An End-User Perspective On Using NatQuery Summary Processing T

Here we see the open desk top of NatQuery. In this example the user wishes to summarize the number of employees living in the same city and obtain their Salary totals. With NatQuery’s Summary Processing capability, the user is allowed to retrieve just the data, just the summarized results, or both reports in separate downloads. The summarization process facilitates the retrieval of more defined results from the ADABAS database, a helpful feature when generating reports. Note: NQY Version is being run against ADABAS on Linux in a PC network environment. The following screen shots may differ in your enviro., the processing will be similar

The summary request should be thought of as two extracts; the first extract being for “Detailed” results and the second being for the “Summary” results. Rules Of Summary Processing: 1)Summary Processing allows for a field being summarized to be “counted” 2)All fields used in a Detail Extract must in some way be utilized by the subsequent Summary process itself, either as a field to be included in a sort (and possibly be counted), or as a field to be totaled. All fields used must be accounted for. 3) Summary Processing allows for fields to be totaled

The user has created a query that will retrieve employees named SMITH or ADKINSON, the cities they live in, and their total Salaries. The employees’ total salary is calculated in the expression variable #TOTAL_SALARY, which is comprised of adding all the occurrences of the field SALARY together. For a demonstration on How to Create an Expression Variable.PPS, please refer to our web site slide show page.

The “Detailed” query results will list the two last names as found in every city in the database as well as their respective salary totals. Each employee’s results will be a unique record. The “Summarized” query results will list the two last names SMITH and JONES found in every city in the database however, the results will not show individual records of those names but a cumulative total. I.E. all the Jones’ in a given city will be returned as one record, all the Smith’ in a given city will be returned as one record, etcetera, along with the total of their collective salaries. The Summary Processing option will be made available when the user clicks the Send to Server icon. Note that version of NatQuery does not support Summarization for all available “Extract Type” targets.

Assuming this is a new query, when the user clicked the Send to Server icon the Query Description window would be displayed. In this case, our user has revised the default Program Name, and changed the Short and Long Description Names as well.

The user has chosen Excel as the intended target for the requested data, and they have checked the Summary Processing box as required. Summary Processing only works with “Always Concatenate”. All of the other Send to Server options are viable, with the caveat that only Download to PC File, Download to Excel, and Download to Access extracts may be used to perform Summary Processing.

Our user wishes to edit the Field, NAME to be more descriptive, it will now be shown as; LAST_NAME. Clicking OK in the Output Field Information window and then in the MS Excel Extract Configuration – Field Information window will close the MS Excel Extract Configuration window and invoke the Summary Processing window.

The field CITY will be the Summary Field and the field to Summarize Within will be the field NAME. This equals the return; Employees by LAST_NAME found in (what) City. One point of the query was to get a count of employees in a given city. To do this, the user will click the “Provide a Count for the Summarized Field”. Without this feature checked the query would return the summarized data but without a count of the employees in each city.

When the user has completed the “Summarization Within” frame, they must click the “Done with Summary Designation” button. This will enable the “Field(s) to be Totaled” frame.

The user will click on #TOTOAL_SALARY as the field to be totaled and click the “Done with Totals Designation” button and then click the OK button as it will now be enabled. Rule number 2 of Summary Processing states: All fields used in the Detail extract (including their occurrences) must in some way be utilized by the subsequent Summary process itself, either as a field to be included in a sort (and possibly be counted), or as a field to be totaled. - selecting #TOTAL_SALARY will fulfilled this requirement.

This slideshow will assume the viewer is familiar with the submission and retrieval process of NatQuery. Here we see the resulting data from the Detail query downloaded into the target spreadsheet. With a total of 27 records for the two Employee names. Several of the Employees do live in the same town.

The user has returned to the NatQuery desktop where all the Standard Request slots as empty. Because the user chose to use the Summary Processing option NatQuery will now use the same slot as the original query – if the user clicks Yes to the message box shown here.

Having clicked Yes in the previous message box NatQuery will walk the user through the same screens the user would see with the submission of any query into the ADABAS server. Here we see that the Summary request is in slot one and it is Pending.

The user has clicked the Check Server for Update button and we see that the request is Done and by hovering the mouse over the slot’s information we can see a report for the results of this query. Note that the Program name is Summary Program and the Target is Excel – Summary, and that there are only 24 records written.

Having clicked the Retrieve Requested Output button and gone through the normal screens for that process the user now can see their data in the target spreadsheet. Note that there are two Summarized returns. This means that there are three Employees in Derby with an aggregate Salary of $24,7035 and two Employees in Silver Spring with an aggregate Salary of $26,7200.

NatQuery has “Summarized” the EMPLOYEES who live in DERBY. Note that the Detail query provides one record for each employee and their city. The Summary Process query will provide a total of the like named employees in a specific city. Also, the total of the three separate SMITH employee salaries is reflected as a single amount in the Summary extract. Detail ExtractSummary Extract

Closing or minimizing the Summary spreadsheet, the user is now back on the NatQuery desktop and they may save, modify and save, modify and run, or delete this query.

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