BI Portal V2.4.7 Release

Detail Description:
1. Unknown Member Mapping – The Map has been enhanced to allow the user to create a mapping between an Unknown Member and map region. If a selected member cannot be shown on the map, it is added to the "Unknown Members" grid. The user can click unknown member and from the context menu, select which region of the map will show the total for this member. This allows for all unknown members to be resolved to different regions of the map. Once resolved, the unknown member will disappear from the list. The user can right-click on a mapped region and delete the mapping from the context menu. The mapping is stored as a part of the report definition and is specific to a given map. Other enhancement to the match algorithms have also been made; Member Unique Name, Caption and Value are compared against the Map Region Short and Long Names for a match.



2. Map Markers have been added as a feature. The user can right-click anywhere on the map and add a marker from the context menu. Once a marker is added, it can be left-clicked and repositioned, or right-click and edited or deleted. The markers definition is stored with the report and is specific for a given map. Markers are supported both on File and GIS-based maps.



3. Request Timeout Options has been added to allow the administrator to control for how long the server can process a given request. The feature is highly desirable for deployments with high amount of users. If a given request is too expensive and cannot be completed within reasonable time, it will be cancelled by the server and the user will be notified with a friendly message. SSAS will start refusing new requests once the Maximum Memory threshold is reached or/and there are no worker threads in the queue. This condition can occur if multiple expensive statements are submitted at the same time. This feature targets specifically this situation and attempt to resolve it by controlling the time a server can spend on a given requests thus allowing for better sharing of server resources among its users. This option can be disabled by the site administrator in the application configuration file ("RequestTimeoutInSeconds" and "LockRequestTimeout") so the end user cannot change it. This is the counterpart option of what the ESS product, Companion for MS Analysis Server, offers in the Resource Governor, which allows the server to pro-actively cancel long-running request coming from any applications.
4. SSAS Actions support has been enhanced. If an external application is subscribed to an "OnAction" event, then the event will be not by handled internally and will be simply forwarded to the hosting app. If there are no event subscribers, the event will be handled as follow:
   1. For HTML Actions, the content will be displayed in a popup window;
   2. For Url/Report Actions, the web link will be opened in a new browser window;
   3. For Dataset Actions, the MDX statement will be executed against the SSAS server and the returned dataset will be displayed in a popup window;
   4. For Statement Actions, the Action Application configuration option will be used as an OLEDB connection strings and using ADO and COM, the application will attempt to connect the datasource and retrieve a resultset, which will be displayed as a table in a popup window;
   5. For Proprietary Actions, the Action Application configuration option will be used to detect the application needed for displaying the content, the Action Expression will be used as a URL for downloading the content and displaying it in the selected application. This option allows for integrating external binary data into the cube. For example, instead of increasing the cube size by embedding imagery data and reprocessing it on every update, the cube designer can embed URL links inside the Member Action and post the images on a URL. When the user wants to view the image (i.e. Invoice, Bank Check, etc), the application will fetch the image from the URL and display it as a floating window. The following file formats are handled by the application: PNG, JPEG/JPG, multi-page TIF/TIFF, GIF, BMP, WMA, WMV, MP3, XAML.
   
   
   
5. The Filter Dialog has two enhancements: 1) Measure range is provided so the user can narrow down the search for members; the option is activated when the "Use Context Filter" checkbox is selected. The measure, used for the range, can be changed from the combo box. Once the measure range is set, the user can expand the Parent in the Browse Tree or do a Search. If no members are found, the user can use the "Reset Tree" button to restart the search and rebuild the browse tree; 2) The second enhancement is the "Inverse Selection" option in the top right corner. It allows the user select only the members that need to be excluded.



6. The software can be fully localized in Spanish and in Portuguese. The site administrator can force a specific locale or the software will pick the default one for the given user. If the cube metadata and data is also translated, the UI and data will be completely displayed in a different language. For a demo in Spanish: http://demoserver.entsoftsol.com/biportal/Spanish.htm The software supports dynamic switching of locales based on the user locale. This allows multiple concurrent users from different countries to natively view the application and the multidimensional data.



7. Miscellaneous enhancements have been added to the application:
   1. A green top-left green corner in a cell indicates that there are available Actions for this cell; this eliminates the need for the user to click on every cell to discover if there are any Actions;
   2. The Form-based-Authentication BI Portal has been enhanced to compress data when used in out-of-browser or in-browser with ClientHTTP stack.
   3. The "Non Empty" MDX options can be controlled from a new Toolbar option. This simplifies the UI for eliminating empty rows and columns.
   4. The "Sessionless" option, used for network load balancing (NLB) solutions without server affinity, can be locked in the UI by the administrator.
   5. Error messages have been improved to be more user friendly. Error handling retry logic has also been enhanced for unreliable networks.
   6. The Visual Aid components (i.e. Grid, Charts, Maps) have been enhanced to minimize the number of requests and UI redraws. This results in a faster client application, better UI experience and more scalable SSAS server.
   7. Various reported issues have been fixed.

BI Portal V2.4.6 Release

The new version contains the following changes:

• The Dimension Explorer is a new feature and it's the counterpart of the Measure Explorer (Former "Multi-Level Pie"). It allows the user to pick up a dimension and explore its members by drilling up and down the levels. Up to three measures can be used at a time during the analysis. The first measure is used for the size of the spheres so the highest and lowest values can be visualized quickly. Note: negative and positive values are sized independently resulting in the highest and lowest values being the largest spheres… The second measure is used for sphere coloring. Negative values are in Red; Positive in Green. The values are ranked and the color of the sphere is brightened or darkened based on its rank amongst the peers. The third measure is used to define the length of the connecting arrows between the parent and its children. The higher the value, the longer the connecting arrow. Here is a sample analysis: three measures ("Gross Profit", "Sales Amount", "Discount Amount") are used for analyzing Geography (see snapshot DimExplorer.png below). The member: "United States" is selected to be the parent and all its States are shown as children. The size of the children spheres indicate where the most profit is made(in Green) or lost(in Red). The brightness of the color indicates how much sales it took to generate the Profit; the darker the color the higher the sales. The length of the connecting yellow arrow indicates the discount amount that was given to generate the Profit. This combination allows the user to quickly spot that "Washington" and "Texas" made the highest profits with the highest sales and one of the highest discounts; while "California" even though it has the highest discount and one of the highest sales, it has the highest loses. The user can click on the parent or one of the children to navigate up and down the hierarchy. Several options have been provided for formatting the visual aid: captions and values can be shown or hidden, font sizes can be changed, magnifying glass can be used for visualizing busy graphs, dragging and zooming is also available. Note: The Measure explorer provides similar functionality but it allows the user to analyze a measure and break it down by different dimensions.


• The Magnifying Glass is a new feature that have been added to the Dimension and Measure Explorers. The user can select it under "Options" and upon clicking on the graph, a 4x magnifying glass will be displayed. This simplifies the interaction with the visual aid since the user can still see the "whole picture" while being able to zoom individual areas.


• Several features have been added to enhance the dashboard capabilities of the application. The user can click on a grid cell and select to show statistical information as a chart, gauge and/or text summary in a floating window. The user can also "pin" or "unpin" a floating window to the new tab canvas, called Dashboard. Each of the tabs (i.e. Chart, Map, 3D Explorer, Heat Map, etc) can also be pinned or unpinned so they can be moved around, sized and positioned independently.


• The Network and Server Performance Monitors have been added so the user can visualize the network bandwidth consumption (unique feature) of the application as well as how busy the server currently is . Note: The features can be used to also analyze how many cell calculations are generated by a given query. The user can also click on the PerfMon Monitor counters and visualize the hardware configuration of the server component. For example, clicking on the CPU will display its hardware configuration.


• Tree Context Menus have been added so without drag-n-drop, the user can added objects to Rows, Columns, Filters and Auto-Filters.


• Dynamic Filters is a new feature that allows filtering information to be passed into the report via the Query String. This allows the end user to customize a single report for multiple purposes. For example, the report "Sales" can be published with different web links. The different links can provide different filters so when the report is opened it can display different data (i.e. East, Central, West Coast Sales) based on the passed-in filter. This feature simplifies reporting and eliminates redundant reports and efforts.
• Series Color Assignment is a new feature that allows the end user to map colors to members being charted . The selection is persisted with the report. This feature may be needed if there is a requirement for a given member/tuple to be displayed with as a specific color on the Chart.


• Several other minor enhancements have been made: 1) 10x Chart Zooming has been added for cases where charted values are closed to each other or/and there are too many of them ; 2) Forecasting Time function has been added to the cell context menu when a time dimension is referenced on Rows (see snapshot Forecasting.png below); 3) SQL Report storage has been enhanced to support different media files. 4) Internet Custom Authorization module has been enhanced with error handling, member access list caching, new configurable options, and more.


• Several reported issues have also been fixed.

BI Portal V2.4.5 Release

The new version contains the following changes:

• We are proud to announce a new invention that will allow the World to explore and visualize the multi-dimensional data in 3D. The Silverlight BI Portal has a new feature called: "3D Explorer". The Multi-Dimensional Expression(MDX) syntax allows dimensions to be placed on different Axis. The new feature uses the native format of the multi-dimensional data to place different dimensions on Axis X, Y and Z, and visualize the data as a Cube. The new visualization can look like a star cluster, showing dark areas for future opportunities, or as complex molecules, indicating the interactions between dimensions and measures. The feature is fully integrated will existing features so the user can leverage his/her knowledge of the application. Existing Filters, Auto/Instant-Filters and Measure filters work in tandem with the 3D Explorer. For example, the user can play the Auto-Filter, and the Cube will keep automatically changing, based on the incoming data. The cube displays the selected measures as Spheres, which sizes or/and opacities/transparencies can be based on the measure value weight as a percentage of Total. This allows the user to quickly focus on interesting parts of the multi-dimensional subspace/cube. Display of multiple measures is fully support as spheres are stacked on top of each other based on their size. There is also an option that allows the opacity of the sphere to be based on one measure while its size is based on another measure. The user can rotate at the cube in any direction as well as zoom it at different levels. Axis labels and measure values can also be displayed for better comprehension of the data; tooltips are also available since it is easy to get lost in Space. Sphere coloring is coded for positive and negative values. The user can click on any Sphere/value and easily drill and up and down the selected-hierarchy levels. The state of 3D Explorer is saved as part of the report. This feature is unique to our product and is not present in any other products worldwide. Here are some sample snapshots.
  
  
   
• Another new feature is the Decomposition Multi-Level Pie. This new visualization aid allows the user to drill down from one level to another and decompose the selected measures into its constituent pieces. Each next level shows in the same color the children of a given parent. For example: "the Countries slices for Year 2003" will be shown in light blue. There is also a "following pointer with a path" in yellow. When the user move the mouse to the outer levels, all the parent slices will be highlighted in yellow so it's easier for the user to trace the path of getting to the selected slice. Caption for each level and slice contribution values can be optionally displayed. The user can also remove a given level, make it first or last, or add new levels. The feature is fully integrated with the existing dimension and measure filtering so existing settings do not have to be recreating when analyzing the data. For example, the user can filter the top members based on the selected measure and then use the auto-filter to automatically switch between filtered members. Tooltips are available everywhere. The Measures are picked from the existing user selections. Calculated and regular measures are fully supported ; the user can switch between them via a combo box. This feature is another great unique addition to the Silverlight Business Intelligence Portal.
  
  
• The GIS Map feature has been enhanced with a new compression algorithm, resulting in a 50%-80% reduction of the data between transferred over the network. Three new configuration options have also been added to the web.config file of the server web application. The first option allows the administrator to control, which algorithm is being used. If "RetrunSqlBytes=1", then the server will return the raw SQL geometry/geography bytes to the client; this will push the data processing to the client, resulting in a more scalable server. This option is suitable for high-bandwidth network environments. If the option is set to "0", then the high-compression algorithm is invoked. It will place more processing on the server but it will save on the bandwidth network utilization since less data will be transmitted. This setting is suitable for low-bandwidth network environments. The other two options allow the administrator to control how much data is being sent over the network when the network-compression algorithm is in effect (i.e. "ReturnSqlBytes=0"). When the GIS/custom geometry/ data is pre-processed on the server, shapes and points will be filtered out based on these settings. The "MinSqlPoints" will filter shapes/polygons that contain at least that many points. The "SkipSqlPoints" will sample the shape and pick every N-th point from it. This allows the administrator to throttle between network bandwidth usage and shape rendering precision. For example: a complete GIS rendering of South America with all the countries is about 78Mbs. The new compression algorithm drops it to about 26Mbs. The new configuration options can drop the size down to 0.5Mb. The software is also enhanced to dynamically change the options as the user drill-down to lower levels. For example: due to the volume of GIS data at the South America Countries level, the rendering precision can be much lower than at the Municipality Level of Rio. This allows for optimal user experience with minimum waiting times.

       <appSettings>
              <add key="ReturnSqlBytes" value="0"/>
              <add key="MinSqlPoints" value="1000"/>
              <add key="SkipSqlPoints" value="20"/>
       </appSettings>

Note: As a part of the BI Portal, Enterprise Software Solutions offer a GIS MS SQL 2008 database that covers each country in the world down to the counties/municipalities level (with some exceptions). Both MS Sql 2008 Geometry and Geography data types are supported. Here is a sample of high-res snapshot at a high-zoom level of Key West in US using the GIS database.

New Release v2.4 Auto and Instant Filters have been added

December, 21 2010
We are pleased to announce the availability of version 2.4 of the BI Portal. The following enhancement have been made:

• Filters have been enhanced to include the full hierarchy name of each member.
• The Data Export to Excel now includes the filters with the full names of the selected members.
• Auto/Instant Filter is a new feature.It allows the user drag and drop Dimensions, Hierarchy or/and Levels, and use them to instantly filter the result set. For example: if Geography and Promotion are selected, the user can click on "Germany" and "Reseller", and filter the result set based on this selection; then the user can click on "France" and instantly see the new results. The control allows for Drill Down and Drill Up functionality. The user can click on the drill down arrow next to "United States" and go down to the States Level or click the drill up arrow and move to the parent level. Multiple members can be selected at a time from each filter. Pressing the "Ctrl" or the "Shift" keys allows for familiar multi-member range and individual selections. The control provides tool tips for each UI element; it allows the result set to either user a scroll bar or arrows to move between pages. There is also a "Play" button that allows the automated enumeration of the selected member and the associated results. The user can simple select the desired members for the filter, click on the Play button and sit back and watch the numbers as they automatically change. The Play interval can be adjusted via the UI; the gird with the selected filters can be also hidden to free up space. The Auto Filters are positioned at the bottom of the screen so the user can navigate between the different visual aids while being able to change the filter selection. This new type of filters works in addition to the existing filters, which allows for maximum flexibility. See attached screenshot.

Version 2.3 of the BI Portal is now available. The new version contains the following enhancements:

November, 29 2010

• A commonly requested functionality is the use of existing filters for filtering to members for a new filter.  For example: California is selected as a Geography Filter and a new filter "Projects" is currently created.    Only Projects in California should be displayed, thus improving the user experience while lowering the amount of data requested.  There is a new checkbox "Use Context Filter" along with a combo box with a list of Measures (DefaultMeasure being the default).  Selecting this option and a measure will filter the displayed members for the given Dimension Hierarchy.  In the example above, the user can select the measure "Sold Project Count" as an indicator of what Projects are related to the selected state.  Other filters are also participating in the "Context Filtering". For example, if "Year 2009 and 2010" are present on the Time Filter, then only NonEmpty "Sold Projects Count" for these years and the state of California will be used for filtering the current Projects member list. See snapshot.
• It is common to place side-by-side Measures that have different scale. For example: "Total Sales"  will be in millions while "Profit Margin" will be in thousands.   One option is to chart the two measures on different Y-Axis. Another option is to use an accelerated Y-Axis range that can accommodate both measure scales.  So instead of using a linear/proportional Y-Axis that goes from 0 to million with equal intervals, which will cause the Profit Margin values to be disproportional compared to Total Sales, the Y-Axis uses accelerated/logarithmic step. This BI Portal supports this feature via Logarithmic Charts. Two new options have been added to the chart configuration panel: 1) "Logarithmic" indicates that the Y-Axis range should have an accelerated step. 2) "Logarithm Base" specifies the acceleration step. This feature supports only positive values so if the data sets contain negative values, it will be automatically disabled; the Tool tip on the label indicates this detail.  Both Y-Axis are affected by these options.   See snapshot.
• Pareto" charts are commonly used for 80/20 analysis.   For detail explanation see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_chart In addition to Time-based Running Totals, the BI Portal now supports non-time-based Running Totals, which allows the creation of Pareto Charts.  The user can click on a cell and from the popup context menu, the user can select a Running total for the selected measure series. Both percentage-based and actual values RT can be used for the new calculated measure. Sorted sets are also fully supported as well as multiple hierarchy levels with running totals for the siblings at each level. (Note: By default, the BI Portal charts ONLY the innermost tuple levels.) For example: the "Reseller Sales" measure for each geography is selected and the running Total in % is also added. The user can sort the "Reseller Sales" values in descending order and observe the gradual increase in running total %. This is a feature that requires custom advance MDX for creating the Totals. See attached snapshot.

The BI Portal have been enhanced with the following new features:

November, 11 2010

• The user has the option to display values in the grid as Barcodes and then print them. 4 Bar-coding formats are currently supported: Codabar, Code 39, Code 128 and Interleaved 2 of 5. Here is a sample snapshot.
• Support has been added for using one measure values for color transparency for other measures values. For example: profit margin % can highlight sales and product cost values. Multiple series are also supported. For example: Profit Margin values for 2002, 2003, and 2004 are applied to Product Sales for 2002, 2003 and 2004 correspondingly. The feature works for both Grid values and Chart elements. Here is a sample snapshot.
• Filtering has been enhanced to take into account the current content. For example: if Geography is filtered on California and a new filter is being created on Product Categories, only those that have sales in California will be displayed in the selection. This simplifies the building of filters over large amounts of data.
• Data Exporting to Excel and PDF has been enhanced so that pagination can be used for optimal response and rendering times while the export operation will include the complete data set.
• Silverlight Report Server (RS) Companion has been added to the BI Portal so that the user can connect and administer different SSRS servers from within the Portal as well as Design, Create, Format and Publish SSRS reports. See update on full feature description of the new Silverlight RS Companion.
• Several reported issues have been fixed. Certain tasks has also been moved to background processing for better user experience.

Beta availability of the Silverlight Report Server Companion (RSC)

November, 09 2010

We are pleased to announce the Beta availability of the Silverlight Report Server Companion (RSC). The application offers all the same functionality as the MS Report Manager and Viewer. In addition it allows unique on-line web report design and publishing. The user can take advantage of the mouse drag-and-drop capabilities in order to explore different data sources, design reports, administer MS SSRS and much more. The application uses the MS Report Server Web Service Interface. It does not require additional tiers or software. It connects to existing SSRS deployments. The identity of the end user is preserved since the RSC communicate directly with the SSRS. It is a true "cloud computing" application since it can connect to any URL endpoints in the world over HTTP. There are no bottlenecks or scalability issues with this architecture since every new client machines adds more resources to the overall solution. The application Runs on all major Web browsers, including Firefox, IE, Chrome, and Mac. The RSC can be used as a standalone deployment, or as a control inside another Silverlight application or as web part for SharePoint site. The application takes advantage of Silverlight 4.0 platform and can run both inside the browser or as an Out-of-Browser application. The administrator does not have to worry about deploying, patching or supporting this solution since it is a web download and is self-updating. Here is a short list of supported:

• Web-based report design, deployment and editing using the mouse drag and drop
• Support for MS SQL, MS SSAS and Oracle
• "Explorable" data sources allows for the user to visualize the different objects inside the data source and drag them to create the report.
• Chart design and formatting
• Multi-Level Grouping and Sorting
• Traffic compression for faster response times
• Native Silverlight SSRS report viewing and printing
• Out-Of-Browser deployments
• Tight integration with SSRS and SharePoint-like document management and previewing.
• Report skinning with lots of formatting options
• "QuickProcs"(tm) features for single drag-n-drop report creation, including parameters and their user-selectable values.
• Snapshot and Subscription administration
• System settings, Tasks, Roles, and Schedules administration
• Reports Caching and Security administration
• Datasource definition, security and object exploration
• Folder management and security
• Report Drillthroughs and web Links in design and navigation
• Export to PDF, Tiff, CS, Word, Excel, XAML
• Report Parameters configuration and administration
• Cascading Parameters
• Multi-page TIFF, JPEG, PNG, BMP and GIF image viewing
• SharePoint support and URL copying and embedding
• Cross-browser compatibility and support for Windows and Macintosh
• Extensible features for third-party plug-ins
• Datasource requiring user-entered credentials
• HTTPS deployment
• Connectivity to any "Cloud" SSRS endpoints

View Demo

Silverlight BI Companion has been enhanced

September, 20 2010

• The SSRS Xaml Extension now supports Expands/Toggles and Document maps. These features are available both in SQL 2005 and SQL 2008+ version. The SSRS Silverlight Report Viewer has been enhanced to support wire/GZIP compression in both out-of-browser/ClientHTTP/ and in-browser/BrowserHTTP/ modes; this results in faster report retrieval and rendering. The viewer has also been enhanced to support multiple-interrelated cascading parameters.
• The BI Portal Dashboard creator now supports natively multi-image TIFF files. The rendering is client-side only. The user can drag and drop an item on the report tree and use it for viewing or dashboard creation.
• The Silverlight GIS Maps now support "Shapefile" viewing. The user can open local files directly in maps and be able to view and format the display options. The rendering is client-side only; the resulting map is fully interactive.
• The Silverlight Maps have been optimized by moving the SQL 2008 Geometry conversion logic to the client. The data is transferred directly in a binary format to the client where it is converted to Silverlight geometry shapes and rendered. This results in less overhead on the server, faster data transfer times and faster rendering due to less serialization of large amounts of geometry data. The Maps are also enhanced to utilize the WF GZIP wire compression, which is not supported by default by Silverlight. The maps feature also takes advantage of the local cache. Once a map is downloaded, it is reused after that, resulting in very fast map rendering times and much lower bandwidth utilization. The user is prompted when additional storage for cache is needed. The local cache can be cleared at any time with a click of a button.
• The Silverlight charts have been updated to support the new chart types: Pyramid, Polar, Radar, and Smooth Line. There is a new "Sampling Threshold" option which can be used for faster rendering of charts with large volumes of data.
• The SQL 2008 GIS database has been normalized in a parent-child hierarchical structure. This allows the user to drill up and down using different detail levels. The selection of maps and their attribute is dynamic based on the user UI choices.
• RSA Asymmetrical encryption has been added to the Silverlight BI library.
• A Filter Summary element has been added at the bottom of the Silverlight OLAP browser so the user can easily identify the context of the report.
• Printing has been enhanced to support complex grids with large amounts of data.
• The Property Explorer is a unique feature that takes advantage of the Silverlight PivotViewer control concept. It allows the BI analyst to explore Properties in SSAS, which until now, are of little use. All the properties plus selected measures are placed on a grid, where they can be filtered or/and grouped by. This allows the user to easily spot trends and extract knowledge from the available data. Questions such as: "Is a salary employee more productive than an hourly-based one?" or "Are red shirts more sold in the Sothern States", can be easily answered.
• Multiple code defects have been fixed.

Silverlight BI Companion has been enhanced

September, 20 2010

Silverlight Business Intelligence Companion has been enhanced with a new feature called Properties Explorer. Select a Hierarchy and Level, and start exploring the level's properties. Sort, GroupBy, Zoom and Number of Displayed nodes make it easy to use. Show tooltips will show all o the level's properties while mouse over it. Properties Explorer is yet another unique feature to the Silverlight Business Intelligence Companion, making the most feature-full Silverlight cube browser on the market. VIEW DEMO

BI Companion fixes

September, 02 2010

The 09/02/10 contains the following enhancements and fixes: a) Chart Bug fix - if the user select "polar" or "radar" chart types and then goes back to another type (i.e. "Column"), the previous chart type will not clear. b) Multi-frame Tiff support has been expanded for viewing from the Report tree (once the tiff is dragged from the file system and dropped on the tree, it will be added) or used in a Dashboard. c) Filter summary box has been added at the bottom of the cube browser. d) Minor bug fixes Download from this link http://demoserver.entsoftsol.com/biportal/clientbin/silverlightbi.xap and overwrite the local deployment xap file. Make sure that the active browser sessions are closed and reopened.

NEW SSRS XAML Extensions

August, 31 2010

The new SSRS Xaml Extension v1.34 has added support for expanding items so the user can toggle the visibility of items by using the "+" and "-" icons inside other items. Support for actions on Charts, Images and Gauges has also been added so the user can jump to a URL or another report by clicking on visual elements. The updated demo version is available HERE. The "Company Sales 2008" report demonstrates the new expand feature. The "Product Line Sales 2008" report demonstrates the drill down capabilities using Charts.

New features for Silverlight BI Portal

June, 15 2010

Stuck on an airplane or out of network range - no problem. Bring your data with you with our support for Local Cubes. There is a new button that allows you to export your currently selected data and store it locally as a file. Later on, you can open this file from within the Silverlight BI Portal and continue analyzing your data with the already familiar user interface. The Local Cube export functionality supports both NT and Web-based security. All the existing features are available for Local Cube Browsing. Measure and Dimension filtering is fully supported. The charts have also been enhanced with a marker that displays the highlighted values as well as to what series and members they belong.

Companion for MS Analysis Server - Latest fixes and updates:

May, 12 2010

• Details Viewing of Event Log messages has been added.

• New Service Config option "Cache Warmer Seconds Between Queries" - this is throttling option that forces the Cache Warmer to slow down with time between requests. This allows the server to service other requests while warming the cache; this should be used when the Cache Warmer pushes the CPU to 100% with a lot of heavy requests. The default value is "0" - i.e. no waiting between requests.

• New Service Config option "Event Log Collection Enabled" - this disables the event log parsing and processing, which can cause a spike in the CPU. Disabling this feature will only impact viewing historical/archived events; the "Analysis Server Log" Grid under "Log Viewer" will not display any data.

• The "Help File" is synchronized with the application. Each node has a Help chapter; Pressing F1 while on a node (or Right-click->Help) will open the correct Help topic. Currently, we are writing the Help topics; the final version of the Help file can be distributed independently from the app.

• MDX Analyzer has been enhanced with some features. For example: Non-default attribute member display for a given query.

• Best Practices Checker has been enhanced to include additional checks: For example: Missing User-Defined Hierarchy Relationship checks that are a common reason for slow performance.

• Minor bug fixes/error handling/ in the UI for cases when invalid data comes from SSAS.

"XAML Rendering Extension for Microsoft SSRS" has been released for Beta testing

October, 23 2009 The product is working under SQL 2005 version and soon will be supporting SQL 2008. The product is an extension for MS Reporting Services that allows existing reports to be rendered as XAML. The output can be easily displayed in WPF or Silverlight applications. Existing reports continue to work without any changes.

The solution comes in three components:

• The first one is the extension that is installed in SSRS
• The second component is a custom control that replaces the Report Viewer. The control can be easily embedded in to any WPF and Silverlight applications. Its simple interfaces make the integration a breeze. The control's only required input is the path of the report to be displayed. The viewer supports features such as: parameters inputs, column sorting, multi-column sorting, pagination, printing, report drillthrus, URL links, go-to-previous-report, refreshing, mouse-wheel intelligent zooming, exporting, and more
• The third component is a sample application with free source code that demonstrates how to embed and use the Report Viewer. The applciation also demonstrates how to browse on-demand the SSRS folders and reports

The extension currently released for SQL 2005. The beta SQL 2008 version is currently in beta and is expected to RTM in the next couple of months. Supported Features:

• Parameter inputs including multi-value support and cascading
• Column sorting including multi-column sorting (hold Shift-key down)
• Pagination with first, previous, next, last buttons and direct jump-to-page input
• Full support for Printing using SSRS controls
• Report Drillthrus with parameter passing and "Go Back" functionality
• Url links navigation
• Out-of-browser support in Silverlight
• Report Refreshing
• Mouse-wheel intelligent zooming
• Report Exporting to local files in all SSRS supported extensions
• Browsing in other rendering formats
• SQL 2005 support
• SQL 2008 Beat support
• Replacement for the default Report Viewer but with XAML rendering support
• Themes and customization
• Rich Report Viewer object model
• Cancel Last Request

Business Intelligence Suite V2.5 release

October, 5 2009 The build includes the following improvement:

1. BIC
   • new filtering capabilities – the former 2 different dialogs (Search & Select) are combined into new one (Filter dialog), improved functionality, fixed some bugs;
   • in filter dial box, all filters history selections are remembered and can be selected or unselected;
   • in filter dial box, dimensions can be chosen from the Search and from the Select tabs and be applied simultaneously;
   • filter window can remain on top while applying filter changes;
   • The software will honor the "InstanceSelection" setting for a given attribute. If the setting is "FilteredList" and the given attribute hierarchy is NOT filtered, then the software will prompt the user whether to proceed or not. If the setting is "MandatoryFilter" and the attribute hierarchy is NOT filtered, the software will NOT allow the end user to drop the item before filtering it. This features assures that attributes with large number of members will not be browsed unless a filter is applied first. The cube designer has the control over which attributes need to be filtered before being browsed.
   • frozen column and row headers in the report data table;
   • improved performance when rendering html elements in data table;
   • added optional showing of properties as a popup tooltip over the column and row header cells of the report data table;
   • popup tooltip properties can be temporarily turned off (right click, then show/hide), or can be permanently turned of in options;
2. RSC
   • fixed a bug when right clicking on the report in the tree view;
   • added option to show/hide extensions of the resource files;
   • fixed a bug when doing batch copying or moving;

Companion for MS Analysis Server V2.3 has been released

September 20, 2009 The build includes the following improvement:

1. Functionality for a single SQL DB repository – multiple SSAS monitors can log into a single database for simplified enterprise-wide reporting
2. 3 Reports have been added for displaying changes to hourly baseline values
3. All reports have been reworked to display summary data for each SSAS Database and expand functionality for details.

Companion for MS Analysis Server V2.2 has been released

July 3, 2009 The new release adds new feature: "Resources Governor", "Cache Warmer", Disk Partition Alignment Check, Peformance Tuning Reports ...read more

Companion for Business Intelligence V2.0 has been released

March 3, 2009 New version has better, more intuitive design, addresses a number of reported bugs and allows for cancellation of tasks that take long time to complete.

New version of SSAS Companion

January 5, 2009 We have released a new version of SSAS Companion. The new version contain a native cube browser; it replaced the MS OWC COM components which were not the optimal fit for this application

Companion for MS SQL Server 2.0 has been released

January 3, 2009 The version works with both MS SQL 2005 and 2008. Here is the list of new features and changes

Enterprise Software Solutions launches new web site

January 1, 2009 The new web site featuring most of our products is going live today.