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Your desire is probably to have everyone in your company use your Rochade Repository as the Hub for all Metadata and other Repository work in your company. This company is working to do just that.
They have been using RoAccess for years and gave a presentation at the last Rochade Users Group Meeting in Boston, USA, about their system. (Half the presenters used RoAccess, too!) The applications below were created by only one person, who had other duties, and was new to Rochade. One person did all this!
This massive reporting application illustrates the following features:
Finding that the Viasoft integration RIMs were not sufficient for their purposes, they created their own composite and integration RIMs to handle their large number of very different systems. This includes logical and physical model representation.Many of their ItemTypes use the RoAccess Long Identifier Capability. This allowed them to have Item identifiers that are over 200 characters long. Standard Rochade has a 32 character max for identifiers. A large number of custom reports (about 10,000 lines all together) can be accessed directly by standard HTML hyperlinks, bypassing the standard login, Subject Area Selection Screen, etc. These links go directly to their reports system. This allows non technical users to easily get their reports and other pages they frequently use. The same report system can also be accessed from within RoAccess by a "user button" that appears at the top of several standard RoAccess screens. This is multiple layers of integration. Although the system is being extended now, the initial custom reporting subsystem was written two years ago for the then current version of RoAccess. When they recently upgraded to the now current latest version of RoAccess and the latest Rochade server, all their reports still worked just fine. This shows the tremendous compatibility that RoAccess has maintained over the years. You upgrade RoAccess and Rochade, and your applications still keep running. Even though they changed servers and versions of their operating system, RoAccess kept on working. This high level of compatibility is important for low overall application life cycle costs. They required the name of the ItemTypes to be plain English, rather than a cryptic 32 character ItemType. So when the ItemTypes are listed, a multiple word phrase is displayed instead of the ItemType name. For non technical users, it makes their Rochade repository much more user friendly. Since RoAccess is supplied with source code, they made the change to the ItemType list screen to implement the user friendly ItemType names. Remove all RoAccess logos and images, replacing them with company logos and product images. This makes RoAccess look like it was written by the client, and not a different company, which more tightly integrates with their other systems. Remove a number of standard RoAccess buttons that most of their non technical users would not use, such as Path Reports and SpreadSheets. This way you don't confuse a non technical user with options he will never use. However, they are still available via standard RoAccess for the technical users. Multiple servers for Development and Production were utilized, using multiple RoAccess servers. Their standard RoAccess license allowed multiple server installations and unlimited WEB user accesses. So all this was at no extra cost to them.
They then created a large number of very complex reports which traversed the various ItemTypes gathering different pieces of information. Because of the highly general manner in which their metadata is stored, a simple query would not return all the data. So they created path reports and Rochade RPL classes, which in effect created a "relational view" of their data, where the data items were from different ItemTypes. RoAccess then utilized them.
Because their clients were non technical business users, they wanted easy ways to enter into their system bypassing normal login, Subject Area Selection, Item Type Selection, etc. For standard, full capability access, standard RoAccess was available.
They decided to have clients enter via links on standard company WEB pages plus hyperlinks that were stored as Bookmarks and Favorites. So by reading a standard WEB page, a click brings them directly deep into the repository, without their even knowing a new system has been entered. This is seamless integration using RoAccess and existing systems.
Entry Via WEB Pages:
Click here to see a typical company Systems Metadata standard WEB page with hyperlinks to their customized system.
Click here to see a different Metadata Warehouse WEB page with links to their RoAccess reporting system.
This allows your users to enter your RoAccess Repository applications without ever knowing it.
Below is the Systems Metadata entry
HTML page:
It is a standard HTML page, created in any WEB Page Editor. There are about 30 different Subject Areas, so you must select one:
We select Galaxy, and click "Submit".
You are now in RoAccess. Notice the smooth transition. The user is logged in, a Subject Area is opened, and this part of the reporting system is activated, all from a single hyperlink. In this case they choose full screen, instead of frames mode. However, this system is adaptable, and if run in frames mode will take full advantage of it by displaying the selection screens in the right frame.
In this case, we select "Table" Reports
without entering a Filter to reduce the number of Tables to be displayed,
and get the following list of available reports:
This lists the Tables on the left. Since the report contains 13 columns, and is much larger than a typical CRT screen, you can select which columns you want the report to display. This way you can fit a report nicely on the width of your screen. Being able to select what report columns to display is a particularly nice feature.
You can select multiple Tables, and each will be reported one after the other, all displaying only the report columns you specified.
Below is a typical report output:
This is a beautiful use of color. Note: if you click the blue underlined hyperlinks, that being up that Rochade Item in RoAccess for full display, editing, reporting, etc. This shows the easy integration of user written applications and standard RoAccess functionality.
The report is internally hyperlinked so
you can go to each of the selected Tables using Next and Prev links on
the page. This screen can be literally hundreds of pages long, but
is nicely organized and easy to use. That is what users want.
This time, instead of Table reports, we select Dictionary Reports, entering any wild card if desired.
You are presented with a list of the Dictionary Items to report on. Below we selected 4 Dictionary Items to be reported on:
Below is a sample of the cascaded reports:
Again, the blue hyperlinks go directly
into RoAccess, entering at this particular Item being reported on.
There are three hyperlinks: Enterprise Metadata, Systems Metadata and Application Metadata
If you click Enterprise
Metadata, you get this:
Notice the nice use of custom graphics above. A very professional
appearance.
Note that no Login, Subject Area or other preliminary screens were needed. They immediately went to a dual frames mode display with the Report Type and Element Filter selection on the left and the list of Elements on the right. Selecting 3 of them, and then the "Display Report" button, it presents the following:
Note the nice use of colors.
Clicking the blue underlined Element Names bring up the standard RoAccess
page for displaying, editing and all other related RoAccess functions for
that Element. Even though the initial screens of RoAccess are not
used, the rest of RoAccess was used when it would be useful.
If you click the Systems
Metadata hyperlink you get a static HTML page that allows a
different kind of report selection:
This is the first HTML page described above, so there are two ways to get to this screen.
If you click the "Application Metadata" you are taken directly to RoAccess:
The same large reporting system can be accessed from within RoAccess, also. The light blue "Utilities and Reports" button appears on the ItemType List Screen and the Item Display Screen at the top along with all the standard RoAccess buttons. This is an example of a "user button", where no RoAccess changes are needed to add new screens. You just tell RoAccess to add your buttons, and it does it:
