Deprecated Developers

Not what I needed today, as I amble into my fourth year of a budget-constraining, time-consuming part-time graduate degree . I am lucky to be currently employed as a web developer, but by the time I graduate (Spring 2012), will this investment in time, money and knowledge result in an increase in my hire-ability? Where do I fit in as a candidate in the tech sector? Am i globally competitive? I know that without a Master’s degree I’m at a disadvantage at any tech interview, especially when there are twenty younger, Ivy League grads are competing for the same job. How do I keep my skills relevant? Last week, in my one the lectures I watched on video, the professor remarked that by the time we learn and apply what he is teaching us, the software/paradigm/framework may well be obsolete. Look at how web site development has progressed from using FrontPage to Dreamweaver to Joomla. Everything is getting modularized and automated.

The things I took from the New York Times   article :

1. It’s not enough to just be a C++ or Java guru.
2. R&D is not just tied to big dollars as new technologies are coming up from low, cost innovation efforts.
3. The tech market is maturing and is being replaced by healthcare as the next growth sector.

Doubling up..in more ways than one.

Just signed up for Fall Term. I’m taking TWO courses, doubling up (to get to the finish line in time). I’m so excited to be getting back to academics after a summer off. Yes, it’s stressful and I will probably regret by the time the first assignment is due, but I really do prefer having the structure of a work-eat-sleep-study schedule. Another aspect of the discipline required for this term is financial. This is scarier to me than the time commitment. Two courses at Harvard is not cheap. And my spouse is in the same program, taking two courses too. So four tuition fees + double course load = interesting Fall season?

Universes on OLTP vs OLAP systems

Recently participated in a conversation on LinkedIn, about the pros and cons of building a universe off OLAP vs OLTP systems. We don’t always have the luxury to build things in the most optimal way, so maybe a post on how to minimize the impacts of an OLTP based Universe is in order. I’m lucky this week to have a n experienced Business Objects consultant, Patrick Mille, in the house for two weeks, so I will ask the expert and do a write up soon.
BoB Discussion: BO UNIVERSE ON OLTP

Business Objects: Implementing ‘Previous Page’ Links in Web Intelligence Documents

A recent requirement for my BO project was to implement ‘previous page’ links on BO reports that drilled to child reports. I refer to them as “Back Links” here because the customer wanted a simple link that spelled “Back” at the top of each report. The link allows users to go navigate from a detail page back up to the initial report page, within a set of linked WebI reports. Just like the back button on a web page. This is straight forward when the set of linked reports share the same common prompt(s): the text and value of the prompt is simply embedded in the html link on a report to be passed to the next report, where the same prompt and text value is embedded in an html back link cell.

This is how it would be normally set up, within a set of 3 linearly linked WebI reports:

Linking opendoc prompts

1. Set up object and prompt in universe.
2. Add the prompt to the queries for reports 1, 2 and 3.
3. Create a link on a column object in Report 1 that will pass prompt text and value to Report 2.
4. Create a link on a column object in Report 2 that will pass prompt text and value to Report 3.
5. Create a link with the word “Back” somewhere on Report 3 and Report 2 to pass the prompt text and values back up to Report 1.

This is a stripped down version of my actual report at work. I have just one data column and the link to Report 2 is on column “Report Date”. There are 3 prompts on Report 1.

The visual:

Report 1 Prompts and links

The links on Report Date passes all three prompts to Report 2:

"<a href=/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=IDofReport2
&sIDType=CUID
&sType=wid
&sRefresh=Y
&lsSFilter="+UserResponse("Filter")
+"&lsSJCS%20DNBI%20Report%20Date%20Beginning="+URLEncode(UserResponse("JCS DNBI Report Date Beginning"))
+"&lsSJCS%20DNBI%20Report%20Date%20Ending="+URLEncode(UserResponse("JCS DNBI Report Date Ending"))+">"+FormatDate([Report Date object];"MM/dd/yyyy")+"</a>"

This can be generalized to:

"<a href=/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=DocIDofReport2
&sIDType=CUID
&sType=wid
&sRefresh=Y
&lsSPrompt%20Text="+UserResponse("Prompt  Text")+">"+[Column Object]+"</a>"

Let’s look at Report 2. This document has the same set of prompts as its predecessor and contains the first “Back” link. The visual:

Report 2 Prompts and Links

This is how I constructed the “Back” link:

"<a href='/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=IDofReport1
&sIDType=CUID
&sType=wid
&sRefresh=Y
&lsSFilter=" + UserResponse("Filter") + "&lsSJCS%20DNBI%20Report%20Date%20Beginning="+URLEncode(UserResponse("JCS DNBI Report Date Beginning"))+
"&lsSJCS%20DNBI%20Report%20Date%20Ending="+URLEncode(UserResponse("JCS DNBI Report Date Ending"))+ "'>Back</a>"

As you can see, the link simply passes the same prompt parameters back to Report 1 that Report 1 made available to Report 2 via the opendoc syntax. Since the same prompt is being passed from Report 1 to Report 3, the back link is the same on Reports 2 and 3 but I’ll show it anyway. The ‘Back’ link from Report 3 would pass the prompt values that were received from the column link on Report 2, back to Report 2 and the same would happen from Report 2 to Report 1.

The link from Report 2 to Report 3 is on the column object “Category”. It is similar to the Report Date link on Report 1 with the addition of passing along the Category object):

"<a href=/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=IDofReport3
&sIDType=CUID
&sType=wid
&sRefresh=Y
&lsSFilter="+UserResponse("Filter")+"
&lsSJCS%20DNBI%20Report%20Date%20Beginning="+URLEncode(UserResponse("JCS DNBI Report Date Beginning"))
+"&lsSJCS%20DNBI%20Report%20Date%20Ending="+URLEncode(UserResponse("JCS DNBI Report Date Ending"))
+"&lsSCategory="+URLEncode([Category object])+">"+[Category object]+"</a>"

Report 3 has a prompt to receive the Category object value that was passed from Report 2, as well as the two date prompts and filter prompt:

Report 3 Prompts and Links

Again, we use opendoc syntax to send the prompts back up to the predecessor report. The ‘Back’ link on Report 3:

"<a href='/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=IDofReport2
&sIDType=CUID
&sType=wid
&sRefresh=Y
&lsSFilter="+UserResponse("Filter")
+"&lsSJCS%20DNBI%20Report%20Date%20Beginning="+URLEncode(UserResponse("JCS DNBI Report Date Beginning"))
+"&lsSJCS%20DNBI%20Report%20Date%20Ending="+URLEncode(UserResponse("JCS DNBI Report Date Ending"))+ "'>Back</a>"

which can be reduced to:

"<a href='/OpenDocument/opendoc/openDocument.jsp?iDocID=DocIDofReport1
&sIDType=CUID
&sType=wid
&sRefresh=Y
&lsSPrompt%20Text="+UserResponse("Prompt Text")+ "'>Back</a>"

Next post: What happens when we need to link WebI documents that do not have the same set of prompts?

Arrivederci

Look ma, I’m published! She would be so proud to know I’m finally an author. Please don’t explain this to her. I’m writing for no reason, but not without purpose.