Evaluating AwareIM

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Hubertus
Posts: 153
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Evaluating AwareIM

Post by Hubertus »

Hi,

I'm currently evaluating AwareIM as a substitution for MSAccess and so far I absolutly like what I see !

One of our next projects is to web-enable an Access application. Moving the data from the MySQL backend (30 tables) to the Aware db shouldn't be too complicated I think. Or did I miss something ?

This App uses Excel Reports where tags are substituted with values from the db. There are about 60 of these Reports and some of them are _really_ complicated and shouldn't be changed at all. We plan to fetch the data, put it into a text file, and zip it together with the report template. Now we give the user a URL for downloading this zip. On his workstation a little program will unzip these files and write the report. Now the user can make some changes if required and post it back to the database. Do you see any major troubles ? Btw. the structure of our tags is completly incompatible with Aware :-(

Another Project - a stock management app that could be done using Aware - has to communicate with a production control system made with Access.Is it possible to start a process in Aware from Access and receive some results ? Or do we have to work directly with the db ?

Thanks a lot for any hints !
Hubertus

P.S: During the past weeks I took a look at:
RubyOnRails - it looks good but makes me feel like reinventing the wheel and it's "only" code with quite a steep learning curve.
CodeCharge - is very similar to Access but the designer only runs on Win and the documentation tells me which buttons I have to click but doesn't tell me whats happening behind the scenes at all.
AwareIM: only 2 words - IT ROCKS !
aware_support
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Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2005 12:36 am
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Post by aware_support »

Hi Hubertus,

thanks for the kind words about Aware IM. Spread the word around! :P

Answering your questions:
>>Moving the data from the MySQL backend (30 tables) to the Aware db ?shouldn't be too complicated I think. Or did I miss something ?

It should be reasonably straightforward provided obviously that there is a match between the existing MySQL data and Aware IM business objects that you configure. You can even import relationships into Aware IM (if you have any in your data).

>>This App uses Excel Reports where tags are substituted with values from the db. There are about 60 of these Reports and some of them are _really_ complicated and shouldn't be changed at all. We plan to >>fetch the data, put it into a text file, and zip it together with the report ?template. Now we give the user a URL for downloading this zip. On his workstation a little program will unzip these files and write the report. ?Now the user can make some changes if required and post it back to the database. Do you see any major troubles ?

I don't see any major troubles. By a text file you mean a CSV file exported from Aware IM? Also I think you would need a program that would do the reverse, i.e. to save changes to data in Aware IM - take the relevant data from the report, make the CSV file and import it into Aware IM.

>>Is it possible to start a process in Aware from Access and receive ?>>some results ? Or do we have to work directly with the db ?

Yes it is quite possible - Aware IM was designed so that other systems could easily call it. One way of doing this is to define a "service" in Aware IM that would do anything that is required and return the results. Once you define a service Aware IM automatically converts it into a standard SOAP-based web service that can be called from the outside world, for example Access. I believe it should be possible to call a web service from Access. If you are not familiar with web services let us know and we could give you a few hints.

Best Regards,
Aware IM Support Team
Hubertus
Posts: 153
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Location: Austria
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Post by Hubertus »

Hello,

another issue that came up recently. Currently this seems to be the last point before I stop evaluating and start using/buying AwareIM ;-)

I have a BO

JobAttributes
---------------
Job
AttribName
AttribValue

These AttribName's are user defined and have to be copied once a Job gets created.
My problem is that I don't know how to use AttribName as a description when entering data in the form.

Do you have any idea on how to accomplish this in AwareIM ?

Thanks a lot,
Hubertus
aware_support
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Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2005 12:36 am
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Post by aware_support »

Sorry, Hubertus, I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to achieve.

Could you please explain in a little more detail and maybe give an example.

>>These AttribName's are user defined and have to be copied once a Job >>gets created.
Copied where?

>>I don't know how to use AttribName as a description when entering data in the form
What do you mean by "using AttributeName as a description when entering data?"
Aware IM Support Team
Hubertus
Posts: 153
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:11 pm
Location: Austria
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Post by Hubertus »

sorry for my english....

the user should see a form like:

label a: [text in input field a]
label b: [text in input field b]
label c: [text in input field c]

but the table looks like:

TableX
-------------
attribName
attribValue

with the following data:

attribName attribValue
-------------------------------
label a text in inputfield a
label b text in inputfield b
label c text in inputfield c

Which means that I need a value from a database field showing up as a label.

Thanks,
Hubertus
aware_support2
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Post by aware_support2 »

If you want to allow the users to dynamically add any number of desired properties to an object, here is how you can do it in Aware IM. Let's consider a scenario where the users should be able to register a job with some details for the job. The details may include, for example, Start date, Duration, Location, or any other that the user may want to register for a particular job.

You can configure two business objects: Job and JobDetail. Object Job would have some common attributes, like JobNumber, CustomerName, etc. as well as a multiple-allowed attribute Details of type JobDetail where Job is the owner of JobDetail. The object JobDetail would have attributes Type (text) and Description (text) as well as attribute Job, which is a matching attribute to Job.Details.

The presentation options for the attribute Details of object Job should be set to show 'Table of Items', generate 'Add New Item' button, 'Allow Inline Editing' and display attributes Type and Description.

Here is how this is going to work. When the user creates a new instance of object Job in the operation mode (web browser) the system will display the form for object Job. On the form there will be a table for the attribute Details. The user clicks a little 'Add New Item' button to add a new row in Details table and then enters desired text into the Type box and the Description box, for example: 'Duration' and '2 days'. The user can then click the 'Add New Item' to add another row into the table and enter the type and description for the detail item. The user may then continue to add any number of desired details to the job.

Let me know if this solution is acceptable to you or if you have any further questions.
Aware IM Support Team
Hubertus
Posts: 153
Joined: Sat Feb 11, 2006 2:11 pm
Location: Austria
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Post by Hubertus »

:o :o :o :o :o :o simply stunning
AwareIM turns out to be the PERFECT tool with the best support I ever encountered.

Hubertus
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