News in TARGIT 2019 update 3
TARGIT 2019 update 3 introduces quite a few new features. We will take you through all of the great features in the videos below.
The new features include:
Iteration for Report pages
With the Iteration option for Report pages, we have fulfilled a major feature request for TARGIT 2019 reports. Now you can iterate a report page across a selection of dimension members. The page will then repeat itself, once per dimension value, and furthermore add the dimension member as a filter to that page. For those familiar with classical (pre-2019) reports, this is very similar to what you could do with the so-called "Group header band".
The new Iteration option is, however, a lot more flexible. It is build around an "Iteration crosstab", and this new concept should be very easy to digest since the definition of the Iteration crosstab is identical to the definition of any other crosstab in the TARGIT client. The rows (dimension members) of the Iteration crosstab will then determine the number of iteration pages in the report.
Apart from being very easy to adapt to, the beauty of the Iteration crosstab is all the new possibilities it brings to your report design. With the Iteration crosstab, you can
- Create or use hierarchies which will then automatically work as iterations within iterations.
- Exclude (default) or include Totals and Subtotals. A Total (or Subtotal) row in the iteration crosstab will produce a corresponding iteration page.
- Add measures and calculations to work with sorting or visibility agents upon those values. The sorted or limited dimension members will produce iteration pages accordingly.
Furthermore, if you have designed multiple pages into your report, you can choose that the Iteration should work for just a single page, for multiple pages or for all pages. You can even design multiple, different Iterations to work for different pages. The possibilities are so much more, than they have ever been.
Single page report Iteration:
Iteration with Totals:
Iteration with Subtotals and 'Single' Dynamic content:
Iteration with Hierarchy and with Visibility agent:
Iteration on multi-page report:
Different Iterations on different pages:
Generic Embedding
With Generic Embedding we have made it a lot easier to embed the TARGIT Anywhere client in one of your Business Systems.
The idea is, that you do not need to know the exact URL that TARGIT Anywhere requires in order to open the right document with the right criteria. Instead, in the assigned frame in your Business System, you create your own Permalink - something that makes sense to you and your Business System. Then, in the TARGIT Windows client, these Permalinks are mapped in a user-friendly interface to their corresponding documents and dimensions.
Generic Embedding from unknown Permalink:
Generic Embedding from pre-configured Permalink:
Tabs
With Tabs you can open multiple documents in one client, rather than opening multiple clients with one document each.
As a Designer user you will benefit from this when:
- Copying content (objects) from one document to another.
- Comparing documents, to ensure a consistent and cohesive look and feel.
As a Consumer user you will benefit from this when:
- Working with related documents.
- Multi-selected documents can be opened as individual tabs.
- Tabbed documents can be saved and reopened as one Bookmark.
- Triggered documents can be opened in new tabs.
- Working with related documents.
Tabs, general functionality and saving tabs as a bookmark:
Multi-select documents and open in tabs. User preference settings:
Open triggered document in new tab:
Scheduled Publishing
Publish and update your Dashboards and Slideshows as browser accessible HTML pages.
With Scheduled Publishing you can render Dashboards, Slideshows and Reports in "offline" mode. (Reports are rendered as PDF documents.)
End-users do not need a TARGIT client to view Dashboards and Reports.
All they need is a browser and the right URL. Even though these Dashboards are non-interactive (no filters, no drills, no triggers), end-users will be able to scroll large crosstabs.
Note: End-users are not authenticated when browsing the HTML output. I.e. everyone with access to the URL will see the same content.
Slideshows no longer need a TARGIT client to run on monitors.
The monitor simply needs a browser with the right URL to run the Slideshow.
When the HTML output is updated (e.g. every 10 minutes), the browser based Dashboards and Slideshows will automatically update as well.
Links
Scheduled Publishing uses links for publishing the output. Technically, the output is placed on the TARGIT Server, and the URL link points to this location.
When you administrate a Scheduled Publishing job, you can change the source document (e.g. replace a slideshow for a different slideshow) without changing the link. In this way, from your central list of scheduled jobs, you can manage what is being displayed on e.g. 15 wide-spread monitors around your organization.
You can even have multiple scheduled jobs publishing to the same link. E.g. one job publishes and updates a Slideshow every 10 minutes from 8:00 to 16:50. Another job publishes a dashboard to the same link at 17:00.
Administration
Scheduled Publishing only adds workload on the TARGIT server and the Data Warehouse when the output is published and updated. Most of the end-users' workload is handled by the browser, which furthermore is often heavily cached. This behavior has a positive effect on the robustness on published content:
- If the IIS (with the Anywhere component) stops, the published content will still be available, but will not be updated.
- If the TARGIT server stops, the published content will still be available, but will not be updated.
- If the Scheduled Publishing job is disabled, the published content will still be available, but will not be updated.
- Only if scheduled job is deleted, the server will remove the link and the published content will no longer be available.
Setting up a Scheduled job for a Published link, (and first-time configuration of the Anywhere URL in TARGIT Management Studio):
Changing the source document for a Scheduled Publishing link:
Scheduled Publishing of Slideshow with custom link:
Easy Central Management of Scheduled Publishing jobs:
Two or more scheduled jobs publishing to the same link:
What happens if you change a publishing link? (Or the scheduled job is deleted, or the scheduled job hasn't run yet):
Drill History
In previous versions of TARGIT you would be able to activate the so-called "Drillpad" in your Smartpad.
From this version on, the Drillpad is history.
Instead, you will be able to explore your Drill History (including opening of documents, applying global criteria etc.) using the Back and Forward buttons in the upper right corner of the TARGIT Windows client.
Furthermore, right-clicking any of these buttons will provide easy access to any point in your Drill History.
Copy data objects from "Classical reports" to the new TARGIT 2019 report format
With the TARGIT 2019 version, the reporting engine was completely revised, and that was to such an extent that reports created in TARGIT 2018 or earlier versions cannot automatically convert to the 2019 format. While these "Classical reports" will still work in the TARGIT 2019 environment, this is only for a limited time. With the upcoming TARGIT 2020 we will no longer support the classical report format. In other words: You will have to re-create the necessary reports in the 2019 format if you want to ensure your reporting capabilities into the future.
To help the process of re-creating your reports in the new format, you can now copy data objects from the classical report and into the new report. Some of your old graphs and crosstabs may have held cumbersome calculations and formatting settings, which you no longer need to re-create as they can now simply be copied together with the data object.