Release 5.1

ADVIZOR Analyst Edition 5.1 Release Notes

September 28, 2006

ADVIZOR Solutions, Inc ADVIZOR Version 5.1 Copyright 2000 - 2006, ADVIZOR Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This 51.htm (Release Notes) file contains product information for ADVIZOR Analyst Edition 5.1products. These release notes are available from the ADVIZOR Guide as well.

Index

• New in this Release

• Platform Notes

• Installation Instructions

• Databases Supported

• Known Problems and Hints

• Technical Support

New in this Release:

1. Changes:

   • The default font sizes have changed from previous versions. New projects will get the new default sizes, but if you open a previous version, font sizes may be larger than you expect because the previous font definition is stored in the project but is now interpreted differently. Go back to the default definitions by changing the size manually, or by holding down the SHIFT key when the splash screen appears during start up.

2. Features and Enhancements

   • Text Filters: show categories in a field that can be used to select a subset of the data to focus the analysis on. See the Guide for further information.

   • Undo on ADVIZOR Server: You can now undo and redo operations from a Server web browser client.

   • Expanded and updated documentation: Documentation has been significantly enhanced.

   • Performance enhancements: Performance has been improved in reading data, operation with large numbers of charts in multiple tabs, operation of the Color Legend, and filtering.

   • Heat Map: The Heat Map has been extended to provide a color scale when it is colored by its own data, to show the overall color scheme when it is not independently colored, to be more legible, and to provide average weights. However, the Heat Map is still only appropriate for low volumes of data.

3. Fixes

   • Server AE: loading a second session of an embedded project consumes large amounts of memory (9396)

   • Color legend performance problems (9372)

   • Server AE: "Where Am I" causes very poor performance in browser, resulting in unusable dashboard (9174)

   • Creating all charts in a dashboard can be onerous for large dashboards (9378)

   • Performance improvement for filters (9419)

   • Data loading is slow with large datasets (9420)

   • TimeTable: Provide ability to turn off summary at right (8632)

   • Refresh from Excel spreadsheet doesn't always pick up the latest data. (9348)

   • Bar Chart: Zero-weighted bar shows selection percentage as -1.#IND00e+000% (9370)

   • Changing selection operation via toolbar with tab with only Heat Map fails (9671)

   • Summary Sheet: Text color should be customizable (9238)

   • Analyst: Color Link doesn't work properly when data is excluded (9177)

   • Column sorting not propagated for Parabox when publishing to server (9122)

   • Server AE: Last value in color legend garbled when colored by a real (9263)

   • Analyst: Summary Sheet: "Display Focus" should be False by default (9417)

   • Analyst: Help >> About should contain complete version number that matches the CD (9437)

   • Analyst: Get error "The parameter is incorrect" when trying to create regression model (9069)

   • Analyst: Color stacking messed up after exporting presentation (9073)

   • Analyst: bar chart w/mult metrics does not order correctly (9070)

   • Data Workshop: use the right univariate view (9625)

   • Need to show some type of progress or busy indicator during selections in web dashboards. (8846)

   • Summary Sheet: visual doesn't update on Undo or Redo operations (8829)

   • ZeroClient fails with IE7 browser (9665)

   • Cannot turn off focus in Heat Map from Server (9709)

   • Heat Map: selecting doesn't unselect rows not included in the chart (9469)

   • ADV2ADVM executable fails in 5.03 environment (9457)

   • Rearranging charts in publisher freezes the screen (9430)

   • Analyst/X: exceptions related to testing model building and predicting (9401)

   • Analyst: Scatterplot: Expose x/y scale transformations (linear, log, root) in the UI (9359)

   • Analyst: if ADV project's data file is not where it's expected, we should help user find it (9542)

   • Control modifier has no effect on selection after default mode is changed (9680)

   • Labels missing in spine plot (and pie chart?) even though obviously enough room (9687)

   • Heat Map: Need to support average aggregations (9193)

   • Heat Map: Needs a color legend (9195)

   • Analyst: Color Legend wrong if showing numeric (real) and you exclude (9226)

   • Export presentation wizard does not like directory paths with & (ampersand) in them (9206)

   • Analyst: Bar Chart: "Orient Horizontal" in Property Explorer is wrong and confusing (9208)

   • Analyst: Expression Builder: If/Then/Else is invalid syntax (9228)

   • Image shown while publishing page still refers to "Loading visual..." (9234)

   • Analyst: Provide option for not including Measure By in browser and Desktop Navigator deployments (9244)

   • Server AE: Color Legend needs to support control+LMB selection (toggle) (9138)

   • Heat Map: standard selection modes not supported (9179)

   • Heat Map: "Color By" and "Glyph Size" aggregates can be very misleading (9192)

   • A field of numbers is interpreted as strings instead of integers if first 25 rows are null (8978)

   • Cancel label is misspelled in the Expression Builder dialog! (9326)

   • Publisher doesn't preserve Data Sheet or Parabox column order on data change (8902)

   • Include more diagnostics for DSWSExceptions thrown by BOBJ web service (9227)

   • Axis location not persisted when saving or publishing a project (9250)

   • KXEN group fields added to data cannot be used in Multiscape (9425)

Platform Notes

Client Requirements

Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows XP SP1

• Microsoft Windows 2000 SP3

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1

NOTE: ADVIZOR Software products do not currently support any of the Windows 64 bit Operating Systems. ADVIZOR Software products will run under these Operating Systems but will not make use of the additional address space.

Browser

• Internet Explorer 6.0 or Internet Explorer 7.

Other Software

• Features interfacing to MS Office applications require Office 2000 or later.

Hardware

• Any current, business-focused PC or laptop.

  • This excludes computers with low-end, entry level processors.

• 512MB of RAM or greater (See Note below)

• Graphics display processor with at least 16MB of video RAM

  • Either shared or dedicated video RAM is acceptable

  • Always use the most recently available drivers for the graphics display processor (contact the vendor to obtain them)

• Video display resolution of 1024 x 768 or greater

• Video display color depth of 16 million colors

• CD-ROM drive

• Mouse or compatible pointing device

NOTE: For a given dataset, performance of the ADVIZOR Analyst software is dependent on:

• Amount of RAM

• CPU

  • Processor speed

  • Processor architecture/technology

    • Amount of cache

    • Number of cores

in that order.

When deciding on a computer to use or buy, opt first for as much RAM as possible within economic constraints; however, once the amount of RAM has been decided, opt for the fastest and most powerful CPU that satisfies economic constraints. The amount of RAM required is highly dependent on your application data. The minimum amount of RAM is determined primarily by:

• The amount and type of data being loaded into memory

  • The number of rows

  • The number of fields

  • The type of data in each field

    i. Alphanumeric (string) ii. Numeric or Date

• Your particular ADVIZOR Analyst application design

As a rough estimate of the amount of RAM required for your data, find the file size of each data file you intend to load when the data is in the form of a text file and sum the file sizes.

Additional RAM will be required for your intended ADVIZOR Analyst application; however, in most cases the RAM required for data will be the most significant contributor.

Beyond these general guidelines and within economic constraints, more RAM and faster processors will almost always maximize your ADVIZOR Analyst application's performance. Consider provisioning any PC or laptop with future expansion in mind.

OLAP clients

• At least SP4 for MS OLAP Services including msolap80.dll from that SP

Server Requirements

Following are the minimum requirements for server products:

Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server SP3 or

• Windows Server 2003

Other

• IIS 5.0, or newer, installed and running prior to installation of the Microsoft .NET Framework

• Microsoft .NET Framework release 1.1 with any updates.

  • ADVIZOR Server software will only work with Microsoft .NET Framework Release 1.1 (with updates).

  • If you have the Microsoft .NET Framework Release 2.0 installed, you must still have the Microsoft .NET Framework Release 1.1 (with updates) installed as well.

NOTE: To verify that the ADVIZOR Server software is using the Microsoft .NET Framework release 1.1:

• Open the Internet Information Services console from Administrative Tools

• Click to display all virtual directories under the default web site

• Right click the ADV virtual directory

• Click the ASP.NET tab

  • The ASP.NET version should be 1.1.4322 (the latest version with updates)

Hardware

• Any current, server class computer (See note below)

  • Typically, at least a dual processor configuration will be required

    • To service the expected number of users

      • Multiple users accessing the same project increase the overall processor utilization

    • To execute several different projects simultaneously

• At least 1GB of RAM per processor (See the Note above under Client Products)

  • Each distinct project accessed by users requires its own memory space

    • RAM should be increased as the number of distinct projects accessed grows

  • Multiple users accessing the same project do so with minimal additional RAM overhead

• No graphics display processor is required

• Segmenting projects to additional servers must be considered as the user and project load grows

NOTE: In general, it is recommended that the ADVIZOR Server software run on its own server hardware. Beyond these general guidelines and within economic constraints, more RAM and more and faster processors will almost always maximize your ADVIZOR Server's performance. Consider provisioning any server hardware with future expansion in mind.

Client Internet Browser Software

• Internet Explorer 6.0, or later

• ADVIZOR Server software does not support the use of any other browser

  NOTE: If the server also has the database software installed, consider using a multiprocessor system. Some databases such as Microsoft SQL Server take advantage of multiprocessor capabilities to improve performance. Networking delays may also be reduced by having the database on the same system.

Installation Instructions

1. Prior to installing ADVIZOR Analyst/X, remove prior versions of ADVIZOR Publisher or Analyst Pro using Add/Remove Programs.

2. Insert the CDROM into your CD drive. Double click on Setup.exe in the root directory on the CD.

3. If you are instructed to remove a prior version of an ADVIZOR Analyst Edition product, proceed as directed, or use the operating system's "Add/Remove Software" facility.

4. Holding down the shift key during application startup (while the logo is displayed), will restore the application settings to the "factory default" settings. These setting are sometimes updated when a new release is issued, so its a good practice to do so whenever you have loaded a new version of the software..

5. After installation, confirm the new version is installed by starting the ADVIZOR Analyst Edition Product and looking at menu Help->About Version. Version should be as noted in the following table .

Product	Version Number (Help About...)
ADVIZOR 5.1 Analyst	5.1.2461.32698
ADVIZOR 5.1 Analyst/X	5.1.2461.32700
ADVIZOR 5.1 Desktop Navigator	5.1.2461.32703
ADVIZOR 5.1 Server AE	5.1.2461.32702
ADVIZOR 5.1 Analyst Office	5.1.2461.32697
ADVIZOR 5.1 Analyst/X Office	5.1.2461.32701

Installation of ADVIZOR Server AE

1. Stop the IIS server on the target machine.

2. Use Add/Remove Software (found in Control Panel) to remove any prior version of the software.

3. Restart IIS. It must be running when you install.

4. Install the Server AE software.

5. Don't forget to perform the post-installation setup displayed at the end of installation

Databases Supported

As of this release, ADVIZOR supports:

• Text files (see note below)

• MS Excel (see note below)

• MS Access (see note below)

• Business Objects WebI (6.5) (see note below)

• MS SQL Server (version 7.0 or later)

• MS Analysis Services (OLAP)

• Oracle (version 9i or later)

• Teradata (version V2 R5.0 or later)

and the following ODBC interfaces:

NOTE: ODBC DSN configurations must be defined as "System DSNs"

Oracle drivers

• Microsoft ODBC for Oracle - MSORCL32.DLL

• Oracle in OraClient10g - SQORA32.DLL

  SQL Server driver

• SQL Server - SQLSRV32.DLL

  Pervasive drivers

• Pervasive ODBC Client Interface - W3ODBCCI.DLL

• Pervasive ODBC Engine Interface - W3ODBCEI.DLL

  MySQL driver

• MySQL ODBC 3.51 Driver - MYODBC3.DLL (MyODBC-3.51.11-2-win.msi - when used with MySQL version mysql-essential-4.1.13-win32.msi)

For Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel and text files, you MUST use the non-ODBC options in the Data Wizard.

Unified Web Services is a pre-requisite for accessing data from a Webi installation. NOTE that Unified Web Services is not part of the version 6.5 product suite. It is contained within the Business Objects - Crystal Integration Pack v1.0. With BOE XI, the packaging may be different. Contact Business Objects for details

Support for other database types will require custom development. If interested contact [e-mail]

Known Problems and Hints

• When publishing to PowerPoint, the item under the mouse (after you dismiss the dialog) receives the focus. To avoid this, before dismissing the "Save As" dialog, move the mouse outside of the application window and use the “Enter” key to dismiss the dialog.

• If a project is published with embedded data to the server with Text Filters active, the “filtered out” data is omitted from the project on the server. Make sure all filter values are on (checked) before you publish; you can use bookmarks to provide particular filtered states to server users.

• Heat maps perform poorly, currently, with large volumes of data (on the order of several hundred thousand rows), especially on the server. This will be remedied in a future release.

• If your existing project contains a Bar Chart and the chart orientation is not what you expected, just open project, fix orientation, and re-publish.

• Regarding configuration of an ODBC data interface:

  1. You must ensure you have the proper ODBC drivers for your database per the information under "Databases Supported" (above).

  2. You must configure ODBC drivers through the Windows OS prior to trying to use them in ADVIZOR.

  3. The ODBC must be configured as a System DSN, not a User DSN.

• Microsoft .NET Framework release 1.1 or release 1.0 with updates is required for ADVIZOR Server. Release 2.0 will not work since the .NET 1.1 modules are compiled into the ADVIZOR executables. However, in IIS virtual directory configuration, you can select the .NET version associated with the ADVIZOR Server virtual directories. You should select 1.1.

• Some database products, like MS SQL Server, may at times, place significant demands on system resources. For this reason, we recommend installing ADVIZOR Server products on a machine other than the DB server. Doing so should result in noticeably better performance of ADVIZOR Server.

• ADVIZOR Server AE runs into a couple difficulties that are unique to Windows 2000 systems (these are not problems with Windows XP/2003):

  • ADVIZOR Server AE must be accessed first from an external machine to ensure that permissions are initialized properly.

  • The Publisher application and the Server cannot run simultaneously on the same system. That is, if the Server has opened a project, the Publisher cannot be started, and if the Publisher is running, the Server will not be able to open a project. In order for you to create and publish a project and access it from the Server on the same Windows 2000 machine, you need to follow this sequence:

    1. Make sure the Server is not running (restart IIS from the Computer Management console).

    2. Start the Publisher, open your project, and publish perspectives to http://<servermachine>/ADV.

    3. Close the Publisher application without accessing your published page (don't click on the link to view the page).

    4. From another machine, access- http://<servermachine>/ADV/AsiProjectDirectory.aspx and then click on the newly published project.

    5. On the server machine, access http://localhost/ADV and click on the new project.
• If your views seem incorrect compared to what you know about your data, and you are using a .csv, .txt or .xls data source, check to be sure your data is "clean". For instance, we've noted cases where an excel column is defined to be "number", but one of the entries contains something like 98763X. This may confuse Microsoft's JET driver (used with .csv, .txt, .xls data) and cause what appears to be incorrect data. Similarly, where a column is defined to be a "Date", but there was an entry "-" (someone had put in a "dash" because they didn't know the date value for that entry). You're better off leaving the entry blank.

• Holding down the shift key during application startup (while the logo is displayed), will restore the application settings to the "factory default" settings. These setting are sometimes updated when a new release is issued, so its a good practice to do so whenever you have loaded a new version of the software.

• As a troubleshooting aid, any logging information may be written to either C:\Program Files\ADVIZOR Analyst\error.log or C:\Program Files\Common Files\ADVIZOR Components\exception.log, depending on the nature of the problem. The operating system's "Application Event" log may also provide useful information.

• If you have problems loading textual data from a .csv or .txt file, you may need to explicitly specify the formatting of the fields in the data. This may be done using a Schema.ini file. The Schema.ini file is a Microsoft convention for specifying data formats when using the JET or ODBC drivers. Further information is available at:

  http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odbc/htm/odbcjetschema_ini_file.asp

  The following link shows a good example schema.ini file about half way through the article.

  http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;155512
• Loading data using a Schema.ini file: In the Schema.ini file, if you specify that there is no column header in the data file, this will override the ADVIZOR Data Wizard setting for that attribute and will consequently read one less line of data than there actually is. This is a platform software issue beyond our control.

• If you are reading data from a .csv or .txt file that you've used previously with a pre 4.0 version of ADVIZOR, the existence of field type specifications in line 2 of your data may cause incorrect interpretation of some of the field types, or an error during startup of your project. Starting with version 4.0, ADVIZOR uses Microsoft's JET Driver, so type specifications in the second line of data should no longer be used.

• A pre-requisite for accessing data from a Business Objects WebI installation: you must have Business Objects' Unified Web Services installed.

• Additional information (available on request)

  • Guide on advanced publishing

  • Guide on branding

  • Guide on audit logging

Contacting Technical Support

When submitting a problem to Technical Support, email is the preferred mechanism ([e-mail]). In the email, please provide as many of the following as possible:

• Your company name

• Your name & contact information including phone number

• The name of the product you are using and its version number

• Your license key used to install the product

• A detailed explanation of what you were doing that led up to the problem.

• Screen shot(s) and/or exact text of any error information

• C:\Program Files\ADVIZOR Product\error.log, if it exists (replace Product with Analyst or AnalystX, etc as applicable to your product)

• C:\Program Files\Common Files\ADVIZOR Components\exception.log, if it exists

• Machine's System Information file created from the "System Information" saved as type ".nfo"

• Operating system's Application event log in .evt format so that we get the detailed event descriptions

• If you're having a database access problem, submit all relevant DB information, including DB vendor, DB version, whether the DB is local or remote, whether or not you are able to access the DB using vendor or third party supplied query tools, etc

Important Note: If you encounter an error/exception and are offered the opportunity to forward diagnostic information, please do so. However, note that you can help reduce the time to resolution by also including details of the actions that led to the event. Our ability to rapidly understand the problem is significantly increased when we know all the details.

If you cannot find answers to your questions using the online help "Table of Contents", "Index" or "Find" tabs, or in this release notes file, have your application license number handy and use one of the following contact methods:

Send email to: [e-mail] (preferred method)

-or-

call the ADVIZOR Solutions, Inc Technical Support line during business hours (8:00 AM - 4:30 PM Central time, Monday - Friday) at +1.630.971.5250