Ben

Can you clarify a couple of points for me? I think you can do what you want to, but I may be misinterpreting your requirement. When you say you "I would like this omniscope file to be able to recognise when the files which they where selected from..." do you mean that you want your 'management report' (with its fewer tabs) to update from changes in the data from your main file, or to changes made to report tabs in your main file?

It is easy to make your 'management report' pick up data from the original file, but it cannot pick up report tab changes; there is no way in Omniscope (up to and including 2.6) to export/import tabs.

If you want to get the data though, then there are [at least] two approaches - depending on whether you're using Omniscope Professional or Data Manager editions?

The first method works with both Pro and DM:
1. Save your main file which will act as the basis for your management report (e.g. BASE.IOK)
2. Now save the file again as the management report (e.g. MGMT.IOK) - this enables step 3 to work
3. Edit the data source in the active MGMT.IOK file:
a. Go to the Data menu, and then Edit source...
b. Select the original file (e.g. BASE.IOK) as the source for your MGMT.IOK
c. If your file contains any formulae, then Omniscope may complain that the model history - when reapplied - is trying to create fields that already exist... if this happens then you may need to take a rather more involved approach (feel free to email me contact details and I can explain over the phone... but it would take a lot of careful writing here to explain in full!)
4. Remove any excess tabs from your MGMT.IOK
5. Save the file again

You can now update the main BASE file, and when you next open the MGMT file it will refresh (by default it will auto-refresh after prompting the user, but this is configurable in the File Save dialog)

The DM method is more robust, but more involved, and so is describes here at a slightly higher level:
1. Pull the underlying data you need for both reports (BASE and MAIN) into the DataManager view
2. Add as many merge/filter/formulae/replace/aggregate etc. steps in the DataManager view until you have the data set that you need for the main BASE report file
3. Save the DM model as SOURCE.IOK (or similar)
4. Change the source of your BASE model (see step 3 above) to use the SOURCE file
5. Remove as many tabs as you need, and save the BASE file (which by now is built from the SOURCE file) as MGMT
6. You now have 2 IOK files which both use SOURCE as their data file... you can update SOURCE from time to time and both BASE and MGMT will update from it - indeed, you can use this method to feed tens or hundreds of report models

I hope that helps?!

Hi

Thanks for your advice above.

I would like management report to pick up data changes in the main file and changes in the tab in the main report.

Is it likely that in later versions of omniscope the import /export tab will be possible.As this would make Omnicope much more convenient for productions of senior managemebnt reports .The only functionality i would require in the Management Report would be that of the side filters already present in the Main/base file .


I am currently using omniscope 2.6 Data Manager edition

The problem with the PM method and DM method is that they are only really useful for having one report and then reducing tabs in that one report to that of a management report.However i would like to amalgamate at least four different reports and produce a management report from these four.In the DM and PM method i would have to reproduce every tab i wanted in the MGMT file. (Apart from the tabs in the first file i use as a basis ) is there any way around this ?

The DM method has another drawback in that for larger data files bringing in all the data to one file would reach the limits of omniscope data management and hence the reason why the data is seperated in to different reports.

If possible it would be nice to import/export tabs in Omniscope.The only functionality i would require in the inported tabs would be that of the sife filters present on that tab in the main file.Also Management report would not need to go down to single level record details.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Do you mean you want different data in each tab? In Omniscope, tabs are simply different views of the same data. While you can "fake it" and have frozen filters so each tab shows a different subset which can be entirely different data, the IOK file still contains the full dataset. So if the combined dataset is too large, this won't work. Multiple datasets in different tabs, each opened only when you are on that tab, is a complex long-term feature request.

But if you simply want to be able to import and export tab configurations for the same data, this is quite feasible in a future version, priority subject to demand.

However if you did mean the former (import/export tabs with different datasets), it would still be a quite feasible feature request, providing the concatenated dataset wasn't too big for Omniscope. We could develop a command which imported one or more tabs from an IOK file, which would also import the data and set up the frozen filter devices on all new and existing tabs to create the effect of separate datasets. Again, this would be prioritised subject to demand.

I was after the former, that being able to inport/export tabs from different data sets.

On each inport/exported tab i would only require the use of the side filters (columns from table) and so i would not need access to the entire dataset which the tab came from, so you would only need to bring along all possible aggregated rows based on the possible side filter options availiable on the inported/exported tab.

It is in demand since i would like Management to be able to see reports which are of the same consitancy and structure as that seen by operation managers whom use Omniscope.Albeit they do not need the drilldown detail to every record but general groups of rows would be sufficient.

In the mean time ,is there any way to automatically in the Omnicope or on the Omniscope serve to export tabs to pdf ?

I.e for each tab to have its own datamanager

If you want different data, then the total appended dataset must fit in memory on the recipient's PC. When an Omniscope file is open, all data must be held in memory for all tabs. If your aim is to avoid loading all the data into Omniscope, this isn't the solution.

Yes, PDF export is available using DataManager. I'm not sure what version this was introduced for; it was sometime in the last 2 months. In the output section of the DataManager sidebar, choose PDF output. If you want to automate a batch of PDFs, you should be able to do this using Batch output block in the next few days when we have finished building this ability in.

If you have any difficulties using these output blocks, please post back here.

Each tab having its own DataManager is a really big deal, unlikely to be addressed for some time. We may be able to look into a developing tab-specific parameter values in 2.7, which would be less complex, but I'm not sure if this would help.

Thanks for your comments

My aim is not to avoid loading the data into omniscope it is simply that if i have seven operationalt reports (all from different databases) and i would like to produce a management report which has say two tabs from each of the seven different reports currently i would have to
1)Manually at the end of each month go to each report and export respective files into pdf. or
2)Create one file linking all seven different database together.Then reproduce the different tabs in that report.This would be quite messy.


Will it be possible to automate an output given predefined procedure .i.e say export a tab with side filter unchecked and then export the same tab with side filter checked .

I look forward to using the automated batch output.

Hi,

In the latest version of Omniscope you can publish reports from one or more Omniscope tabs to a PDF or PowerPoint file and specify whether these reports will be inserted or will overwrite all of the data in the output file.

Using this functionality in combination with the scheduler you could automate the production of the management report you described above by doing the following:

1. Create 7 different data manager Omniscope files (one for each report). In each file configure the report data and publish using to the same PDF file. For the first report choose to 'Overwrite' the PDF data and for the remaining reports choose to 'Insert at the end'.

2. Using the scheduler, schedule each file to run all the publisher blocks in sequence, ensuring the first report (overwrite PDF) is run first. The First DataManager file will create a new report and the subsequent files will insert their report data and the end of the report. At the end of this process you should end up with a single PDF file containing reports from all of the different Databases.

This functionality is very new, so please let me know if you encounter any problems or have any questions.

Hi

I am having some problems with the above procedure mentioned.

In data manager if i add "pdf output" block at the end and configure the export to a pdf file and then press publish. It loads all the data into the omniscope file and then opens a blank omniscope file and does nothing.Ive waited for a good 20 minutes and nothing happens.

Any advice ?

If i just manually export to pdf it work fine.

Hi,

What version of Omniscope are you using?

Could you attach a screen-shot of the PDF publisher block so I can see what configuration options are being used?

Thanks

Chris