NatQuery An End-User Perspective On Using To Extract Data From ADABAS Building a Datawarehouse Presented by Treehouse Software, Inc.

NatQuery is a workstation-based tool that provides for a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that allows an End-User to easily extract data from a remote ADABAS / Natural mainframe, and then integrate this data into common workstation tools. Shown above is the NatQuery “desktop”.

Our user will begin by clicking the “New Query” icon.

This opens the “Select Files” window. Our user wishes to populate a datawarehouse with records from the SAG Demonstration Employee file in ADABAS. Please take notice that in this example there are three files available to the user, this will be a relevant point in a later slide.

Having selected the EMPLOYEES file, the user is now presented with the “Select Fields from EMPLOYEES” window. From this window they may chose which “Possible Fields to Select” from the Employee file.

Our user has chosen three fields which are now displayed in the right side pane. This is done by double clicking or, click and ADD, the field of choice. A fourth field, “CITY” is about to be added.

NatQuery will now ask the user if they wish to include files that NatQuery knows have a relationship with Employees. NatQuery is smart enough to have omitted those files without links to EMPLOYEES. This knowledge is brought about by the cardinality rules inherent within your existing ADABAS Database Files and as governed by the ADABAS DBA.

Having clicked the “Continue” button in the prior window the user is now presented with the “Selection Logic” window. Because this is a datawarehouse request, the user will want to click the “Read All Records” button in the Selection Mode box.

The query now reflects that the user wishes to “Read All Records” from the EMPLOYEE File. This user can now click the “Send to Server” icon.

The user may now identify the new query request in several ways; the “Program Name”, the “Short Description”, and the “Long Description.” These id tags will save time when trying to find this query on a later date.

The user will select the “DWH Software Extract” from the Extract Type window.

In most cases the user will wish to generate a Cobol File Definition (CFD), to use as a generated program. This allows for easy data manipulation and loading into other business tools, including other platforms. The “Output Handling Option” now reflects the users choice of a datawarehousing option.

The extracted data will include all the fields from the Database Field Information window. Our user wishes to edit the “Name” field to read Last_Name, so that there will be no confusion between “Name” and “First_Name” in the output.

By highlighting “Name” and clicking the “Edit” button the user will be allowed to make the desired change.

The “Database Field Information” now reflects how the requested information will appear in the extract. First name, last name, middle name, and the city this employee lives in.

Having clicked “Ok” in the last sequence, NatQuery can now tell the user the name and the location of the generated CFD file.

Because this is the opening session for the user, they are prompted for their FTP session password. This password will be retained throughout the users session, if the user logs off then the password is deleted from NatQuery’s memory.

Having supplied the necessary password the query is now ready to be FTP’d to the server for processing.

The FTP process has completed and the query is now being processed on the user’s operating platform.

The user may now click the “Check Server’ icon to see the progress of the query during processing.

The query is still “PENDING” and so the user must be patient and wait The query is still “PENDING” and so the user must be patient and wait. They are allowed to continue working and move freely about their computer at this time.

Clicking the “Check Server for Update” button tells the user that request 143 is done, how many records were looked at and how many were returned. It also reminds the user what “target” they chose to download the data to, in this case the user has chosen “Data Warehouse.”

Clicking anywhere on the data shown will highlight that data and enable the “Retrieve Request Output “ and “Clear Selected Request” buttons. The user desires to retrieve the data request.

The “Save Extraction Data File” window allows the user to place the data in the directory of choice. The default directory will have been pre-selected by the administrator who initially set up this users account.

This dialog box lets the user know that the data has been downloaded to the selected directory.

The user can now see that all of the request slots available are open, what the next sequential request number will be and that they will still be able to use NatQuery.

This query is still open and can be saved, discarded, or modified by the user.

By opening an “explorer” window, in this case Microsoft Explorer TM, and navigating to the appropriate output file, the user will be able to open the downloaded request data.

Here are examples of the data output file and the CFD program file that were downloaded from ADABAS using NatQuery. Note that NatQuery has preformed simple transformations in the output file, date/time stamps are in ASCII form, leading zeros are omitted or allowed, etc.

Using this CFD program in conjunction with the output file, a datawarehouse initiative may be started, appended, or overwritten. For those business tools able to read a CFD program the transformation of ADABAS data into their environment will be seamless.

The Viewer should be aware that this is an Administrator’s Desk top and that certain menu items will not be available to an End user.

URL: www.treehouse.com E-Mail: tsi@treehouse.com Phone: (412) 741-1677