Dynamic AI

338 Pages·2007·9.67 MB·English

Dynamic AI
Server/Enterprise Edition

Documentation version 6
Version 6.
Last updated: December 21, 2007

This document is part of
the documentation for
license protected Dynamic AI TM

Copyrights (C) 1998-2008 CINTAC A/S
All rights reserved
Server/Enterprise Edition Page 3 of 338

Contents
General ............................................................................... 5
Elements in Dynamic AI ...................................................... 7
Features in Dynamic AI ....................................................... 8
Navigating Dynamic AI ....................................................... 8
Databases ..........................................................................17
New Database Connection ................................................. 17
New Dynamic SQL Views ................................................... 27
New Dynamic JOIN Build ................................................... 34
Relation maintenance ....................................................... 36
Explore Databases ........................................................... 47
Creating data bound Reports ............................................. 50
General ...................................................................... 50
List ............................................................................ 58
List options ................................................................. 74
+Columns ................................................................... 98
Form ........................................................................ 104
Form details (Field details) .......................................... 106
Layout ...................................................................... 113
Conditions................................................................. 122
Rules ....................................................................... 129
About ....................................................................... 133
Options .................................................................... 136
Reports ............................................................................ 141
Presentation of Reports menu .......................................... 141
New ............................................................................. 144
Locating reports ............................................................ 159
Report types ................................................................. 165
Working with Reports ..................................................... 171
Tools ................................................................................ 184
Ad-hoc change .............................................................. 184
Design ......................................................................... 190
As new copy .................................................................. 191
Edit View/JOIN .............................................................. 191
Edit Relation ................................................................. 192
Print ............................................................................ 193
Email-Schedule .............................................................. 197
Open reports in Excel ..................................................... 201
Open in word ................................................................ 213
CSV ............................................................................. 215
Fixed Length ................................................................. 215
XML ............................................................................. 215
PDF ............................................................................. 216
Show SQL ..................................................................... 216
Report Documentation .................................................... 216
Contents
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Administration ................................................................. 218
Users ........................................................................... 220
Groups ......................................................................... 232
Dictionary maintenance .................................................. 236
System ........................................................................ 247
Accessing Dynamic AI .................................................... 258
System architecture ....................................................... 261
Global settings and security considerations ........................ 267
Concepts and terminology ............................................... 279
Security Summary ......................................................... 282
Style maintenance ......................................................... 283
Activities ...................................................................... 293
Help ................................................................................. 309
Hide ................................................................................. 312
Installation ...................................................................... 313
Installing Dynamic AI Server/Enterprise Edition ................. 313
Selecting a backup-strategy for Dynamic AI ...................... 323
Upgrading Dynamic AI Server .......................................... 323
Uninstall Dynamic AI Server ............................................ 324
Troubleshooting installation ............................................. 324
Dynamic AI Server security access requirements ................ 333
Files installed by Dynamic AI Server/Enterprise .................. 334

Contents
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General
The Dynamic AI Business Intelligence system from CINTAC A/S makes data
accessible across system boundaries for comprehensive reporting and qualified
decision-making.

Dynamic AI is 100% browser based, thin client, easy to install, learn and expand.
Dynamic AI is “reality-based Business Intelligence”, making BI concepts usable for
mid-sized to large organizations.

Users connect to a central Dynamic AI server to administer, customize and use
Dynamic AI applications. No client-side installations are necessary.

Dynamic AI offers a full range of functionality to create solutions such as

• Reporting
• Business Intelligence
• ERP reporting and controlling
• Human resource management reporting
• Sales- and marketing reporting and analysis
• Data capture applications
• Database front-end solutions in general

In fact, you can build any type of application, where business-users need to interact
with content stored in databases.

Dynamic AI is available in the following editions:
Dynamic AI Personal Edition
Try Dynamic AI with the FREE Personal Edition - easy to download, install and get
up and running. With the optional, included local web-server all you need to start
creating reports, dashboards, forms, etc., is a Windows PC and a browser.
Dynamic AI Desktop Edition
Hot business news - gets cold in seconds! Use Dynamic AI Desktop Edition in your
daily business to get updated relevant reporting, analyzes, etc., in your favorite
browser or in MS Excel.
Dynamic AI Server Edition
Share Dynamic AI reporting with your colleagues, customers, vendors, board
members or other people who need instant access to up-to-date information from
company data-warehouses or databases.

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Distribute drill-out enabled reports using personal, scheduled e-mail reporting.

Get access to reporting from Windows Mobile, Safari or Symbian-compatible PDA's
and mobile phones.
Dynamic AI Enterprise Edition
Scale your Dynamic AI applications to large enterprise or application service
provider (ASP) level.
Typical business-user benefits in Dynamic AI are:
Access all your data: Get the information you need, across systems boundaries.

Easy to use: Intuitive user interface, both for casual and expert users, fast
learning curve, interactive and personalized, integrates with Excel.

Better-informed decisions: Gain a complete view of your information on any
consolidation and detail level for best possible decisions.

Easy to manage and deploy: Thin client browser interface, central server, DBMS
interfaces and granular security.

Fast to develop: Fast, but controlled development and changing.

Supports reality based implementation: Evolve systems from tactical to fully
professional, easily maintain applications without reworking, low TCO.

Data maintenance: Enables direct, but controlled, update of data.

Personal navigation: Each user’s menu is built in a real-time based on user rights
– alternative navigation provided as pull-down menus and short cuts.

Easy Exploration: A wide range of built-in instant drill-down and drill-through
features based on relations in your databases.

Fast overview through graphics: Advanced business graphics in 2 and 3D as
well as light-weight pure HTML graph functionality with build-in drill-down
capabilities.

Final, ready to print reports: Reports in pure HTML and DHTML, with freely
defined standard styles, logotypes etc.

Keeps you informed: Portal pages allow a quick overview on key information from
business activities (dashboard). A personal alarm and informer page combined with
automatically e-mailed alerts keeps you informed even when you are not logged in.

Easy to distribute: Get your reports as an e-mail, in CSV format, or use live Excel
linking to query Dynamic AI directly from Microsoft Excel.

Dynamic AI connects in real-time to a wide range of market leading database
technologies such as: IBM DB2, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, Informix,
Microsoft Access, Pervasive.SQL, Dbase III/IV, Excel, ODBC and OLE-DB compatible
databases in general.

General
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You can connect, explore, modify and customize presentation and information
across any of these databases and combinations thereof – whatever fits your
requirements.

Dynamic AI is not only a very efficient and rapid development environment for
information gathering and distribution. Dynamic AI also offers automatic table
creation and form input and modify functionality. Forms and tables can be freely
designed – directly from the browser.

Full-featured Dynamic AI operates in Internet Explorer 5 or later.
Elements in Dynamic AI
The elements in Dynamic AI include:

• Database connections
• Rights
• Styles
• Reports
Database connections
A low level connection to an external database, such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL
Server, Sybase, MySQL, Microsoft Access etc. An administrator usually defines
connections.

Connections are defined with login information and database driver information.
The “Dynamic AI Administration” guide contains explicit information on how to set
up and administer Connections.
Dynamic AI Rights
Rights are links between users or user groups and Reports and connections. There
are different rights levels such as Owner rights, Administration rights and User
rights. Actual permissions for the User rights level are set as part of the Report
definition.

Rights grant users or user groups access to specific Reports. Other permission
settings in Dynamic AI are the “application permissions” set in the user accounts.
These include access to connection exploration, user management, etc.

Some application level permissions override the rights set on the Report level. For
example, the “read-only user” application permission prevents a user from
modifying data. This setting cannot be bypassed even by explicitly setting write
access on the Report level.

Dynamic AI Reports
The key element a Dynamic AI User will work with is the “Report” Element.

At a high level, a Dynamic AI “Report” is a data bound report design or form.

A Report actually includes the visual composite of a design (freestyle, tabular or
form) combined with style elements and access rights and (usually) a connection to
a particular table or view. In some cases a Report includes other Reports. Thus all
General
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Dynamic AI Elements (connections, styles, rights and other Reports) can be part of
a Dynamic AI Report.

Reports are often represented as a selectable item on a navigation menu.
Features in Dynamic AI
Some of the more prominent of features of Dynamic AI are:

The navigation menu is customized to the individual user.

Dynamic AI verifies each individual user’s rights in connection with tables and forms
that could be updated or altered using underlying databases. The user interface and
data viewed will therefore always be subject to these rights.

In Dynamic AI, information can be cross-referenced across databases, tables, and
more using the built in relation manager. Filtering and relating options are hidden
or shown according to the specific user’s rights.

Reports are established, developed or customized directly from Dynamic AI’s user
interface. Depending on the specific user’s rights, Dynamic AI presents possibilities
for customizing, updating, copying from and deleting Reports.

The user’s language choice is shown in system and function texts. This can be
extended to include individual Report elements such as Field Captions and Field
Descriptions by using the Dynamic AI Dictionary to set language specific properties
on a per table/view basis.

The user’s choice of date and number format is used throughout Dynamic AI for
both input and output. This means users will have a consistent way of entering and
viewing data.

Dynamic AI tailors the functionality and view to the user’s browser type and
version.
Navigating Dynamic AI
The user interface is accessed using a mouse, as in traditional web pages. This
means that one left click activates the underlying button, link, specification, filter,
and so forth.

When the mouse moves over menu items the background color change and for
buttons, functions and menu items the mouse’s arrow changes to a pointing hand.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are available for some functions in Dynamic AI. The table below
defines available keyboard shortcuts and the scope of their operation.

General
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General
Key Description
F11 Enables/Disables full screen view
TAB Moves to next active element
SHIFT + TAB Moves to previous active element
List Edit
Key Description
Page Up Moves cursor 5 lines up
Page Down Moves cursor 5 lines down
Up Moves cursor one row up
Down Moves cursor one row down.
When at the bottom of a list, inserts
a new record below the last record
Left Moves to the previous field
Right Moves to the next field
CTRL + U / CTRL + S Updates changed data, Inserts new
Rows and Deletes rows marked for
deletion.
CTRL + D Marks the current record for
deletion from the database. More
rows can be marked, and deletion
takes place when the Update button
is clicked (or CRTL-U) is pressed
SHIFT + Select fields
(UP/DOWN/LEFT/RIGHT)
CTRL + C Copy selection
CTRL + V Insert copied fields or line values
ALT + DOWN Expand Combo box
ALT + G Undo edits, Refresh report
F2 Edit current field
SHIFT + F2 Edit current field in zoomed window
CTRL + SPACE Select row
SHIFT + SPACE Select column
CTRL + HOME / CTRL + END Move to first / last editable field on
list
HOME / END Move to first/ last editable field on
row
TAB / ENTER Move to next updateable field
SHIFT + TAB Move to previous updateable field
Menus and User Interface
The Dynamic AI user interface automatically adapts to the current task. Depending
on current task, permissions etc, you may see one or more of the following menus
and information areas:

General
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• Presentation Area
• Tool Bar
• Navigation Menu
Presentation Area
The Presentation Area is the main part of the screen. This is where Dynamic AI
reports are presented.

It can be maximized, allowing more room to present data by hiding the Navigation
Menu. It can also be specifically hidden as part of the Report definition.

TIP: Another way of maximizing screen space is by hiding the Menus and Toolbars
of Internet Explorer. This can be toggled by pressing the F11 key on the keyboard.

When you log into Dynamic AI the Presentation Are will be filled with various
information.

At the very top there is a search box used for browsing help and documentation
files.

The box in the upper part of the screen shows animated links to different actions
typical used to administrate, maintain and design reports.

The Box in the lower left of the presentation area holds information regarding the
different versions of Dynamic AI. When you start browsing reports in Dynamic AI
this information will be replaced by a list of browsing history with quick links to
recent reports explored.

In the lower right you will find quick guide to get started with Dynamic AI.
General