Improving the Appearance of Your Reports and Dashboards

By | Tips
Ever present to a client or manager an information dashboard or a key report, only to be crushed by their underwhelming response? Maybe the problem isnโ€™t your data or how well you understood the requirements; maybe you need to understand how to create more attractive reports and dashboards. While you may be a developer not an artist/designer type person, you need to understand at least the basics of design if you want to surprise and excite your customers, clients, or management. Read More

Izenda Reports 6.4: Customizable Dashboard Filters

By | Izenda Reports, Tips
(This is part of a series of posts on the new Izenda Reports 6.4, presently at theย Release Candidate stage.)

Customizable Dashboard Filters

Dashboards now have individual filters which can be customized to your design and function. Just add a customized DashboardFilters control to the Izenda Reports directory and use logic in the code behind page to control its appearance and function. To add customizable dashboard filters a custom user control named DashboardFilters.ascx must be created.ย  If found, this control will be inserted into the dashboard viewer below the toolbar. Read More

Storing TSQL Queries in a Table Without Losing Formatting

By | Tips

Guest post by Jacob Sebastian of Beyond Relational

One of the applications we worked on recently had to deal with storing TSQL queries in a table and executing them based on some business logic. It was not a very complicated project, but the development team had a tough time with the formatting of the queries stored in the table. This was a huge problem when the queries were to be modified.

The Problem

The developer writes a well formatted TSQL code and stores it into the table. Later on when a change request comes, he retrieves the query text from the table and finds that all the formatting is lost. Read More

Izenda Reports 6.4: Deducing Logical Data Joins

By | Izenda Reports, Tips

(This is the start of a series of posts on the new Izenda Reports 6.4, presently at the Release Candidate stage.)

Smart Joining of Data Sources

Ever try to explain what SQL joins are to a user? Izenda in version 6.4 adds a very nice feature that takes the mystery and guesswork – and the calls for tech support – out of situations where users are unsure of which joins in a complicated relationships can be included in a report.

With a few clicks– Izenda Reports deduces the table joining relationships for the user. A new simplified data sources GUI automatically disable data selections that would create nonsensical joins.

You can try Smart Joins against your data by requesting a free trialย of Izenda.

Using Virtual Tables to Simplify SQL-based Data Analysis Without Views

By | Tips
Views are wonderful things in SQL Server.ย They let you simplify your data structures and can enhance performance significantlyย  In previous articles I covered how to create analytical queries and save them as views. As great as views are, there are often situations where changing the database is not an option.ย There may be a process involved before changes may be applied or databases may be in many different locations.ย In some cases, there may be hundreds of individual databases that are too difficult to update. Read More

A Really Easy Way to Analyze and Report Your Salesforce.com Data

By | Tips

So there you are building, running and operating your company via Salesforce.com. Only problem is, you can’t get answers to the questions you have easily, cleanly, and graphically from Salesforce.

If this sounds like you, go grab CopyForce. It’s the Open Source version of Capstorm’s commercial product for copying full or partial Salesforce instances to a relational database. Several target databases are supported out of the box: Microsoft SQL Server, H2, and Oracle. Both incremental and complete copies are supported.

At Izenda, we use this tool to grab our data from Salesforce and use Izenda to define, run and distribute a series of internal reports and dashboards. Give it a try!

Reporting From Multiple Databases

By | For Developers, Tips
We often encounter customers that need to report on data that comes from multiple applications.ย This capability can give business an edge their competitors lack by enabling them to respond instantly based on an integrated view of their business.ย Unfortunately, traditional database configurations and protocols are designed for a bygone world where you buy everything from a single vendor who puts all your data in one place.ย The good news is that there are several low-cost or free options to get all your data together for easy analysis. Read More