Re: USERVision alternative?

>From Al Macintyre AS/436 V4R3 BPCS 405 CD Rel-1
We do Make-to-order, Engineer-to-Order, Repetitive-Order, Job-Shop

We have an interest in having some tool(s) that deliver AS/400 reports to PC 
users, and to the internet ... we have customers who are very interested in 
checking up on what we have recently shipped to them & putting that kind of 
info on a web site secured by each customer is an extremely appealing idea.

We have Monarch & it is great for the extraction of individual reports & data 
into PC applications.  We have used it to e-mail physical inventory & other 
reports to our auditors, and consolidate information on copper content by 
customer part to a PC spread sheet, so that when the international copper 
prices fluctuate we can see what the effect is on our costs for which 
customer parts, and lots of other meaningful tasks.

... my informants tell me that it is not designed for the automatic 
extraction of data, like being a channel to copy Billing info, after Billing 
has completed, to some web site for the above purpose.  Monarch is from Data 
Watch 800-445-3311 ,,, they offer free demos

I suspect that the reason why my collegues could not get Monarch to do what 
they wanted is because we did not buy all the Monarch packages, for example 
Monarch Report Explorer is a PRF browser that plugs into popular PC web 
browsers

Spool/400 to PC & beyond is a recurring topic in the trade press, such as 
AS/400 Magazine July 1999 & News/400 special Summer 1999 issues ... I 
transcribed their respective charts to a list of stuff I think we want & 
which of these vendor products do in fact do that & came to the conclusion 
that we need to be thinking about getting at least two separate packages, 
because on the basis of these trade press reviews, none of them do everything 
that would be helpful to us.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR VENDOR (inspired by Milt Magnus wars)

Does it extract data only from spool files, or is there access to the 
relational data base?
When you run it, are you getting the latest 400 story, or just what came to 
the PC from the 400 when you originally set it up eons ago
What platforms does it extract data from ... S/36 OS/4 version other places 
BPCS might show up on
What PC targets can it get stuff to ... WinTel versions, non-WinTel
Can the report content be cut / pasted / mined 
Type of Terminal Emulation or Client/Server needed within PC connected to 400
Can you get this 400 stuff to the web via twinax (a few products do support 
that)
Type of Web development we will need - Java, intranet, extranet
What kinds of browsers can look at the result - web standards for example
Does this only work for certain PC product targets like Word & Excel or does 
it have global connectivity that ANY PC product can use the material
Does it automatically convert the reports to HTML or does the data have to go 
through another tool to get there
Security wise - type & amount
Makeup of User group(s) to whom web-to-host will be deployed
Ability to setup automatic translation of latest BPCS/400 data into PC or 
web-view
Is the pricing flat or based on number of users (PC "seats" or sessions) or 
the power of the host platform
Do we want data to go in the other direction - such as fax to PC to massaging 
the data to BPCS input bypassing human intervention & what are the security & 
audit trail considerations

THE ABOVE IS NOT A COMPLETE LIST OF QUESTIONS just a starting point to get a 
handle on what is important in our product selection

I have encountered information on several dozen products that do most, but 
not all of the above stuff

Al Macintyre

>  From:    infoservices@medalcraft.com (John Techmeier)
>  The Medalcraft Mint, Inc.
>  BPCS 6.0.04MM    July Cumm(This weekend)
>  AS/400-720    V4R3
>  
>  Yes, there is a customer who uses USERVision! It works okay for our month
>  end sales reports, and those are frustrating enough. Now SSA announces that
>  support will be discontinued and is suggesting either Business Objects'
>  InfoView or Cognos' Impromptu as a replacement. Which, if either, of these
>  has anyone had experience with and prefer over the other? What is involved
>  with the administrative tools necessary to support the products and at what
>  cost? Will I need additional copies for the people who are just going to 
run
>  reports, alias USERVision Player?
>  
>  I have seen comments in the past regarding Crystal Reports. Is this a more
>  logical way to go? Any opinions will be greatly appreciated.


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