Welcome to this edition of Taurus Software News, your insider's guide to the Taurus family of products. Taurus Software News is distributed worldwide to people using technologies within the Taurus product line.
In this issue:
1. Warehouse News - XML
2. Studio News – Single record update per capture transaction
3. Ecomedate News – Ecomedate Analysis Suite
4. Company News –New Address
5. Events and Seminars
6. Web Site Picks for this Issue
1. Warehouse, BridgeWare’s and DataBridger’s Data Movement Engine, News
Current release: 3.00.4800
Available platforms: Windows, HP3000, HP-UX, RS6000, Linux, Sun, SGI
Release notes: http://www.taurus.com/support/releasenotes.htm
This month’s release introduces the support of XML files. XML is a common vehicle to transport information between different platforms and files in a free-format fashion. Information about XML basics is located at the following site:
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/98/10/guide0.html
This web site provides some sample documents, explains the standard and the MANY variations in use by the industry at this time. Below is a sample XML document:
<ContactInfo>
<fname> Victoria </fname>
<lname> Shoemaker </lname>
<phone> 650 482 2022 </phone>
<ContactInfo>
<fname> Mark </fname>
<lname> Anderton </lname>
<phone> 650 482 2022 </phone>
With the addition of XML as a supported file type within Warehouse, Warehouse users can read and write to XML files now. Studio also supports the reading and writing of XML files. More information on the support of XML in Warehouse in the release notes: http://www.taurus.com/support/releasenotes.htm
2. Studio, GUI Development Workbench, News
Current release: 4.0.352200
Supported OS: Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows XP, Windows 2000+
Occasionally a situation will arise in a database structure where a dataset or table will be used to capture data or transactions that may be duplicates of other records. This of course violates good normalized database form but sometimes it is necessary. You may even need to update one of the duplicate records and have created applications that will select the appropriate record and make the appropriate changes. When you copy the records to a target database, you will want to keep the target records in sync with the source records. That means when one record on the source side is updated, the same record on the target side must be updated. Normally when you create a BridgeWare script in Studio, the script will update all of the records that match the key. Also BridgeWare scripts do not update key fields so if every field is a key then nothing will be updated.
Let’s look at an example where a transaction is made to order items from a warehouse. A record is created to detail this transaction and the record contains a customer number, an item number, and a quantity ordered on a specific date. A customer may order a similar quantity of an item multiple times during a day. The customer may call up after an order and ask to cancel the order (i.e., delete the record) or change the number of items in the order. Your production code may know to look for the latest order and make the change to that order but the same logic needs to be applied to the corresponding target record. The script must be able to find the target record and either update it or delete it as was done on the source side.
There is a new feature in Studio for the incremental scripts that may be helpful when building them. If you have a source dataset or table that may have records that are not unique, this new feature will help. Right click on a BridgeWare or Propagation script and go to Properties. You will see a new option called “Single record update/delete”. This new option does two things. First it will find only one target record that matches the selection criteria and second it will update all of the fields in the target record, including the key fields.
Normally you would not want to update a key field on a record but some tables do not have a true primary key. There may be an index to allow faster retrieval of records but even the whole record could not be defined as a primary key because of the duplicate records. When you update a record on the target table where there are duplicate records, you only want to find the one record and update it. Traditionally Studio has updated all of the records that are found using the designated key fields but did not update key fields. If all of the fields in the mapping are key fields (used to find the target record), the resulting script would not update anything. The script would also update all of the records that are found in the target table (if multiple records with the same key fields exist). Now, when you check the “Single record update/delete” option, Studio will not only create a script that will find only one record using all of the key fields, it will update these fields as well.
Of course this option is not limited to situations where every field is a key field and you need to update or delete one target record. Now Studio will let you write scripts that will update the key fields on the target side when the same fields were updated on the source side. This option in Studio makes it easier to write scripts to handle many different kinds of situations.
Want to learn more? Contact support@taurus.com
3. Ecomedate, Ecometry data foundation
Current release: 9/30/04
Supported Ecometry releases: 5, 6, 7 MPE
Available mappings include : comp-div-master, style-header, whse-locs, vend-ord-from, item-mast, edp-item-xref, kit-index, vendor-items, style-item-data, item-desc, offers, sources, source-xref, offer-pages, offer-items, multi-pricing, upsell, customers, customer-comp, customer-addl, customer-phone, customer-demo, customer-promo, cust-xref, order-header, order-sub-head, customization, order-xref, oh-additions, order-comments, service-track, order-actions, bo-file, pick-lot-header, pick-lot-detail, returns, manifest-entries, fedex-entries, po-header, po-details, po-actions, po-comments, inventory-trans, financial-order and inv-details.
Ecomedate data foundation can be used to provide web sites with up-to-date product inventory and order-status information. Ecomedate is also used as the data foundation for the Ecomedate Analysis Reporting Suite providing answers to Ecometry user’s about the current state of their business. For more information: http://www.taurus.com/products/ecmods.htm
4. Company News!
Our address has changed. We are now located at 420 Brewster Avenue, Redwood City, CA, 94063. Our phone, fax number, and web site have remained the same.
5. Events and Seminars
Regular seminars on migration are available over the web. For more information contact sales@taurus.com
If you would like to arrange a refresher course on Warehouse or Studio for your organization, please contact support@taurus.com
6. Web Site Picks
http://www.thefreecountry.com/ is a free programmer’s, webmasters’ and security resources site. It features links to free virus scan programs to source code management resources.
What to know which search engine is best for… http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/
Check out all the cam sites: http://www.camscape.com/
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