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TXU, the 11th largest energy company in the world, has a number of different classes of business users. A set of non-technical, user friendly Repository Portals are being developed to make access to these business class users as intuitive and convenient as possible.
They are using Microsoft Front Page for page layout, Corel Draw for Image creation and manipulation, and RoAccess for direct Repository access. You can click on a spot on an image and to other images, portals, or go directly into RoAccess displaying either an Item, an ItemList, or a Path Report Graphic, spreadsheet or RoAccess page for example.
Below is an overview of one of these Portals:
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The above screen is a collection of images, text
and hot spot hyperlinks. These hot spot hyperlinks take the user to other
portals, sub graphic presentations or directly into the Repository at different
spots. Screen captures of the results of clicking the various
regions on the above graphic are shown below.
The Application Catalog
Clicking the "Application Catalog" hotspot in the
upper left, you get the following screen:
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The above screen allows you to search for different Applications analyzed in the Repository. Once you select a particular Application, the data is dynamically retrieved from Rochade but displayed in a custom made form. The above was custom made in Front Page having images, hyperlinks and JavaScript. For instance if you click the "All Acronyms" hyperlink, it automatically logs you into RoAccess, opens the Subject Area and displays the TypeList for all the Items of type ACRONYM. If you enter a wildcard into the "App Name" field, it will search all the Items of Type APPLICATION and will further search the link attribute TO_ACRONYM for occurrences of of your wildcard. (This is an extended filter search, based on the name and contents of an attribute). Again no logins are necessary, because RoAccess does it all for you, while keeping security fully in place. If the Rochade account requires a password, you will be asked for it in a tiny popup, and only asked for it once. Every other time you click a field, it remembers your user name and password for convenience. This bypasses the initial RoAccess screens and goes directly to the data display pages.
Below is an example of one such APPLICATION Item:
Application Item Display
When you display a particular "Application, it is
displayed using the custom Item Display Screen, again designed in Front
Page. When an Item is displayed in RoAccess, you get all the attributes
at a glance. When you design a custom screen to display Items of
a particular ItemType, you can display only those attributes that you wish.
This limits the data displayed to what that user or class of users feels
is important.
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You can see the normal RoAccess hyperlinks and attribute
data.
If you click the "Data Inventory" image on the left of the portal screen, you get the following screen:
This screen was made with Front Page. It has custom images, plus active hyperlinks into RoAccess that can display Lists of Items or can do extended searches on the link qualifiers of certain attributes to display the list of selected Data Sources or Applications.
If you click the Mass Customer List region on the Main Portal you get the following screen:
RoAccess was entered directly to show this particular Item (instance). You did not have to log on. It just displays immediately. This screen was told to display in the no-frames mode. Note the Dictionary Icon at the top that can run the custom Dictionary Report. Also note the user friendly Attribute names and Item (instance) hyperlinks.
Whenever any Item (instance) of ItemType APPLICATION is displayed, RoAccess was told to display the data in a custom screen also built with Front Page. Below is a sample of clicking on the "All Applications" hyperlink on the "Application Catalog" graphic screen:
On the left is the list of Applications. Each time an Item of APPLICATION is displayed, RoAccess displays all the real-time data in the custom made display form on the right. This page can be as beautiful and functional as your imagination can make it.
If you click the "Email For Help" Icon on the upper right of the portal, the following pre-addressed email pops up:This makes it easy for the user to get ask questions or give feedback to their group.
The following screens show RoAccess that is available for both Business and Technical Users:
They added their own images in addition to the standard RoAccess. You can also choose not to have any images but you own, giving the system a more custom look and feel
The following show the TXU logo on the Login Screen:
Note that 5 different Rochade Servers each having multiple Databases can be selected.
Note the Attribute Names (to the right of the round blue attribute information icons). Normal Rochade attributes names are 32 characters maximum, are all upper case, and cannot contain spaces. This limitation is overcome by RoAccess so cryptic attribute names can be understood by business users, too. Notice how long and descriptive they can be.
Click here to see that it would look like using standard Rochade attributes names.
TXU created an Icon that looked like a Dictionary, and instructed RoAccess to display it whenever an Item of DATASOURCE or RECORD is displayed. Clicking on it displays the Dictionary Report. (Note that DATASOURCE is presented as "Data Source" to be more user friendly.
Clicking on the Dictionary Button displays the following custom report:
If you click on the "Dictionary Report Icon", you get:
The above shows what Fields are contained in a specific Record. If you display an Item of DATASOURCE, the report is more involved because DATASOURCES contain RECORDS which contain FIELDS. Below are a series of screen snapshots scrolling down with doing a Dictionary Report of a DATASOURCE:
A DATASOURCE contains RECORDS the in turn contain FIELDS. Note the "Send as Excel File" hyperlink at the top. Click here to show the output that has been sent to Excel. Note the indenting and color coding.
Below is scrolling down, looking the very long report.
Note: by the size of the scroll bar indicator, this report is about 30 pages long. The DATASOURCE has multiple RECORDS and each RECORD has multiple FIELDs. They are all color coded to make data identification easy.
The following displays the data sent to Excel if you click the "Send as Excel File" option for a single RECORD:
Below shows the output for a DATASOURCE that has RECORDS and FIELDS:
Rochade Standard Attribute Names are not "User Friendly", as show below. For instance, what would "TO_PERSON mean to you? They chose "Subject Matter Expert for this Data Source" to clearly give the meaning of that attribute to a non-technical user.
Note that these are example of how Attribute names are in Rochade. They are all upper case, no spaces and no punctuation. Since they are a maximum of 32 characters many times they are a mixture of several abbreviations to fit into 32 characters. Not with RoAccess. Click here to show the same screen using the much more meaningful RoAccess User Friendly Attribute Names (especially look for the TO_PERSON equivalent).
RoAccess allows you to give different User Friendly ItemType names to different users or user classes without any programming at all. With Rochade you have to use the same unfriendly ItemType names everywhere.All ItemType names in Rochade are 32 characters maximum, upper case and no punctuation, which is NOT user friendly. But, RoAccess allows you to assign a User Friendly ItemType name for each ItemType. Below is an example:
RoAccess User Friendly ItemType Names
Standard Rochade ItemType Names
These are the same ItemTypes, just displayed differently for this user.
Note "Application Catalog" on the lift and "APPLICATION" on the right. The spelling and wording can be different
The User Friendly ItemType name can be anything you would like that you think would be more meaningful to your target users. Also, it could be "Data Source" to one set of users, "Source Container" to another, and "CONTAINER to DBAs and other technical users.
