Release 5.7

ADVIZOR Analyst Edition 5.7 Release Notes

February 21, 2011

ADVIZOR Solutions, Inc ADVIZOR Version 5.7 Copyright 2000 - 2011, ADVIZOR Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This (ReleaseNotes.htm) file contains product information for ADVIZOR Analyst Edition 5.7 products. These release notes are available on the installation image as well as in the install directory for the product(s) you have installed.

Index

• Instructional videos are available online.

• New in this Release

• Platform Notes

• Installation Instructions

• Databases Supported

• Known Problems and Hints

• Technical Support

New in this Release

Features and Enhancements

The R5.7 version provides these new features:

• Improved documentation for new users of ADVIZOR Analyst gives more support in initially learning to use the product.

• The wizard for configuring the Map chart has been improved. You can now edit the configuration of an existing chart (previously all configuration information had to be re-entered.) The wizard has been re-organized. Mapping of a location field in the data to geocodes (longitudes and latitudes) can now be done as part of chart configuration; previously this had to be done separately in the Data Workshop.

• Summary Sheets now support "ratio" as a calculation for summary fields.

• Performance of large Summary Sheets on start up is dramatically improved.

• A beta version of a new "Project Workshop" is included. This will ultimately replace the Data Workshop as the user interface to define how data is managed in ADVIZOR Analyst. Since it is an experimental feature, the existing Data Workshop is still available; it will be removed in a future release.

• Editing of existing projects is more robust.

• The Expression Builder now supports a new quoting convention indicating that a string is a field name, back quotes "`"). This helps detect problems introduced when edits to a project cause an existing field to disappear.

• Predictive modeling has been updated to a more robust version. The modeling license key has also been updated for an extended time period. If you are running any version prior to R5.6.2 (which shipped in August, 2010), you must upgrade to R5.7 before April 2011 or modeling will cease functioning.

If you run ADVIZOR Server and are upgrading from R5.5 or earlier versions of ADVIZOR (e.g., you did not upgrade to the R5.6 edition which started shipping in June, 2010), then you must re-publish all server projects using a R5.7 (or R5.6) ADVIZOR Analyst or Analyst/X in order for ADVIZOR Server to run them. ADVIZOR Server R5.7 (or R5.6) will not run projects created by R5.5 or earlier versions of ADVIZOR Analyst (or Analyst/X)

Additionally, the same situation exists for the adv2advm utility. Project files created with version R5.5 or ealier that are input to adv2advm must be re-saved as an ADV from R5.7 (or R5.6) ADVIZOR Analyst or Analyst/X in order to be run by R5.7 (or R5.6).

Projects saved in R5.6 do not need to be re-published for R5.7.

ADVIZOR Analyst and Analyst/X R5.7 (and R5.6) WILL open and run all projects created by earlier versions of ADVIZOR software.

So, no project work will be lost. It will just need to be opened and re-publised or re-saved in order for ADVIZOR Server R5.7 or adv2advm R5.7 to use them.

Defects

Approximately 27 existing defects have been fixed.

Platform Notes

ADVIZOR Analyst Requirements

Operating System

• Microsoft Windows XP SP1

• Microsoft Windows Vista32 or 64

• Microsoft Windows 7 32 or 64

• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1 or Windows Server 2008. (See Installation Instructions below for a note on Windows Server 2008 considrations.)

Other Software

• Features interfacing to Microsoft Office applications require Office 2000 or later. Output to formats specific to Microsoft Office 2007 is not currently supported, however.

• Access to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or Access databases is currently only possible from 32 bit version of ADVIZOR Analyst. On 64 bit operating system, you must still install the 32 bit version.

Hardware

• Any current, business-focused PC or laptop.

  • We do NOT recommend computers with low-end, entry level processors.

• 2 GB of RAM or greater (See Note below). 4GB and a 64 bit operating system are required required for larger volumes of data, above 2 million rows.

• Graphics display processor with at least 512MB 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. Multiple cores are currently only used by ADVIZOR Server.

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

    1. Alphanumeric (string)

    2. 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.

ADVIZOR Server

Client Web Browser

• Windows: Internet Explorer 7 or 8, Firefox 3, Safari, Google Chrome.

• Mac OS/X: Firefox 3, Safari.

Server Operating Systems

• Windows Server 2003 - 64 bit only

• Microsoft Server 2008

Use of the 64 bit versions of server operating systems is required.

Other

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

Hardware

• Any current, server class computer, with multiple processor cores.

• At least 8GB of RAM is recommended.

  • 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.

We recommend that the ADVIZOR Server software run on its own server hardware.

Beyond these general guidelines and within economic constraints, more memory and more and faster processors will almost always maximize your ADVIZOR Server's performance. Consider provisioning any server hardware with future expansion in mind.

Installation Instructions

1. Prior to installing ADVIZOR Analyst/X, remove prior versions of ADVIZOR Analyst 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. Before using the Adv2Advm utility the first time, you need to register DLLs manually. However, this is not necessary if you are running 64-bit Adv2Advm on a machine where ADVIZOR Server AE is also installed since this is done as part of that installation process.

   Execute the following using CMD.exe. Since registering DLLs requires Administrative priviledges, if you are on Windows 7, Vista, or Server 2008 with User Account Control (UAC) enabled, you must right-click on the "Command Prompt" Start menu item and select "Run as administrator".

   • For 32 bit Windows or 64 bit ADVIZOR software on 64 bit Windows:

     cd/d C:\Program Files\ADVIZOR Solutions\Analyst (or other product install directory regsvr32 VzLib.dll VzCalc.dll

   • For 32 bit ADVIZOR software on 64 bit Windows:

     cd/d C:\Program Files (x86)\ADVIZOR Solutions\Analyst (or other product install directory) \Windows\SysWow64\regsvr32 VzLib.dll VzCalc.dll

5. On Windows Server 2008, security warnings are issued by the Operating System when the machine is in the default configuration because of Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration. These occur because a component version of the web browser is used by ADVISOR Analyst. These warnings may be eliminated by disabling Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration. See http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd883248(WS.10).aspx for more details. There is no security issue from the use of this web browser component because it never accesses any Internet web sites.
6. To have a custom web site icon displayed with ADVIZOR Server pages, copy the file "favicon.ico" from the ADVIZOR Server directory ("c:/Program Files/ADVIZOR Solutions/ADVIZOR Solutions/ADVIZOR Server AE/" by default) to the IIS root directory ("c:/INetpub/wwwroot" by default).

Databases Supported

• Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel files can only be read with the 32 bit version of ADVIZOR: see note below.

• Microsoft Access. Microsoft Access files can only be read with the 32 bit version of ADVIZOR: set note below.

• SalesForce.com

• MS SQL Server (version 7.0 or later)

• Oracle (version 9i or later)

• ODBC interfaces to databases:

  • NOTE: ODBC DSN configurations must be defined as "System DSNs" through Windows prior to trying to use them in ADVIZOR.

  • Microsoft ODBC for Oracle - MSORCL32.DLL

  • 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)

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

Known Problems and Hints

• All projects created with a version of ADVIZOR Analyst before R5.6 must be re-published to ADVIZOR Server using ADVIZOR Analyst R5.6 or later. Projects that are input to adv2advm must be republished also.

• See the special Install Instructions above if you are using adv2advm.

• Microsoft Office data formats (Excel, Access) can only be read with the 32 bit version of ADVIZOR. You must install the 32 bit version of ADVIZOR Analyst even on a 64 bit version of Windows to access these data formats. These formats cannot be read directly by ADVIZOR Server, since it is only available in a 64 bit version. Use adv2advm to create a project for use on ADVIZOR Server if these formats are needed.

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 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

• Errors are logged to a file at:

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\ADVIZOR Solutions\<product name>\error.log

Or

C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\ADVIZOR Solutions\error.log on Windows XP

Replace <product name> with Analyst or AnalystX, etc. as applicable to your product.

• 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

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 contact us:

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