E1 Tips & Tricks

Escape From SQL

The other day, one of my coworkers was presented a question from our development team:

How can I use SQL to look for a "%" in a column?

Well, the first guess is to use something like:

SELECT * FROM MYLIB/MYFILE WHERE MYCOL LIKE ‘%%%’

or

SELECT * FROM MYLIB/MYFILE WHERE MYCOL LIKE ‘%\%%’

Well, unfortunately, neither of those statements would work. However, DB2/OS400 provides a very cool way of escaping a special character. It is the ESCAPE keyword. This keyword allows you to specify the character that you would like to use as an escape character. So, this would be the correct syntax:

SELECT * FROM MYLIB/MYFILE WHERE MYCOL LIKE ‘%+%%’ ESCAPE ‘+’

I think that this is a very cool feature. I just wish that the ANSI/ISO standards used it. Then, it could be used in other databases.

May 12, 2008 | EnterpriseOne - SQLs | No Comments »

Oracle’s Collaborate ‘08 Digital Resources Disk

I received my Digital Resources Disk a week or so ago.  It’s the disk that was offered by Rudy Lukez from Oracle that I saw on The JD Edwards Advisor blog.

I just now was able to take a look at all the goodies inside.  Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed.  There is quite a bit of marketing fluff.  Things like customer success stories, product data sheets, statements of direction and release value propositions are not overly useful to someone that has already invested in the product.  I think most of the content is available on the public EnterpriseOne product page at Oracle.com.

I don’t mean to be negative.  I am thankful for the opportunity to look over this content.  I guess I was just expecting more.

May 7, 2008 | EnterpriseOne - General | No Comments »

EnterpriseOne Ad Hoc Reporting

One thing that I have heard from many organizations about E1 is the lack of an Ad Hoc reporting tool.  Report Design Aid (RDA) is great, but has a very steep learning curve and requires a "fat client".  Because of this, it is almost impossible to use for those "one-time" situational reports.

Well, over the next few weeks both of our installations will be evaluating Data Access Studio by ReportsNow.

So far, it looks like a great solution.  It’s been very easy to setup (I’m just waiting for a license key).  The way we would like to use it involves installing a "fat client" on Windows Server 2003 with IIS installed.  A user will then login using their E1 credentials and be able to design reports online.  I believe that it uses an ActiveX control for the design and the integration with Excel.

I will post more information as our evaluation progresses.

What do you use as an ad hoc reporting solution?

May 5, 2008 | EnterpriseOne - General | No Comments »

An Oracle Gift From The JD Edwards Advisor

Lee Kroon, at the JD Edwards Advisor, announced a gift from Oracle that is available if you act quickly.  The details are on his latest post, An Eventful Month for EnterpriseOne.

Also, check out the rest of the post and if you haven’t subscribed to their email announcements, you should.

April 24, 2008 | EnterpriseOne - General | No Comments »

Collaborate 08 Keynote Recap

Lee Kroon, from Andrews Consulting Group’s JD Edwards Advisor, has a great recap of the Collaborate 08 keynote speeches.

The Best of COLLABORATE 08 – Part One « The JD Edwards Advisor

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be there this year.

So, thanks Lee for spreading the word to those of us who stayed home to man the fort.

April 22, 2008 | EnterpriseOne - General | No Comments »