December, 2004

 

In This Issue:

APOS Freeware

What Makes APOS Different!

AddressBook Gateway - Powerful New Features!

Archive Manager - New Product Released!

Bursting Manager - Powerful New Feature!

Dynamic Parameters - Powerful New Features!

Instance Manager - Powerful New Features!

Instance Monitor - Powerful New Features!

KPI - Powerful New Features!

Case Study - Knife River Corporation, Bismarck, ND, USA

APOS Suite of Add-In Solutions

APOS Freeware *Yes, It's True, Software, No Charge

We've developed a variety of useful tweaks and solutions for Crystal Enterprise™ that we offer on our web site. Note that APOS Freeware is provided complimentary and without support.

Visit here to download any of these freeware solutions, now there are 5:

Plug-Ins Installer *New!

This is a cool client desktop tool we developed for our own internal use, to make it easy to identify and install missing Crystal Enterprise v.8.5/v.9 plug-in components. Now available as freeware, simply download this tool and try it out!

ePortfolio Tree Menu - csp pages that provide a tree style presentation of Crystal Enterprise folders.

Update User Preferences - bulk update of preferences settings for all Crystal Enterprise users.

ePortfolio Events tab - adds 'Event dependency' support to the standard ePortfolio Schedule page.

ePortfolio Reschedule button - 'Reschedule' right from the standard ePortfolio History page.

What Makes APOS Different? *7 Things!

1) Try before you purchase - our add-in products are top  notch, so we let you check them out, consider other alternatives and then come back and purchase once you're sure they'll work for you!

2) Help - the APOS team on our add-ins help desk gets great feedback for providing quality service, check out some customer comments at http://www.apos.on.ca/sections/06-Comments.shtml

3) Quality - our add-in tools work - proven by hundreds of customers worldwide - check out some case studies at http://www.apos.on.ca/sections/01-CaseStudies.shtml

4) Experience - yes, we've been at this a long time, our products allow you to benefit from our many years of experience enhancing Crystal Enterprise!

5) Niche - our tools fill those special needs that arise in Business Intelligence systems today, why re-invent the wheel?

6) People - we're all surrounded by technology, but it's the people that make the difference in any organization - APOS people are particularly special!

7) Futures - we're committed to our products and customers, our history demonstrates our commitment, your future is our future!

So, whether you want to check out one of our products or ask for help with any BI development challenge, please send us a note and we'll do our best to be different, in a good way!

AddressBook Gateway for Crystal Enterprise *Powerful New Features Added

Now, AddressBook Gateway is more powerful than ever:

Active Directory Lookup - Direct Active Directory email address lookups from ePortfolio makes email integration easier than ever before!

ODBC Datasource Lookup - Direct ODBC datasource email address lookups now allow easy integration with your database.

If you want to check out how AddressBook Gateway can help your organization, please visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

Archive Manager for Crystal Enterprise *New Product Just Released

Just released, Archive Manager allows historical successful report instances to be archived using a comprehensive set of business rules. These powerful business rule settings provide the administrator with the ultimate in archiving flexibility and may be assigned at the folder/subfolder levels or at the report object level itself. Restoring instances from archive is also supported, either to its original location or to a new location.

If you're interested in additional information, please visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

Bursting Manager for Crystal Enterprise *Powerful New Feature Added

Bursting Manager allows you to use business rules to dynamically . . .

1) Burst a large instance into smaller instances for distribution OR

2) Generate a large number of smaller individual instances.

And now, we've enhanced Bursting Manager to support printing in addition to these powerful bursting capabilities . . .

Bursting to Different Printers - for both bursting a large instance or generating small instances, you can now print the report to a static or dynamically selected printer. With dynamic printer selection, you can now use business rules to print sections of the report to different printers. This new printing option is in addition to the regular bursting destination, so Bursting Manager is actually now able to do three things for you at once - burst, distribute and print.

If you're interested in additional information, please visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

Dynamic Parameters for Crystal Enterprise *Powerful New Features Added

Dynamic Parameters' feature list continues to grow, here's the latest . . .

Using a Report as a Picklist Datasource - Simply create a Crystal Report that calculates picklist values, then ask Dynamic Parameters to use it at run time it to refresh the user's parameter list for specific reports! Consider the possibilities - this allows you to use Business Views or View Time Security to filter the picklist automatically for the current user.

CSP Page Enhancements - now you can support multiple report viewers being open at same time. As well, the displayed description as Current value and pass Value to report.

Parameter Add-To List - an option is now available to automatically clear the "null" check box when a value is selected from a combo box and the Add button is pressed.

Multi-Value Parameters - serialized multi-value parameters with no quotes around values are now supported as an option.

Log History - an activity log record can now be written to an external database for:

- report view on demand, view instance or view latest instance activity

- report scheduling activity

If you want to check out how Dynamic Parameters can help your organization, please visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

Instance Manager for Crystal Enterprise *Powerful New Features Added

Now available in a major new release, Instance Manager supports more powerful re-scheduling of reports, plus with its cool new integration with APOS InfoScheduler, batch scheduling is more powerful than ever:

Re-schedule with Edit - now you can select a group of already run report instances and then edit specific instance properties before rescheduling . . .

• Database Logon - modify database userid/password info
• Destination - change to any CE supported destination
• Format - change output format to any CE supported format

• Schedule - change to any CE supported schedule - hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, calendar, etc

Export Properties for InfoScheduler - exports selected report instances properties to an external CSV file, formatted for importing into APOS InfoScheduler for subsequent editing and bulk scheduling.

If you want to check out how Instance Manager can help your organization, please visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

Instance Monitor for Crystal Enterprise *Powerful New Features Added

Instance Monitor is the perfect Christmas gift for the busy Crystal Enterprise administrator, check out these new features:

Failure Notification Options - Instance Monitor can now report instance failures both through email and/or by raising an event in the event log.

Server Monitoring Integration - By monitoring your event log for Instance Monitor error messages, you can now integrate monitoring of instance failures into your central server monitoring system.

If you want to check out how Instance Monitor can help your organization, please visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

KPI for Crystal Enterprise *Powerful New Feature Added

Now, the APOS KPI database is updated with more information about your Crystal Enterprise than ever before, supporting comprehensive off-line analysis of critical aspects of your system:

Business Views Metadata - KPI for Crystal Enterprise now updates its Business Views relationship table with the links between repository objects and reports, in addition to the links between Business Views and reports.

If you want to check out how KPI for Crystal Enterprise can help your organization, please visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

Case Study - Knife River Corp *Cool Customer

"Typically, communications broke down between Crystal Enterprise and the SQL server because of misplaced parameters. We use Instance Monitor to check for failed instances every few minutes and monitor these failures. Now we can recognize and correct problems quickly,” said Mr. Andy Waldrop, Senior Software Engineer, Knife River Corporation, Bismarck, ND.

Tools Used:

Instance Monitor (with Crystal Enterprise™ 8.5)

Background:

Knife River Corporation, a subsidiary of MDU Resources Group, Inc.-and revenues in excess of 1 billion - mines and markets aggregates and related value-add construction materials. Knife River owns over 40 companies dispersed through 10 states, from Alaska to Wyoming. The IT group is responsible for all communication structures, application development, and outside application support for all of these companies. The IT group is also responsible for deploying over two hundred and fifty core Crystal Reports through Crystal Enterprise. The stable-virtually flawless-delivery of these reports is crucial to the success of the business.

Business Issues:

• Reduce support calls resulting from failed instances 

With such a geographically diverse and complex organization, Knife River has long stressed the importance of providing stable, up-to-the-minute reports for its users in HR, finance, and back and front office operations staff. When Knife River sought to take advantage of the reporting side of Crystal Enterprise, they needed a better way to reduce support calls based on failed instances. When users did not get the reports they expected, of course they called the help desk. Frequently, users could not precisely describe the nature of their problems. The time spent trying to resolve issues was unacceptable from business perspective. And it certainly did not help the user experience. “We simply needed a better way to resolve the problems caused by failed instances,” said Mr. Waldrop.

Solution:

• Use Instance Monitor to determine when instances failed and why

Support staff the world over know that, without precise detail, it can be immensely difficult to pinpoint the cause of problem or issue. Trying to understand “who did what” and “what exactly happened” can often times be exasperating. So, when Mr. Waldrop discovered the APOS Instance Monitor product, he knew that Knife River’s technical staff would be in a position to quickly recognize problems created by failed instances, and rectify them before the users even logged onto the system. “Typically, communications broke down between Crystal Enterprise and the SQL server because of misplaced parameters. We use Instance Monitor to check for failed instances every few minutes and monitor these failures. Now we can recognize and correct problems quickly,” said Mr. Waldrop.

Results:

• Lowered management visibility

• Saved time and improved productivity of both technical staff and users

Prior to the use of Instance Monitor, Knife River’s technical staff spent an inordinate amount of time searching through the system to find out the exact reasons why the instances failed. Every enterprise faces competitions of some kind for scare or limited resources. “We’ve not only lowered the number of support calls, we also saved time and gained productivity because of Instance Monitor. By allowing our support and development staff to quickly identify when and why reports were failing, issues are resolved quickly, often before the user has even called support. We also no longer have much of the back-and-forth conversations with our end users,” said Andy Waldrop.

To read the full Knife River case study or view others, visit here.

APOS Suite of Add-In Solutions *Extend Crystal Enterprise

One of our challenges is keeping our customers and colleagues current on the APOS suite of Add-In products as it grows. Visit here to request demo download instructions and our current price list.

Administration - System Monitoring . . .

DocAssist - report design content analysis & repository tool

Instance Monitor - email notification of failed instances

KPI - who is viewing which reports, license usage analysis, server activity monitoring

Administration - Scheduling . . .

Bursting Manager - burst a large instance into small ones, burst one report to many

InfoScheduler - power batch scheduling from Microsoft Excel

Administration - Instance Administration . . .

Archive Manager - report instance archiving with business rules, with restore capability!

Instance Manager - administrator power tool for managing large instance systems

Administration - System Administration . . .

Object Manager - report promotion, object management, security maintenance

RunTime Manager - availability time windows for Crystal Enterprise components

Extending ePortfolio . . .

AddressBook Gateway - integrate an addressbook with ePortfolio scheduling

Business Calendars - customized calendars for report scheduling

Dynamic Parameters - SQL-based, user-specific pick lists, cascading parameters

Extending Distribution . . .

Distribution Server - email link, email content, failure notification, distribute on alert

Subscription Manager - allow users to manage their own report subscription

Row Level Security . . .

Processing Extension RAD - fast track processing extension development

View Time Security - row level data security without C++ development

Frequently Asked Questions

Visit here to see our latest FAQ list summarizing many of the needs our customers have been asking for help with in our various add-in solutions.

Suggestions, Requests, Unique Requirements

If you have a unique reporting system requirement, let us know. We love to work on special projects and regularly save our customers a lot of time and money by using our Add-In solutions as a fast-track foundation for a specific customized solution.

 

 

APOS Systems Inc.
Head Office: 285 Fountain Street South, Cambridge, ON, Canada N3H 1J2
Tel: 519.653.2767 - Fax: 519.653.8511
Branch Office: 30703 Blueridge Drive #13,  Abbotsford, BC, Canada V2T 6M8
Tel: 604.864.0766 - Fax: 604.864.4291
Email: apos@apos.on.ca - Web: www.apos.on.ca

 

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(c) 2004 APOS Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Crystal Decisions, Crystal Reports, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Analysis, Seagate Info, Business Objects and BusinessObjects are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects SA. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.