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I have a bunch who LOVE EXCEL and not want to work with anything else. So I have to develop tons of reports to get 400 data into a report that is what I call Excel-friendly (minus sign on left side instead of right, drop new page headers, first page column headers give field editing particulars, avoid interlacing where different types of data in vertical juxtaposition, drop subtotals & other breaks).
There's another bunch who have various comfort levels working qith Query/400.For that bunch, I created an on-line document of query techniques ... how to do date math, how to calculate some standard values we use a lot (efficiency, different kinds of averages, sorting by absolute value), identifying queries we already have from which you can plagarize techniques, how LIKE works to search for items that contain key strings & phrases. If I was going to spend more time on this, I might create a library just for queries that contain techniques worth copying. We also have a directory of our queries sorted by the descriptinve name that people have given them, so we can search to find out if we already have a query to perform some need.
Some users are not well equipped to navigate binary math, date math, set theory etc. so there are tools they will never learn how to use effectively or accurately. Such individuals need tools that have been developed specifically for the company's main application packages, many of which already come with some under-utilized data mining tools.
Some users are not comfortable with data mining tools, they just want to use standard programs. To service them, we have modified some standard programs to provide more data mining information than came native ... example our BPCS INV300 shows what customer we making this part for, and if it has any price breaks.
Then we have a hierarchy of owners and auditors who are not on the 400, who want electronic copies of some of our reports. A report with 198 print positions on the 400 is not neccessarily friendly to someone trying to print that on a PC, even with landscape format and further miniaturization.
For IT people, what's important is data integrity, performance, security, decent debug access, capabilities for verification of totals. Most users and managers have other priorities. One thing we do agree on is the importance of a report being readable.
Rob,Although I agree that Query/400 is a nice tool, it can only use the old CQE Query engine. In order to take advantage of the newer SQE you need to use an SQL-based application, like Query Manager or SEQUEL (I'm sure there most be more, but these two are the ones that come to mind right now).As always, of course, it depends on your business needs and resources. Regards, Luis Rodriguez midrange-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:------------------------------ message: 4 date: Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:02:12 -0400 from: rob@xxxxxxxxx subject: Re: i5 data mining tools for users Query/400. The problem is not the tools. It is not the users. It is in the developers. Developers need to create powerful views. What use is it to give the users some slick GUI tool and still expect them to know that you join ECL on ECH and IIM and, to calculate on hand you need to take IOPB+IADJ+IRCT-IISS? When you can create a view that: - joins these files together - Calculates these simple fields like onhand - renames fields into something meaningful ... We still have users that upload data from their PC's to the i5 so that they can analyze it using Query/400. Frankly, it's a great tool. Now, a user like me prefers SQL so that I can use parenthesis, etc. But for a quick and dirty I may fall into query/400 the way some of you may bypass WDSC into SEU for a quick and dirty. Rob Berendt -- Group Dekko Services, LLC Dept 01.073 PO Box 2000 Dock 108 6928N 400E Kendallville, IN 46755 http://www.dekko.com Jerry Draper Sent by: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx 03/30/2007 01:10 AM Please respond to Midrange Systems Technical Discussion To Midrange Systems Technical Discussion cc Fax to Subject i5 data mining tools for users Great. The i5 is storing tons of info in a very coolly designed db but the data seems to be in the domain of IT. Users want access but can't fathom the relationships of the objects. What good tools are there for people (non-pgmrs) to get information from this db? Jerry -- Jerome Draper, Trilobyte Software Systems, since 1976 iSeries, Network, and Connectivity Specialists -- iSeries, LAN/WAN/VPN Representing WinTronix, Synapse, Netopia, HiT, and others ..... (415) 457-3431; www.trilosoft.com Luis Rodriguez IBM Certified Systems Expert eServer i5 iSeries Technical Solutions --------------------------------- Finding fabulous fares is fun.Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains.-- This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@xxxxxxxxxxxx To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: http://lists.midrange.com/mailman/listinfo/midrange-l or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.
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