At APS we spend most of our time working with various Engineering Database systems such as Intergraph's SmartPlant Suite, providing consulting services for SPI, SPEL, SPPID, SP3D & SPF, and for the last few years we've been putting an unreasonable amount of time into our pet project, APS Reporter/SP (APSR).
In this Blog I'll be discussing some of the cool things we can do with APSR, some development related stuff about features for upcoming releases, info about the various databases we support, and some general Engineering Data Management issues. We're really enthusiastic about APSR and the software development team are proud of what we've achieved, we now want to help as many people as possible get the most from their databases.
Our initial plans were to develop a package that could handle complex reporting requirements, to automatically manage title blocks, to separate report design from document definitions, to support revisioning of documents, to enable revision comparisons, and to seamlessly support multiple project databases from the same system. These were all functions that we need in almost every report we issue, but no existing tool could handle them out of the box. Version 1 implemented most of the planned features, with support for MS-SQL and Oracle databases.
In Version 2.0 we added a new function that could revolutionise reporting for complex relational databases (and not just engineering databases). Virtualisation of the database schema allows us to hide the complexity of large database systems behind a simplified Virtual Model of the database, making reporting (and data extraction) incredibly easy. Currently supporting SPI, SPEL, SPPID & SPF, we plan to extend the Virtualisation to additional systems very soon. Words can't do justice to the power of Schema Virtualisation, you really need to see this in action to fully appreciate just how powerful it is. (Of course, we still support any other MS-SQL or Oracle database in a non-virtualised mode).
Version 3.0 added Sub-Reports to the Banded Reporting System in APSR, and begun laying the ground work for major new features to be added later. With Sub-Reports we can get much more creative with the page layout and solve problems that would be incredibly difficult otherwise (for example SPI Termination Reports with Left & Right hand connections are virtually impossible without Sub-Reports).
Now, in Version 4.0 we've added the most requested feature from clients, reporting from multiple databases. Reports can now combine data from more than one database, such as creating Cable Schedules by combining Cables from SPI & SPEL, or producing an Instrument Index from SPI with additional data from SPPID, or linking SPF data with other corporate databases for consolidated reports. We also threw in multi-query support, and a complete Scripting system (VB & C#).
This new release is the complete app we've been working toward for almost four years and we can finally do all those things we really want to, without hitting brick walls when the tool came up short. With the Virtualisation system we can generate powerful queries to extract data, Scripts can slice & dice the data any which way we need to, the Grid tool provides a simple tabular (think Excel) tool for formatting data, and the powerful Banded Report Designer allows us to produce pixel-perfect deliverable Reports.
Of course, it's not just Reports. We can extract data for users to run adhoc analysis, or export data to other systems, and even schedule reports with automatic email dispatch (great for regular daily or weekly reports).
If you'd like to learn more about APS Reporter/SP, you can check out the web site at APS Reporter/SP, or watch our demo videos at YouTube.
Regards,
Brian
No comments:
Post a Comment