INNOV-7: Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Rakesh Godhani Software Architect

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation2 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Agenda  Business case / challenges  Fundamentals of EasyAsk  BIRT  How EasyAsk brings it all together  The little extras that go a long way  Q & A EasyAsk Ad Hoc Reporting

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation3 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?  Huge capital investment in business data  Few people have access Technical barriers –DB schema –SQL –Query/reporting tools  Time Data – what, where, how to get it, transform it Reports – layout, fonts, headers, footers, subtotals, page numbers, etc. Business case / challenges - Technology

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation4 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Business case / challenges - Complicated  More data – more complex Joins, where clause etc.  IT – Technically savvy Resource & budget constraints Please as many people as possible

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation5 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Business case / challenges - IT  IT (cont.) ‘One report fits many’ approach –Extraneous columns – clutter –Missing columns/values –Requests for follow-on queries  Further delays  All this results in …

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation6 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Business case / challenges - Frustration USER FRUSTRATION

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation7 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Fundamentals Of EasyAsk  Ease of information access to a broader set of users  Lower the technical requirements SQL DB Schema  Talk in a more familiar tongue Business concepts EasyAsk Goals

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation8 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? EasyAsk is Smart  When talking about concepts, EasyAsk figures out: Tables, columns, column values Relationships (joins) Formulas (e.g. age) Grouping Security

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation9 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? EasyAsk Natural Language Ad-Hoc Query Conceptual View Logical View Physical View DBMS Translates Natural Language Questions into SQL English SQL EasyAsk Using a dictionary in which each definition shows how the word relates to the database

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation10 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Sample Interpretation Report Employee Name And Salary Grouped By State City (built-in) Stemmed root of Employees First & Last Names (built-in) Column of Employees (built-in) Column of Employees

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation11 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Generated SQL SELECT PUB."Employees"."State" as "State", PUB."Employees"."City" as "City", PUB."Employees"."First_Name" as "First Name", PUB."Employees"."Last_Name" as "Last Name", "Salary" as "Salary" FROM PUB."Employees" ORDER BY 1, 2

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation12 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Sample2 Interpretation Who buys Dairy But Not Meat Products Cust First & Last Names Cust.CustID = Orders.CustID Value of Category Name (built-in) Value of Category Name Table

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation13 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Generated SQL SELECT PUB."Customers"."Company_Name" as "Company Name", PUB."Customers"."First_Name" as "First Name", PUB."Customers"."Last_Name" as "Last Name" FROM PUB."Customers" WHERE (exists(SELECT * FROM PUB."Products", PUB."Line_Items", PUB."Orders", PUB."Categories" WHERE ("Category_Name"='Dairy') and PUB."Customers"."Cust_Id"=PUB."Orders"."Cust_Id" and PUB."Orders"."Order_Id" = PUB."Line_Items"."Order_Id" and PUB."Products"."Product_Id" = PUB."Line_Items"."Product_Id" and PUB."Categories"."Category_Id" = PUB."Products"."Category_Id") and not exists(SELECT * FROM PUB."Line_Items", PUB."Orders", PUB."Products", PUB."Categories" WHERE ("Category_Name"='Meat') and PUB."Customers"."Cust_Id"=PUB."Orders"."Cust_Id" and PUB."Orders"."Order_Id" = PUB."Line_Items"."Order_Id" and PUB."Products"."Product_Id" = PUB."Line_Items"."Product_Id" and PUB."Categories"."Category_Id" = PUB."Products"."Category_Id"))

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation14 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Supported Languages  Dutch  English  French  German  Italian  Portuguese  Spanish

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation15 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? EasyAsk Review  Masks the complexity of the underlying DBMS  Allows use of accustomed terminology  Enables data access to broader set of users.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation16 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? BIRT  Business Intelligence Reporting Tool Eclipse plug-in – Open source Two Major releases  What is it? Report creation tool Reports can be saved & re-executed Easy to use layout tool – WYSIWYG PDF Generation

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation17 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? BIRT Issues  Suffers same pitfalls as all other reporting tools SQL & Schema knowledge  But it has a query builder Great for simple lists, BUT as more information is required, the SQL gets complicated quickly –Multiple tables, more complex where & group clauses

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation18 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? BIRT Issues (cont.)  Query & report tightly coupled Additional column requires design change Easy-to-add parameters to restrict the where clause, but the column display tends to be fixed.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation19 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? How EasyAsk Brings It All Together  EasyAsk Ad Hoc Reporting – Takes a user question and… Computes the SQL Identifies additional information that is used to DYNAMICALLY create a report design Report design can be effected by templates (report styles) Refreshes the report and presents it to the user

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation20 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? THIS IS THE MAGIC! EACH QUERY RESULTS IN A CUSTOM REPORT

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation21 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Design Information Returned By EasyAsk  EasyAsk Returns SQL English column names and order Grouping information Identifies columns that need totaling

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation22 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? TRANSLATION ENGINE Typical EasyAsk Data Retrieval RETRIEVAL ENGINE DBMS DICTIONARY QUERY SQL + RESULTS ‘percentage of sales by state?’

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation23 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Ad Hoc Report Construction DBMS DICTIONARY QUERY SQL + REPORT TRANSLATION ENGINE REPORT ENGINE REPORT GENERATOR DATA RET & FORMATTING TEMPLATE ENGINE DESIGN REPORT RETRIEVAL ENGINE

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation24 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Sample Report

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation25 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? DEMO

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation26 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? The Little Extras  Templates Can change look & feel to mirror your applications Certain rules must be followed –Styles must have well-known names  Header, footer, defaultgroupheader/footer, groupheaderlevel1 … n, groupfooterlevel1 … n –Must be in /server/reports/templates

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation27 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? The Little Extras (cont.)  Template (cont.) Every custom generated report can have that look & feel  ing  Scheduling

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation28 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Any Query?  Almost any query Not crosstabs or comparisons … yet  Let’s not forget charts either.

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation29 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? In Summary  Removes the technical hurdles (SQL, DB SCHEMA, Reporting Tool)  Reduces the burden on IT  Leverages acquired wealth of information across a broader set of users  Makes life easier for users resets focus to making business decisions provides EASY access to data removes task of acquiring & formatting the information with which to base their decisions. EasyAsk Ad Hoc Reporting

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation30 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Questions?

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation31 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds? Thank you for your time

© 2006 Progress Software Corporation32 INNOV-7 Can you create a report in less than 15 seconds?