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TI:
Please tell us about your background. How many years have you worked
on Actuate and your specializations?
About
3 years, not counting time off between contracts. I was first paid
to program computers about 20 years ago. Except for some recessions,
I have been doing so ever since.
TI:
What is your current Job profile?
I
am a systems analyst. That means that I don’t just write
reports… I can design libraries and programming standards for a
whole system of reports and then lead the team that implements them.
I mentor younger programmers and help end-users get past reluctance
to adopt new technology. I am also a proficient lateral thinker who
is happier finding a simple way to solve a problem without
programming than finding the programming solution requested.
TI:
Why did you choose Actuate?
Actuate
hired me on contract as a UNIX scriptwriter and program tester in
1996 & ’97 (I wrote the one “make” file that compiles the
Actuate report server on any of the three supported UNIX platforms).
I learned the system by exhaustively testing all of its features in
QA. During my year there, I also discovered that there was a
shortage of qualified report developers.
Even
now, though many new developers have been drafted to learn Actuate,
very few experienced designers have even heard of it. It seems that
report design in an IT department is not as sexy as putting one’s
name on a computer game or some such that can be shrink wrapped and
sold to millions (or at least thousands). That makes a handful of us
big fish in a small pond.
TI: Do you
think Actuate Reporting Tool is superior to any of its competitive
products? If yes, why do you think so?
Based
on the opinions of both Actuate’s designers and their customers, I
suspect that it probably is. However, I am not familiar with the
competition, so I can’t honestly compare.
TI: How
would you characterize Reporting Tool today; what is the "state
of the art"? What will Reporting Tool become, and what will it
take to get there?
Those
are questions for Actuate’s visionaries and perhaps their high-end
customers. As an independent consultant, I am more concerned with
solving the tasks my clients present to me, and those usually
don’t even call for essential features that would give the most
bang for my clients’ bucks. Therefore, I don’t think much about
“what if” tasks that would “pull” on the tool’s
development. However, even after leaving Actuate, I have asked for
many bug fixes I’d like to see that would make my work easier.
Since most of my clients have had very low expectations for Actuate,
I have had to “push” just to use as yet untapped power.
Envisioning as yet un invented features has been out of the
question.
TI: What
are your views on the prospect of Actuate and its Products? What is
your advice to new up-and-coming programmers and IT professionals?
As
I am writing, Actuate’s prospects seem to be turning on a lawsuit
brought by some competitor who claims that Actuate gained some
technology from former employees. I haven’t seen the evidence, and
I have no opinion.
Actuate’s
products appear strong, both technologically and marketwise. Several
products include Actuate bundled in, foisting it upon many customers
who would otherwise never hear of it. My best opportunities for
consulting come from such unsuspecting customers who find themselves
with an unknown and unfamiliar product as a result of some other
purchasing decision.
In
those cases, my goal is to turn buyer’s remorse into pleasant
surprise by unlocking Actuate’s productivity features and then
training salaried employees to take over for me. It’s as if
somebody bought a model train set and then discovered that there was
complicated electrical wiring with “some assembly required”. I
come in and set it up for them, and then they get to play with it
and all the remote controlled switches and gates they hadn’t known
they would get with the trains and track.
Because I am a sole proprietor, I have no employees to place
and no growth targets. Therefore I am content to work myself out of
each job so I can go home to rest and then land my next contract
with the good references that follow a job well done.
More
questions related to the Product
TI: While
using actuate, do we need to install any additional software on the
users PC to view or generate reports.
Database
client DLL and configuration file(s) are often needed so that the
Actuate Developer’s Workbench (or whatever they’re calling it
now) can access a particular database. Depending on the version of
Actuate being used and the type of reports being developed, a
proprietary viewer may be required for those viewing finished
reports. Last I checked, the viewer could be downloaded for free
from Actuate’s web site.
TI:
Is there a way to convert reports easily to text format?
That
depends on the type of report and what you mean by “easy”. Some
effort in programming can make it easy later for a user to convert
to whatever the programmer makes available.
The
last time I was asked to do something like that, the client had
Actuate v3.1 as an OEM adjunct to some other larger system. The
solution initially required a week of effort, but I got it down to a
single object in a library that any report developer could drag into
place as a button. In finished reports, users just clicked on the
button to spawn a text file. I still have that solution in my
traveling archives if I ever decide that I need something like it
again.
However,
I think that the newer Actuate versions have more support for data
extraction. Therefore, if asked in the future (and presented with a
newer version), I’ll do a few minutes of research before emulating
my prior solution. In fact, I think I’ll look back here to see
what other interviews suggest as solutions to this question.
TI : While
trying to log on to the Actuate Viewer for reports, if the Volume
field is blank, what should be entered in that field ?
That’s
new terminology to me. Last time I logged onto anything Actuate, I
was logging onto a report server and specifying the network name of
the machine that hosted it. It was sometimes called an encyclopedia.
TI: How is
it possible to change the default printer while accessing reports
from actuate viewer?
As
far as I know, “default printer” is a Windows characteristic. To
override the Windows default, use either the “Print…” or
“Print Setup…” dialog (available from the “File” menu when
a report instance has focus).
TI: What
are the permission levels that actuate allows? What are the access
rights corresponding to each permission levels?
Again,
the terminology seems to have evolved. Permissions I remember were
regarding access to objects on the report server. The types of
access were called “privileges”, and there were six of them:
visibility, read, write, execute, delete, and grant. I have
configured report servers for several clients, making good use of
those privileges combined with default privilege templates. I travel
with a few configuration specification documents just in case I need
to do another.
I
have read that Actuate is finally doing something with access to
objects within individual reports. I have not yet been asked to use
this new feature, but I’m sure I can look up the rules and apply
them for anyone who asks.
TI : How to build a custom web log
in screen to authenticate users ?
I’ve never
had to do that myself. It’s peripheral to actuate itself,
concerning system administrators more than report developers. When
told that a custom authentication is desired, I show a local system
admin where Actuate’s placeholders are so s/he can insert code
there. At that point, they’ve always preferred to code it
themselves rather than teach me how to abide by whatever security
paradigm they were using.
TI
: Is it possible to generate reports from Non progress databases. If
possible, how?
Of
course -- All of the reports I have ever designed have used
databases other than Progress. One merely configures one’s machine
to act as a client for the desired database, and then one designs
the reports using an appropriate connection class. Actuate comes out
of the box with predefined connection classes for ODBC, Oracle, and
about a half dozen others. It is feasible to define one’s own
custom connection classes. I have done so once for custom text files
one client was using in lieu of a relational database.
TI : How to
invoke hyperlink in an Actuate HTML report which will run another
report with dynamic report parameters.
I
have programmed hyperlinks to spawn sub-reports from standard report
files viewed in the Actuate viewer, but not in an HTML report viewed
in a browser. There’s a syntax for executing an ROX and passing
parameters, but I am not sure how to present it to a standard
browser. A plug-in would probably be needed. If asked to do such a
thing, I’ll look it up.
TI: Will Actuate Run on Linux
Platform
Probably
not. The Actuate designers are Windows based. I’ve heard claims
that Linux can emulate Windows, but I have never tried an Actuate
designer on it. The Actuate Servers can run on Solaris, HP-UX, or
IBM’s AIX. I don’t know enough about Linux to say whether it
could support one of those. Based on my work testing all three back
when the Actuate server was being ported from Solaris to the other
two, I am not optimistic.
If
others can demonstrate either successfully, I would like to see it.
TI : :
Please offer any concluding thoughts on topics you consider most
relevant.
I
am a US citizen, so I am authorized to work in certain companies and
on certain projects related to the government and national defense
that require such. I last had a secret clearance in January 1996.
However, I can and have worked in other English speaking countries
(Canada and UK). I am willing to travel 100%.
Object
oriented design ability is vitally important to any Actuate project
that hopes to produce more than two report designs and use them more
than once. I mean no offense, but most of the developers I have met
know just enough object-oriented features to be dangerous. They
don’t know design methodology and they don’t have discipline.
Therefore, most of the reports I’ve seen have been written as if
each is the only report in the project. In other words, there are a
whole lot of developers wasting a whole lot of time reinventing a
whole lot of wheels, and it’s a big waste of resources, time, and
money for their employers. Since I know what object-oriented design
is really for, I avoid that waste.
I
have written a six page (and growing) article on the differences
between the various levels of software developers’ experience and
vision. Partly, it’s an attempt to explain why I as a systems
analyst am worth more than somebody who is relatively new to
programming, even if the newer programmer is already using
development tools I haven’t seen yet. The gist is that I can
acquire a development tool in a few days or weeks, giving me both;
however, a less experienced developer needs years to learn about
software life cycle, system integration, and the long term benefits
of disciplined programming standards. The article’s aim is to
convince prospective clients that though I have specialized in
Actuate since 1997, I could just as easily apply my wisdom to C++,
Visual Basic, Object Ada, or object-oriented design in any other
suitable language.
If
you’ve never really understood what distinguishes a “systems
analyst” from a “programmer/analyst” or why a “senior
programmer” is only one step up from “junior programmer”, or
if you're just curious, then you can read it
here
.
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