APOS-AddIns - any experiences ? 3

[crystalvictim]

Is anybody out there using APOS-AddIns (like ViewTimeSecurity, Dynamic Parameters, Instance Monitor etc.)on a crystal enterprise server (preferrably 8.5 oder 9) who can tell me some of his experiences? (e.g. installation efforts, problems or benefits).

thanks in advance.

 

[Hypermommy]

What exactly is APOS? The Instance Manager sounds like it is something we could use. Thanks.

 

[crystalvictim]

Hypermommy,

first, if have to say that we aren't using APOS-AddIns yet, but we found them to seem an interesting option. So all I can tell you is derieved from the information I got directly from APOS & contemporary and therefore may be a little bit subjective.

Nevertheless here we go:
Crystal Enterprise lacks some major feature many users would appreciate to have. For example there is no possibility I know of to send eMail notifications to the developers or the administrator when scheduled reports fail. Also the surveillance-features are only rudimentary albeit extensible by reprogramming the cmc- or eportfolio-CSPs.

APOS Systems (

http://www.apos.on.ca)

offers quite a few AddIns that are installed on the enterprise server and deal with these problems.
They have a great deal of information (brochures, readmes and even trial downloads & manuals) on their homepage, so probably the best you can do to learn more is to visit them and find out the details for yourself.

regards.

 

[MJRBIM]

I installed InfoScheduler and InstanceManager at a client site about eight-weeks ago. Client was happy with the products and implementation.

The Client runs a batch of over 500 Report Instances into different depatment folders throught CE 8.5 running on a 2000 server - the Reports run through ODBC against a Lawson database running on Oracle 8i.

The schedule is not fixed (ie. last day of month), the accounting department runs the batch when the previous month is declared "CLOSED" - usually between the 9th and the 16th of the following month.

Overall, the tools work great for their specific functions. My only two provisos would be the InfoScheduler interface, and flimsy documentation for both products.

The InfoScheduler is Excel based and therefore is pretty open to "unintentional" changes by the user unless you use the protection tools in Excel (which aren't foolproof). I'd much prefer an secure interface like InstanceManager has.

The documentation from APOS was about 10 text-only pages that mostly covered the software install and licence details for each product. I ended up creating two 30-page documents (one for each product) that dealt with the "specific use" of the tools at the Client site. They were step-by-step guides with lots of screenshots...it would be nice if APOS had something similar.

 

[Hypermommy]

crystalvictim,

Thanks for the info... I took a look at their site. But I think I'm going to do like you and sit back and see what people say. Thanks for posting this thread.

 

[ChuckVanT]

MJRBIM,
We are going to implement InfoScheduler this week, on a CE9 box. Would you be interested in sharing your document on that product?

If there is too much proprietary info, or you just plain don't wanna share, I understand...

Thanks in advance

 

[MJRBIM]

ChuckVanT :

Sorry, the document contains proprietary info, I can't pass it along as is...but if you are looking for a "fresh" document for your project I could probably use it as a template for your needs.

Can't solicit work here at TekTips - so e-mail me at 'mjrbim at interlog.com'

Mark

 

[rptQueen]

We have tested and purchased the InfoScheduler, which has been great. We are upgrading from Seagate Info to CE9 and ran into obstacles, since we use folders for security on SI. On CE9 this is not feasible, so we are using the InfoScheduler to schedule report instances (daily, weekly, etc) "on behalf of" users. This way we can limit the user to only the instances they own. We do not allow this group of users to schedule any reports.

(Of course, this has lead to other issues with Smart Reporting and Ad Hoc, but that's another post!)

By the way, we have found working with APOS to be a positive experience, they really know the Crystal products (and limitations) inside and out.

 

[icytrue]

Hi rptQueen

Why do yo say that using folders for security is not feasible on CE? What in particular were you trying to control?

thanks

Icytrue

icytrue@hotmail.com

 

[rptQueen]

Hi Icytrue,

On Seagate Info, for some departments, each user has their own folder and reports are set on recurring schedules for them. They can only view, not schedule. Each user has the same reports as the other users. When the report object is updated, we use a Utility called rptRefrsh to update all objects at one.

On Crystal Enterprise if the users have their own folder and own report objects, it assigns a different ID number to each report object. If you update the object there is no way (built into CE) to to a mass refresh of the object. Each report would have to be opened & changed manually. This is not feasible on our scale.

Have you found any workaround for this?

rptQueen

 

[DanENW]

Hi RptQueen,

Have you considered placing shortcuts to the reports into a user's personal folder. This way the original report is modified and the user works with the original of the report, you don't have to work with multiple copies of a report.

 

[kmcmanus]

You can also set folder level security so that the users only see what reports and report instances they are allowed to view.

Kevin McManus
kevin@mcmanusreporting.com

 

[rptQueen]

Hello DanENW and Kevin

I don't think shortcuts and personal folders would work - the users are not actually running anything. We have a separate application from APOS that we (administrators) schedule instances to run "on behalf of" the user's login name. Then security is set on the report so each user can only see the instances that are run by them.

We now have run into the problem that we want a second group of users to only see instances of certain group one's reports, so we are now at a stand-still on CE9.

Thanks for the additional ideas though!
rptQueen

 

[rci]

rptQueen,

Depending on your exact security needs, you might be able to use the Processing Extensions in CE 9. You can write your own, but we opted to purchase View Time Security from APOS. VTS is a processing extension that can be used to determine at view time who can see what rows on a report. The basic principle is that it applies a WHERE clause to a report at view time for a given user. The scheduled report is run to gather information for everybody, but when individuals view it they only see what you define in VTS.

rci

 

[rptQueen]

Hi rci

Currently using folders as security on Seagate Info, nearly all reports come up within seconds and only a few take over 30 seconds, which can seem longer to the users.

We first tested Crystal Enterprise using processing extensions, however our dataset is too large - the time it took for most report instances to open was from 1 minute to 2 1/2 minutes, some even longer. We additionally worked with Crystal to see if they could help us. Although they found some improvements, we can not get down to the 30 seconds using processing extensions. So, we would not offer a new improved product to our users that delivers slower speeds!

Thanks for your suggestion, though.
rptQueen

 

[crystal101]

Hello everybody,
I am new to this forum. We have been using APOS VTS(View Time Security) to apply the Row Level Security determining what users can view. It was working fine until we upgraded from CE 8.5 to CE 9.0. Our Reports are scheduled to run by the "Administrator" in the night and the users login the next morning and based on their definition in the VTS Table they are allowed to view only certain records. It works fine when the user clicks on "View", but doing this the user is hitting the database everytime which we don't want to happen. The problem occurs when the user tries to "View Latest Instance" run by the Administrator. It pops up this error message "Unable to connect: incorrect log on parameters. File ~ce7e434e97b9570554.rpt. [On Cache/Page Server: Name of the page server]". Please help me!!!!

 

[kmcmanus]

From your error message it sounds like the login id for the Page Server or Cache Server service does not have the correct login information on the CE server. This can also happen if there was a change to an Active Directory based network.

Kevin McManus

 

[BobSuruncle]

Also, make sure that the field which you are filtering on (in VTS) is a field that is on the report canvas. It doesn't need to be visible, but it does need to be on the report. When you're viewing an instance, VTS will attempt to filter the successful instance using the field in the entitlement database. If that field is NOT on the report canvas, then it'll try to hit the database in order to apply the filter.

Also, try to minimize Print Time formulas (ie formulas marked WhilePrintingRecords or formulas with Shared variables) as these will slow the processing of the instance.

Bob

 

[Tasarian]

does anyone know what the connection string would be for an oracle database? I am trying to put it in my APOSVTSG file and I keep running into problems. IE the report samples arent generating the proper results, actually they arent generating any results. If anyone ahs configured apos files please let me know my errors
ConnectionString="Provider=OraOLEDB.Oracle; User ID=report1; Password=password1; Data Source=mydatasource in odbc"

thanks