save control selections within a browser session. The Global name field
is located under Miscellaneous on the Properties panel, which is
available only when a control is selected.
Once you have defined
values for the Global name property for the
controls that you want to link, save the HTML page.
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Previewing HTML Output Across Different Browsers. You
can now preview your HTML output in different browsers using the
icons that are available in the Preview group on the Utilities tab.
This allows you to review how your output will display across different
browsers, and verify that your content displays correctly.
The
Preview group contains browser icons based on those that you have
installed locally.
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Precision Reports. With
Precision reports, you can create perfectly aligned PDF, PS, and
DHTML output for a pre-printed form, such as a Bill of Sale. Precision reports
offer all of the benefits of the Report canvas, as well as access
to specific tools for controlling items on a form, including fields,
images, and other objects required by the form. It also offers additional
tools and tabs that enable you to precisely match the format of
your pre-printed form.
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Analyzing Procedures Using Impact Analysis. Impact
Analysis enables you to generate a list that identifies the procedures
that access a specific Master File or a single field within a Master
File. This allows you to analyze the potential impact of modifying
or deleting Master Files or fields and enables you to analyze data,
control search criteria, save reports, and interactively open and
edit procedures based on search results.
Impact Analysis is accessible
from the Content and Data Servers development areas of the Configured
Environments tree.
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Short Last Modified Date Format. A
new option, Use short Last Modified date format, is selected
in the App Studio Options dialog box by default. This option displays
the last modified date information for a file or folder, in a short
format, mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm AM/PM. This date information is
available in the Open File dialog box and the Environments Detail
panel.
Release 8.1 Version 03
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Creating Visualizations. Visualizations centralize
information by providing different views of data that are pertinent
to a particular objective. Visualizations support the use of different
types of charts, maps, and grids. They also serve to provide information
in real-time, based on changes in underlying data or other components.
A visualization can be updated, changed, or revised at any time
to account for shifts in data needs. You can create a visualization
from the Content node in the Environments Tree panel or Environments
Detail panel, by right-clicking a folder, pointing to New,
and clicking Visualization.
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Browser Support for Output. The Output Viewer Settings
tab on the App Studio Options dialog box enables you to set a specific
browser to use for output or to use the App Studio Internal Viewer
(default), and to set the navigation options for the output (run
in new window, run in same window). The Browser Setup section is populated
with a list of browsers that are installed on the App Studio machine.
App Studio works with Mozilla Firefox®, Google Chrome™, and Microsoft
Internet Explorer® browsers.
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WebFOCUS is a complete information control system with
comprehensive features for retrieving and analyzing data. It enables
you to create reports quickly and easily. It also provides facilities
for creating highly complex reports, but its strength lies in the simplicity
of the request language.
The Reporting Server Release 8.1 Version
05M includes the following Release 7.7 Version 06 Reporting Language
new feature:
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Customizing the HTML-Based Amper Auto-Prompt Facility. The
HTML Auto-prompt implementation supports the specification of the
autoprompt_top and autoprompt_top_checked templates in the <describe_html>
FOCEXEC command so that a different template from the default Auto-prompt
template can be specified.
The Reporting Server Release 8.1 Version
05 includes the following Release 7.7 Version 06 Reporting Language
new feature:
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Specifying the Sort Order in Amper Auto-Prompting Single-Select and Multi-Select Dynamic Lists. In
Amper Auto-Prompting single-select and multiselect dynamic lists,
you can specify the sort order of the values retrieved from data
sources using the SORT parameter processing option.
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Controlling Column Title Underlining Using a StyleSheet Attribute. The TITLELINE
attribute allows you to control whether column titles are underlined
for report output.
The Reporting Server Release 8.1 Version
03 includes the following Release 7.7 Version 06 Reporting Language
new features:
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Preventing Visual Overflow. At
times, the size defined for the USAGE format of a field may be too
small to fit the actual data to be displayed. In previous releases,
this scenario would cause asterisks (***) to display in the report output
in place of the actual value. Situations that cause this scenario
include if the display value is larger than the defined display
format or if a value is aggregated, the summed value does not fit
into the space that was allotted for the column by the USAGE format
of the field.
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Dynamically Scaling HTML Report Output. The
AUTOFIT parameter can be activated to dynamically scale HTML reports
and charts horizontally to fill the entire container (window or
frame) within your portal pages and HTML pages.
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Embedded Images in Microsoft Excel (XLSX) Workbooks. The
XLSX workbooks can contain embedded images in fixed positions in
each of the WebFOCUS report areas including headers, footers, and
data cells. Additionally, graphs can be placed on individual worksheets
within compound workbooks.
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Ability to Change Default Font Style for FORMAT XLSX. The
default and available fonts for each output format are defined in
the fontmap.xml file maintained within the Reporting Server. Prior
to Release 8.1 Version 03, the definitions for DHTML also covered
the Microsoft Office formats (XLSX, PPT, PPTX). As of Release 8.1
Version 03, font definitions for format XLSX can be defined separately,
allowing ease in customizing the look and feel of your XLSX workbooks.
WebFOCUS uses Arial as the default font. Use this feature to change
the default font to match the Microsoft Office standard font, Calibri,
or your corporate standard.
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Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation File Format (PPTX). The
PPTX file format can contain reports, graphs, and images with WebFOCUS
styling features, as well as populate PowerPoint templates containing
preset Slide Masters, styling, and other business content.
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Using PowerPoint PPTX Display Format. With
PowerPoint (PPTX), Microsoft® introduced enhanced functionality
in a new presentation file format. WebFOCUS Release 8.1 introduces
the capability to retrieve data from any WebFOCUS supported data
source and to generate a PPTX presentation for data analysis and distribution.
You can place report output on a specific slide in a PowerPoint
template. This enables you to populate existing presentations with
preset Slide Masters, styling, and other business content. PowerPoint
design templates (POTX) and PowerPoint macro-enabled templates (POTM)
are stored on the server and can be distributed automatically with
ReportCaster.
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WebFOCUS Client Amper Autoprompt Internal Processing. The performance
and security of the WebFOCUS Release 8.1 Amper Autoprompt facility
has been improved because the WebFOCUS Client no longer uses XSLT
templates to create the JavaScript for the Autoprompt HTML page.
As of WebFOCUS Release 8.1, the WebFOCUS Client uses the XML returned
by the Reporting Server to create the JavaScript for the Autoprompt
HTML page. The autoprompt_top.xslt and autoprompt_top_checked.xslt
templates have been converted to the new Release 8.1 implementation.
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Automatically Sizing an HTML HFREEZE Report. An
AUTO option has been added to the SCROLLHEIGHT command for use with
the HTML HFREEZE reporting feature. The AUTO option automatically
sizes the HFREEZE report within the browser page or the frame within
the page.
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Rolling Up Calculations on Summary Rows. Using
the ROLL. operator in conjunction with another prefix operator on
a summary line recalculates the sort break values using the values
from summary lines generated for the lower level sort break.
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Simplified Character Functions. New
character functions have streamlined parameter lists, similar to
those used by SQL functions. In some cases, these simplified functions
provide slightly different functionality than previous versions of
similar functions. The new simplified character functions are CHAR_LENGTH,
DIGITS, LPAD, RPAD, LTRIM, RTRIM, TRIM_, LOWER, UPPER, SUBSTRING,
and TOKEN.
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Simplified Date and Date-Time Functions. New
date and date-time functions have streamlined parameter lists, similar
to those used by SQL functions. In some cases, these simplified
functions provide slightly different functionality than previous
versions of similar functions. The new simplified character function
are DTADD, DTDIFF, DTPART, and DTRUNC.
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CHECKPRIVS Function. Given
a General Privilege code as input, the CHECKPRIVS function returns
Y or N depending on whether the connected user has been granted
that privilege.
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Adding a Value Test to RESTRICT=NOPRINT. This
extension to RESTRICT=NOPRINT enables you to use a VALUE=expression
clause in the RESTRICT command. The expression will be evaluated,
and the value will display only if the expression evaluates to true
for that value. Any value for which the expression evaluates to
false will be replaced on the output by one of the default values.
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Using ACCEPT=SYNONYM in a Master File. ACCEPT=SYNONYM
is used to look up values in another data source and retrieve a
corresponding display value. The lookup field values must exist
in both data sources, although they do not need to have matching
field names.
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Using Multiple Prefix Operators on the Same Measure in SUBTOTAL. You
can now reference a field with multiple prefix operators in a summary
command using the prefix operator to differentiate between the fields
with multiple operators.
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Validating Parameter Values Without Data File Access: REGEX. Parameter
value validation processing has been enhanced to validate the parameter value
without accessing the data using the REGEX mask, which specifies
a regular expression.
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Adding DBA Restrictions to the Join Condition. When
DBA restrictions are applied to a request on a multi-segment structure,
by default the restrictions are added as WHERE conditions in the
report request. When the DBAJOIN parameter is set ON, DBA restrictions
are treated as internal to the file or segment for which they are specified,
and are added to the join syntax.
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Storing Localized Metadata in Language Files. If
you want to centralize localized column titles, descriptions, and
prompts, and apply them to multiple Master Files, you can create
a set of translation files and use the TRANS_FILE attribute in a Master
File to invoke them.