August 2011

InfoAssist DeploymentCookbook

Presenters: John Sheridan, Manager of Business Technology & Development

Georgina McLaughlin, Senior Business Technology Analyst

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Expectations: What will you Learn

• Best practices for deploying Info Assist • What is a hold file, the benefits using

them, and how to build them.• What is InfoAssist and how to apply it to a

specific business need. • Demonstration of a live application

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Agenda

• The Insperity Story• The Info Assist Application• Deployment Strategy• Managing Your Data • How do you arrange Info Assist • Info Assist Live

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What is InfoAssist?InfoAssist is the latest innovation for ad-hoc business intelligence reporting for the business user.

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Features of InfoAssist• Use of an interactive WYSIWYG to easily customize in a

development environment.• Ad-hoc reporting in a single client, thin client

environment. No software to install. • Generate highly complex reports, charts, and documents

from any information source. • Ability to publish and share documents.• Single click technology where conversion from report to

chart or chart to report is made easy.• Analyze multiple charts and graphs simultaneously.• Data output in multiple formats• You can visit the IBI website for detailed information.

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Demonstration

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Deployment Strategy

• Targeted Deployment– Business unit specific– Data specific– InfoASSIST tailored to Business

• Part of an overall self service strategy– Canned reports– Dynamic reports– Parameterized Reports

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Managing Data

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What are Hold Files?

– Sequential data source that contains the results of a report request.

– May have a corresponding HOLD Master. – The extension for a HOLD file is .ftm unless

the FORMAT is specified. – If a Master File is created, it has the same

name as the extract file, with the extension .mas.

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What are Hold Files?

• Commands– Hold – Savb – Save – Holdmast

• Formats– Focus– Others

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What are Hold Files?• Hold file structures

– Flat or single segment – Multi-segment

• FORMAT FOCUS option with HOLD– Creates data file– Creates master file– User specified directory (comapp)

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Why Use Hold Files?

• Efficiency– Developing applications– Production applications against large files– Production applications with multiple matches

• End user reporting– Easy to use reporting files– Mask complexities from end users

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How do you build Hold Files?

• Syntax – ON TABLE HOLD [AS filename] FORMAT

FOCUS [INDEX field1 field2 ...]– HOLD is the default name

• Overwrites previous file

– 4 is maximum index fields

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How do you build Hold Files?

• File location commands– APP designates directory (comapp)– APP HOLD – Data and Master– APP HOLDDATA – Data file only– APP HOLDMETA – Master only

APP HOLD comapp edassistfile

APP HOLDDATA comapp loa_policy

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Master

Hold

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How do you build Hold Files?

• Existing Data– Understand data– One to Many– Many to One – Match Command

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InfoAssist Live

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In Summary

• Keep it simple • Less is more – Start small• Know your data

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