Hi
I noticed in one of Alan's posts that Cognos are planning to kill of the ISB after release 9.4. Is that confirmed? I know that Applix/Cognos have been trying to kill off the ISB for years, but everytime they ask if anyone still uses it, they get lots of replies. I am surprised, since they exposed a lot of new methods in the 9.1 release. Why upgrade something if you are going to kill it off soon?
I still use the ISB. I just wish that they would expose enough of the underlying properties and methods so that you could set a dimension element programmatically, and then have two linked ISB Views. That would probably be a lot easier to do and more successful, than their less than wonderful release of Dynamic Slices.
The ISB can still do a number of things that Active Reports in 9.4 can't.
Is there anyone else who would be sorry to see it go?
Regards
Paul Simon
In-Spreadsheet Browser
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Alan Kirk
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Re: In-Spreadsheet Browser
It's on page 6 of the 9.4 "Read Me" document (file name 09_04_rdm_tm1.pdf), in the End Of Life statements.PaulSimon wrote: I noticed in one of Alan's posts that Cognos are planning to kill of the ISB after release 9.4. Is that confirmed? I know that Applix/Cognos have been trying to kill off the ISB for years, but everytime they ask if anyone still uses it, they get lots of replies. I am surprised, since they exposed a lot of new methods in the 9.1 release. Why upgrade something if you are going to kill it off soon?
I suspect it's part of the "Cognos loves the engine, hates the UI" campaign. Back when 9.1 was developed, Cognos wasn't in the picture.
The only reason that I hardly ever used it was that it was a flake-fest. I used it in the early days, but had too many workbooks corrupt under me. I don't know whether it improved in that respect in later versions.PaulSimon wrote:I still use the ISB. I just wish that they would expose enough of the underlying properties and methods so that you could set a dimension element programmatically, and then have two linked ISB Views. That would probably be a lot easier to do and more successful, than their less than wonderful release of Dynamic Slices.
The ISB can still do a number of things that Active Reports in 9.4 can't.
Is there anyone else who would be sorry to see it go?
But then I have reservations about Active Forms in 9.4 as well; specifically speed with a non-trivial dataset.
"To them, equipment failure is terrifying. To me, it’s 'Tuesday.' "
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John Hobson
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Re: In-Spreadsheet Browser
I will miss the ISB but more for what it could/should have been that what it actually was.
I remember using "It's So Buggy" in a demo in the Middle East and it crashed on me twice (after which the prospect's MD walked out - giving a rather clear signal that he was not likely to buy)
When I had a whinge about it to the then UK MD of Applix his response was "what are you doing using it in demos if it crashes"
He just didn''t get the idea that it was necessary because of a stated requirement, and that maybe, just maybe, a bit more QA might have helped the product in general.
In spite of multiple bug reports (most of which became old lags alongside "undo spread") it remained one of the least stable components of TM1.
I remember using "It's So Buggy" in a demo in the Middle East and it crashed on me twice (after which the prospect's MD walked out - giving a rather clear signal that he was not likely to buy)
When I had a whinge about it to the then UK MD of Applix his response was "what are you doing using it in demos if it crashes"
He just didn''t get the idea that it was necessary because of a stated requirement, and that maybe, just maybe, a bit more QA might have helped the product in general.
In spite of multiple bug reports (most of which became old lags alongside "undo spread") it remained one of the least stable components of TM1.
John Hobson
The Planning Factory
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paulsimon
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Re: In-Spreadsheet Browser
John & Alan
Thank you for your replies.
I know that the ISB has its stability problems. A bit of careful management with some of the methods exposed in 9.1 certainly help to get over these, eg you can refresh the grid and then recalc the rest of the sheet.
I have been in the opposite situation, where I was about to give a demo using Dynamic Slices, and found that they didn't work. A quick change to a combined ISB and DBRW approach saved the day.
Still if Cognos are not going to support the ISB, then I will need to think of another way around the current problem I have, which is that old bug bear of suppressing zero rows, and taking account of security, etc. Not too difficult if you have a single dimension on rows, but not nice when you have 4 nested dimensions.
The ISB seemed to be a relatively quick way to solve these problems. It doesn't look as though Cognos have any serious plans to provide anything else. Active Reports are not that quick and we are not likely to upgrade to 9.4 any time soon anyway.
It looks as though I will have to build something myself using the EasyAPI or MDX or something like that.
Regards
Paul Simon
Thank you for your replies.
I know that the ISB has its stability problems. A bit of careful management with some of the methods exposed in 9.1 certainly help to get over these, eg you can refresh the grid and then recalc the rest of the sheet.
I have been in the opposite situation, where I was about to give a demo using Dynamic Slices, and found that they didn't work. A quick change to a combined ISB and DBRW approach saved the day.
Still if Cognos are not going to support the ISB, then I will need to think of another way around the current problem I have, which is that old bug bear of suppressing zero rows, and taking account of security, etc. Not too difficult if you have a single dimension on rows, but not nice when you have 4 nested dimensions.
The ISB seemed to be a relatively quick way to solve these problems. It doesn't look as though Cognos have any serious plans to provide anything else. Active Reports are not that quick and we are not likely to upgrade to 9.4 any time soon anyway.
It looks as though I will have to build something myself using the EasyAPI or MDX or something like that.
Regards
Paul Simon