1. An End-User Perspective On Using NatQuery Building a Datawarehouse www.natworks-inc.com T. 802 485 6112

2. NatQuery is a workstation-based tool that incorporates a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for easy extraction of data from a ADABAS / Natural environment. It then allows automatic integration of this data into common business and ETL tools. This session will demonstrate how to populate a datawarehouse with your ADABAS data. Note this example of NatQuery is being run against ADABAS on Linux in a PC network environment. The following screen shots may differ in your environment however the processing will be similar. The viewer should be aware that the building of this sample datawarehouse request was governed by certain limitations that were pre-defined by our Data Base Administrator.

3. Our user will begin by clicking the “New Query” icon. This opens the “Select Files” window.

4. Our user wishes to populate a datawarehouse with records from the Software AG provided; Employee file. Please notice that in this example there are three files available to the user, a relevant point in later slides.

5. 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 this file. The data from these Fields will be what populates the datawarehouse. The Field names will be the default column “headers” and can be edited later in the submission process.

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

7. NatQuery will now ask the user if they wish to include files that NatQuery knows have a relationship with the Employees file. Note that the “BASIC-Test FILE is now missing from the Select File window. In this step NatQuery will omit files without links to the primary file. This knowledge is configured into NatQuery by the ADABAS Administrator. The user will click Continue because they do not need data from the Vehicles File.

8. The user is now presented with the “Selection Logic” window. Typically, with a datawarehouse request, the user will want to click the “Read All Records” button found in the Selection Mode box.

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

10. NatQuery provides default names for “Program Name”, “Short Description”, and the “Long Description.” The user may modify these id tags. Queries that will be used often or have special meaning may be designated by checking the Favorite box.

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

12. In most cases the user will wish to generate a Cobol File Definition (CFD), as a generated program. This selection allows for easy data manipulation and loading into other business tools, including other platforms. The DSX option is a proprietary generation specific to IBM’s WebSphere Data Integration Suite™. The “Output Handling Option” automatically reflects the users choice of a datawarehousing option.

13. The extracted data will include and be in the order of the fields as listed in 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. Because spaces are not allowed in field names it is advised to put a hyphen between words in the field name.

14. By highlighting “Name” and clicking the “Edit” button the user will be allowed to make the desired change in the Output Field Information window. Notice that the user may also change the Format and Length of the Field in this window.

15. To save the changes recently made the user would click the OK button. To alter the order of the Fields that are to be returned, the user must return to the Query Selected Fields window.

16. NatQuery now tells the user the name and the location of the generated CFD file. The user may alter the File Name and or the File Path.

17. The user is asked to confirm or change the default Output File Name. The File name by default will be the query name for ease of latter identification by the user.

18. 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.

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

20. The user now has the option to immediately execute this query from their PC or have it executed manually. All the necessary objects for the execution of this query are now on the server. Our user has decided to execute this query from their PC.

21. The FTP process has completed and the query is now being processed on the ADABAS server platform. This message box also indicates that the results will be found in Active Request “Slot” 1 when the data retrieval process has completed.

22. The user may now click the “Check Server’ icon to see the progress for this query. If NatQuery is shut down at this point the users query will remain “in the queue” and may be retrieved upon NatQuery’s start up.

23. The query is still “PENDING” and so the user must be patient and wait as the server processes this request. They may build and submit other requests, minimize, or even terminate NatQuery.

24. Clicking the “Check Server for Update” button tells the user if their request is done. By hovering the mouse over the slot’s information bar an additional report for the retrieved data includes; Records Read, Records Accepted, and Records Written.

25. Once the request is “Done” the Retrieve Request Output and the Clear Selected Request buttons will become enabled. Our user has clicked the Retrieve Request Output button and is now being asked to confirm what directory they wish the results to be put into. The user may edit either or both the File name and Directory they wish to save the query results into.

26. This dialog box tells the user that the data has been downloaded to the selected directory.

27. NatQuery now defaults to the Check Server window. In this case we can see that all the slots are open. The user may now wish to check their Scheduled Requests or press OK and be brought back to their open datawarehouse (DWH) query.

28. This query can now be saved, discarded, or modified by the user.

29. By opening an “explorer” window and navigating to the appropriate output Directory, the user will be able to open the downloaded File. To see the output path go to NatQuery’s Administer menu, NatQuery Configuration / Environment Paths tab. In our example the users query was named QRY00010

30. NatQuery has performed some simple transformations to this output file making the data more “user friendly” as well as immediately usable in the designated DWH tool.

31. Using the Explorer tool the user can find the CFD or DSX file. The directory path can be found under NatQuery’s Administer menu / NatQuery Configuration / DWH Options.

32. Using this CFD program in conjunction with the output file, a datawarehouse initiative may be started, appended, or overwritten. For those business tool and ETL tool suites able to read a CFD program the transformation of ADABAS data into their environment will now be easily accomplished.

33. URL: www.natworks-inc.com E-Mail: info@natworks-inc.com 454 South Main Streetwww.natworks-inc.com Northfield, VT 05663 T. 802 485-6112 Simple Ideas with Enormous Potential