Hello Application Studio

Waaaaaaaazup people.

When I first started learning how to code in Java / C Sharp the first ever program i developed was called Hello World. It was a simple program which printed the text "Hello World".

Today I am going to show you how easy it is to create your first report in App studio and print the text " Hello App Studio" :)

Ok. First things first let's log on to the Best Practices Repository.

 Let's first briefly go through the different sections of App Studio.

Under Repository Explorer You have >

Report Catalog -  Contains all the reports you create

Database Structure - Contains the connection to the Datasource

Accessories - Contains variables and other custom objects

Click on the Report Catalog Tab > Locate the Reports Folder

Right Click on the Reports folder > New > Report

Let's call this Hello App Studio

Leave the defaults and press OK.'

When you create the report notice on the top you are in View Mode. 

As you should expect you see a blank report because we have not added any content to our report. Let's click on the Design option.

Oooh. Now doesn't that look familiar. Isn't that Excel ??

Well It's not exactly excel but App studio is a Excel like editor. And if you are a pro at Excel you are going to love this :)

Ok lets create set a heading for the report I am going to call this "My First App Studio Report" and a text Hello App Studio!!!

Ok Lets preview our report now.

Tadaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

I know it doesn't look that pretty but we will learn how to do cool stuff and make it look good in the upcoming posts. Stay tuned.....

Getting Started with Application Studio

Howdy Geeks.....

Ready to get started with the basics of App Studio ?? 

All right before we start App studio there are few things you need to check in your BI environment.

I have a check list which I normally check before I start development on App Studio.

1. App Studio / Web services / Dashboards / Rep Admin Installed and configured

2. A training or development Repository created with Report Catalog and Project

3. Users added to the repository

4. Web services configured to use Basic / Windows

5. Users added to the ASWS group

6. Web services / Dashboards URL's are accessible and working properly

7. Data source is available for report development ( This could be SSAS cubes or Infor OLAP Cubes)

Once you are ready open up App studio and Select the Repository , Project and Report Catalog.

Repository

The repository is a store for objects that the various Infor BI products have in common. A repository is stored in a relational database. The database can be SQL Server or Oracle and can store more than one repository. Essentially a repository contains users, groups, roles, projects and report catalogs. Users and groups can each be elements of several different roles.

Project

You use projects to save groups of reports on specific topics. Each project can have its own user permissions and administration rights. Projects and report catalogs are created and administered in the Repository. The Repository is administered through registrations. Each registration of a Repository object contains database connection information for the Repository, which includes database name, type, location and type of authentication. Each registration contains a Projects folder which can contain a number of report catalogs

Report Catalog

A report catalog is a component of the Repository which holds data about the structure of reports within a project. Typically, a report catalog contains a set of related reports. For example, the Best Practices Templates database supplied with Application Studio contains the Best Practices Templates project. This contains the Best Practices Templates report catalog which is a series of sample reports based on the Best Practices Templates database alias. The Report Catalog is also a pane in the Repository Explorer. It lists the report catalog, database aliases and reports you have access to.

In my next post I will guide you to create your first App studio report.

Infor BI Basics

Hello my dear geeks and freaks :)

This will be the first of the many Infor BI geeky posts you will see in the future.
In my first post I will teach you how to get started with Infor BI. 

Infor BI Architecture

The Installation is pretty straight forward.

You can select the components you require to install from the Installation screen shown above. To get the software you can download this from the Infor Xtreme web site. For more information visit https://www.inforxtreme.com

Application Studio

AKA App studio is the report / widget building tool in Infor BI.
It's like Cognos in IBM or SSRS in Microsoft or could be compared to Crystal reports.
You can create basic as well as very advance collateral using the tool.
I will be posting stuff on App studio basics and advance stuff soon. So stay tuned....

Office Plus

Office Plus is the excel integration tool which comes with Infor BI.
OP enables you to do analysis of data via Microsoft excel add on. 
This is similar to using SQL Analysis Services in Excel using Pivot tables. 
The concept is the same however OP has many different functionality and options compared to Pivot tables.  I will post some stuff on OP soon.

OLAP Server

Infor has it's own proprietary multi dimensional database. 
Infor OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) is an In memory database. 
You could create and maintain databases using the OLAP Administration tool. Typically an Administrator would work with this as things could get complicated.

Dashboards

Dashboards is simply an installation on IIS. This creates a web site called
Dashboards ( Well you can change this name at the installation if you like :D ).
You need IIS web server installed before proceeding with the Dashboards installation. You can select different authentication types such as
1. Basic - a basic user name and password to log on
2. Windows - uses windows authentication
3. IFS - Infor Federation services

This is where you would create your custom dashboards. The widgets for the dashboards will be created using App studio.

Self Service Dashboards

Self service is a very important feature in BI. Gartner defines what self service is here.
As the name suggest end users can create their own dashboard with minimal technical knowledge. However it is crucial that the users understand the data in the cubes. Creating a dashboard might sound easy with self service , however creating a dashboard which makes sense and gives insight might be tough to design.

We will talk about some of the best practices of dashboard building and tips and tricks to make your dashboards look good.