Welcome to this Java Break with BASIS. This is
the next of our continuing mini-series of "How
Version 11 Improves Your Bottom Line" Today we'll talk about one of the most exciting
new features that we've added to Barista, our
flagship product for rapid application development of your GUI projects. My name is Nico Spence, I'm the Chairman and
CEO of BASIS International and today I'll be
joined by Sam Vulopas who will be doing some demonstrations of these new features in Barista
and by Paul Yeomans who will tell you more
about how you can take advantage of Barista in your
application code. Let's get started. Our agenda will kick off with a refresher on what
Barista does. We'll talk about the about the new query
definitions. Then we'll have a demonstration of
those query definitions. We'll then talk about the one step export to
DocOut and again we'll have a demonstration of
that in action from within our SQL inquiry engine and therefore
from our new query definition capability. Then I'll hand over to Paul to talk about the
Barista promotion and give you some tips on
how it improves your bottom line. And then we'll take your questions. But let's get
started. Firstly, let's talk about Barista. Barista is BASIS's data dictionary-based
application development framework and runtime
engine. It facilitates your new GUI application
development as well as conversion of existing character
based applications to GUI or your modernization
of any existing GUI applications be they Visual PRO/5 applications or applications
written in another GUI language. Barista's standard framework handles navigation
for you, handles the display, the searching, and
file maintenance. It really does away with a lot of the hassle factor
of creating a graphical code. It interactively links the database to the user and
takes your data and turns it into a business
application. It delivers functional GUI applications on multiple
platforms. So if you're running on a Windows desktop or an Apple Mac desktop, or wish to run
on a Linux desktop. Those are all available as output platforms for your application solution and
they can be run simultaneously. It's a modern look and feel - meets all the GUI
standards for keyboard and mouse navigation
and it has a built-in SQL-based inquiry engine. More of which we will talk about today in the
enhancements. Developers received enormous productivity gains
by using this tool for both initial product
development and more particularly, for future application maintenance and naturally, for future
enhancements to the application...where we
preserve the ability to maintain enhancements through
the upgrade cycle. Users can often self-serve casual reporting
needs via the inquiry engine. And our focus today will be to talk about the
enhancements to that inquiry engine. So, over time time we've received significant
enhancement requests for the inquiry engine. It's
proved to be so useful to any of our Barista developers, that they've
requested more functionality be added... to really take it to almost the point of being a
mini-reporting engine. They wanted access to multiple tables including
'virtual tables'. They want the ability to use stored procedures
to create those virtual tables and join them with
physical tables. They want to apply filters to the result set before
being presented within the inquiry engine. They want to be able to create calculated
columns, derived columns from existing
columns in the tables. They want to be able to total those columns. And they want to be able to sort on multiple
columns. In other words, sort on the first column and then sort of the successive second column
within the first column. And finally, they want to be able to output the
results of that query to a report - dynamically, as
quickly and as efficiently as possible. Well the good news is that in version 11.10
these enhancements are delivered! So let's set the scene for our demonstration. We are going to create custom query of our
data. We are going to link multiple tables to the
query. We are going to create new columns, derive new
columns from existing columns. We are going to
add the query to a form and use it as the default query from a form. We're going to filter the resultant query and
quickly output the result to your favorite
formatted output. We are going to use the new query definition
capability to create this functionality. So without further ado, let me hand over to Sam
Vulopas to take us through the demonstration of
this new functionality. The first Barista enhancement we'll be reviewing
is the new query definition system, a powerful addition to the existing inquiry
capabilities. You can find a query definition form on the
Barista Development menu under Inquiries. Start by entering a Query ID and Description. Enter the primary select table used for the
query. In our case, we will be using the Customer table
from the Barista examples sub-system. Next, select the Query Type... whether it's a Single row selection, Multiple row selection, or View only. For our
query we are going to use a Single row
selection. Select the additional options as needed - Use control value as the default search criteria
on the incoming query. Allow user to move columns. Allow user to define filters Allow output to the Barista document output
system. And Allow copy of the result set to the clipboard. Next, enter the licensing information for your
application. At this point, we can save what we've entered. Our next step is to add the query columns. This can be accomplished one of two ways. First, simply go to the detail portion of the form
and enter the desired columns. The second way, is to access the additional
options menu and select Generate Columns. This will display a list of all columns available on
the primary SQL select table. In this case,
EXM_CUSTOMER. Select the desired columns and press Enter. For
our case, we will be using Sales Year to Date,
Sales Last Year, Customer ID, Phone, Salesperson, and Company. All of the selected columns are returned to the
query definition. You'll notice I selected six columns but it
returned seven. Element definitions contain the
validation data for selected pieces of information in your application. In this case, we know that
Salesperson validates to the Sales Rep table and displays the name. The query definition
system automatically returns both and will
create the JOIN automatically. Our next step is to set the default column
sequence. This can be done by accessing the
additional options menu Set Column Sequence. A list of all columns currently defined on the
query are displayed. To change the sequence select the column, moved it up or down or a double click on the desired column and drag it. The correct sequence is now returned to the
query. Column aliases can also be added to each of
the columns defined in the query. Let's change
the Sales Year to Date to YTD and the Sales Last Year to LY. This will reduce the amount of typing needed for
some of the additional options we will be adding. Let's save our changes. One of the powerful additions to the new query
system is the ability to define calculated columns in your query. We can do that by
clicking on the Column Type and selecting
Calculation. We then need to enter an Element Type that
contains the display attributes for the type of
column we are adding to the query. In this case, I know there is an Element Type
called PCT_VALUE. The Column Alias is PCT. And for the column heading, we're going to call it
% LY. We are adding a column that will calculate the
percent of this year's sales vs. last year. Let's
expand this grid row so we can enter our calculation. The calculation field uses the same syntax
found in the rest of Barista. We simply enclose the columns in brackets. In
our case, the calculation will be the Y To Date, YTD column alias divided by the Last Year column, times 100. We will save that. And while we are at it, let's make a couple other
modifications. Another powerful feature is the
ability to total columns. Let's click on the Sales Year to Date column, expand the record and check Column Total. Barista will now automatically calculate anything
found in that column and present a total row at
the bottom of the query. Let's do the same for Sales Last Year. And let's save our changes. Our next step is to define the SQL select
statement. Simply right click, and select Generate SQL. Barista automatically defines the SQL based on
the data entered in the column detail. You'll notice that it does the JOINs necessary
for the salesperson name. So were are now accessing two tables. This is another powerful enhancement over the
existing inquiry system. You can do unlimited
JOINs, access any number of tables. Once the SQL is completed, you can make any
modification. Simply check the Override
generated SQL syntax and from this point you can edit this to include
any other types of modifications you would
want. Anything such as Stored Procedures, subqueries... anything else can be added to
this. Barista will automatically add the WHERE
and ORDER BY clauses as the user selects or enters their selection
criteria. Let's save our query as it stands. We can now test the completed query definition
by accessing our additional options menu and
selecting Test Query. Barista will compile the definition and display
the query. You'll notice it's got the columns
we've defined including the JOINs necessary to bring up the salesperson's description from the
secondary table, from the EXM_SALESREP
table. In addition, it has the column calculation used
for percent of last year's sales. And if we scroll down, you'll notice we've now got our total row for the Sales YTD and Sales Last Year columns. We can now add our defined query to the
Customer Form. Let's exit our test query and
the query definitions and launch the Barista Form Manager. Let's double-click on EXM_CUSTOMER. By default the EXM_CUSTOMER will use the
standard Barista inquiry system automatically
generated for each form. By going to Inquiry Options, double-clicking and selecting Customer Sales,
we've now replaced that inquiry with the new
defined query. Let's go ahead and run the form. Now when you press the binoculars the newly defined query will display. The same
holds true for column queries. As new queries are defined, you can go to any
of your column attributes and simply go down to
Inquiry Option and select the desired query that you've defined. Let's review the features of the new query
definition system. First, you'll notice hyperlinks are now
underlined. So to display the master record for a
highlighted or hyperlinked piece of data simply click and the form will be displayed. Multiple columns can now be sorted. By clicking
on a column... and then holding Shift and clicking on another
column. You will now get a secondary sort based on the primary and secondary sorting. To reverse the sorting on any of the columns
simply hold Shift, press it again. To break the multiple sorting
simply select on a single column without holding
the Shift key. You can sort on any defined column except for
calculations. You can also sort on the secondary description
pulled from the joined tables. Filtering for the queries is now inline. To access
filters, press the Filters button and the filter panel will display at the bottom half
of the query form. The filter panel is made up of
three sections. The Filter Wizard which let's you build a filter step by step, the Saved Filter, which let's you save the filter
criteria under specific name for later use, and then the column filter grid where you can
manually enter filter information. For instance, I can enter ='BAR', Salesperson equal to BAR.
You will notice that when I hit Enter it automatically does the filtering. I can also do it from this point. I can Clear All, I
can say Equal To BAR press Add, it adds it to the grid and re-does the
query. At this point I can also save the filter, BAR Customers and press Save. You'll notice it's added to the filter drop down list as one of my options. So if I exit this query and re-enter it at a later time I have my BAR Customer filter with all the
criteria automatically loaded. Another filter addition is the Contained In, where I can list a series of values. I can say Is Contained In and let's select
multiple salespersons. Is Contained In BAR, Add, CAU, Add. The IN statement is another way of saying equal
to ABC or DEF. The new query system also contains the same
powerful DocOut features available in the current
Barista inquiry system. Right clicking on the grid and selecting Print will
send this query in its current state, to the
DocOut system. From here we can create any number of output
types. The document output selection form will let us
create PDF, csv, text, xls, and xml files formatted or
unformatted on disk. We can send emails, faxes, upload to Google
Docs and launch the target document once the
processing is completed. We can also send document directly to the
Google Doc repository. Next, we'll review some of additional document
output options available in the new query
system. As you've previously seen, a right click on the
grid and selecting Print will send this query in its current state, to the document output
system. From there, using the document output
selection form, you can create any number of
file types based on the source document. We've also got the ability to directly create a document type without going through the
document output system. Right click on the grid, select Export records and select one of the direct types available. In this case, we will select Tab Delimited Text, Barista generates the Tab Delimited Text file and
immediately launches the application
associated with a .txt file. Selecting a .csv file will launch a comma
separated text file and the application associated with a .csv in this
case, Microsoft excel. However, you will notice the columns are not
correctly aligned and the column types are
incorrect. In that case, we can use a direct to .xls option. This creates and native spreadsheet file, that is launched directly by the application
associated with your .xls extension. You will notice the difference here- we've now got columns with the correct width and the correct format. This spreadsheet can be modified, saved, and
then accessed at any time through the
document inquiry system. And if you'll notice that document number
1010475. We can close excel, launch the Barista document inquiry system, right click on document 1010475, open document and it will launch the application associated with
the .xls file using the file that we've created. This type of direct output linking allows you to
bypass any of the normal DocOut steps and lets you quickly generate the type of output file
required. Thanks Sam. We've spoken quite a bit about the powerful
Barista tool and the enhancements that have
been added to version 11. BASIS has decide to really kick start this thing
and extend a promotion that we had running last
year. Let's take a look at that. To successfully deploy a new application, a
developer's client must run on the Enterprise
Edition of the current BASIS technology and of course, have Barista. Costs for these
requirements include the license upgrade, any
reinstatement fees, the edition exchange, and of course, the cost of Barista itself. The Barista promotion provides developers with
a fast track to deploying their Barista
applications by lowering the initial costs to the customer. The promotion offers a substantial cost savings
by converting the customer's license to an
annual subscription license and waiving fees and the cost of Barista itself. Under the promoton you would receive one year
of the SAM plan which gives you access to the
updates. Of course the Enterprise Edition and the Barista
development tool. BASIS would pay for any reinstatement fees,
the edition exchange, and the cost of Barista
itself. You would be responsible for the BASIS license
upgrade and SAM plan for Barista and the
Enterprise Edition. Since this session is a part of a series of "How
Version 11 Improves Your Bottom Line" let's take
a quick look at some of the ways that the Barista enhancements in version 11 improve
your bottom line. First of all, we've shown you the new custom
query definitions with their ability to access
multiple tables, add new columns, deriving new columns, adding queries to forms,
and the query interface to the power of DocOut. It also eliminates the reliance on third party
utilities. We've touched on that several times -
be they fax, email, archiving, or the Google Doc interface. That is all built-in. The productivity that Barista can bring into your
development office provides you with an
opportunity to reduce your application backlog. Thereby, you are gaining productivity. Power users can be taught to use the tool to
design and format some of their basic query
requirements. The bottom lines for both the end user and the
developer can be improved through some of
these efficiencies. You are able to serve more customers, more
productively without hiring or training any new
staff. By empowering end users with some of these
features and functions that they can do at their
end, you are also going to have the opportunity to
improve customer satisfaction with your project
work. So in summary of today's session, we created a
custom query, and we were able to all of the following things
with linking tables, new columns, we added the
query to a form, we were able to filter that query, we were able to sort on multiple columns. And
then of course, having done all that, we can
quickly output the result to any number of dfferent output types. We provided on the front end a Barista refresher
just to bring you back and up-to-date as to what
Barista is and some of its basic functions. Then we looked at the new query definitons
which is one of the key features that has been
included in version 11.1 Then we also looked at the one-step export to
DocOut A simple little bridge that we built in there that
will save time and build efficiencies for the
users. We talked about the Barista promotion. And then we spoke briefly about how all of these
features can improve your bottom line. There are several different paths that you can
take to get your hands on the Barista
application tool and get busy with your next application. For existing licenses, you can purchase Barista
and add it to your existing BASIS license. Or you can convert an existing license through
the promo, to a rental or annual subscription
model. For new licenses, we offer Barista up as a rental
in the form of software as a service. We also have a cloud offering at bbjcloud.com
which includes Barista. Lastly, I'd have you consider the ERP solution,
AddonSoftware. AddonSoftware is available as a cloud offering,
as a rental, and as an outright purchase. Lot's of different ways to go depending on what
you and your client needs.