News & Views, February 2001

The latest Web site developed using the mrc-Productivity Series²⁰⁰⁰ is now available for demonstration purposes. Visit www.crazybikes.com to see real-time DB2/400 data served to the Web. Try the various Internet, intranet, and extranet applications to experience the power and flexibility of interactive Web applications. The entire site was created using the award-winning mrc-Productivity Series, the iSeries (AS/400) tool suite for Web site creation, rapid application development, and report writing.

Crazy Bikes is a fictional bike company whose Web site allows customers, business partners, vendors, and employees to access real-time data over the Web. You may see many of the applications there that you are considering for the future. The great part is, you already own the software that will help you build those applications right now.

Visit www.crazybikes.com today to see the kinds of Web, intranet, and extranet sites you can now build with the mrc-Productivity Series. If you have any questions about how to get started, or want more information, please let us know. Our product specialists are here to help!

We are thrilled to announce that the mrc-Productivity Series has been nominated in the Software - Application Development (AS/400-based) category for the AS/400 Technology SHOWCASE Product Excellence Award. We were honored with this award last year and hope to receive it again this year.

So once again, we are asking for your vote. You'll be eligible to win some great cash prizes, and have the opportunity to make your vote count as SHOWCASE readers determine what vendors have the best products in the AS/400 marketplace. Cast your vote for mrc at Midrange Computing’s website: www.midrangecomputing.com/awards/vote. By casting a ballot, you are automatically entered to win one of these valuable prizes:

• First Prize: $500
• Second Prize: $250
• Third Prize: $100

Hurry, the online voting ends February 28, 2001!

Is your staff up-to-date on the latest Web features of the mrc-Productivity Series? Is 2001 the year you might start building and deploying Web applications? You already own the tool that gets your business data to the Web. Why not enroll in one of our advanced training courses to learn how?

Do you have new staff members that need training? What about a refresher course for your existing staff? For fundamental or advanced training, our product specialists are here to help you get the most out of the mrc-Productivity Series.

Get ready for 2001 — schedule next year’s training today! Click here to view the class schedule online, or call Janet Vick at 630-916-0662 or e-mail Janet for more information.

Did you know that the mrc-Productivity Series allows you to build reports that can be run, viewed, and e-mailed to your end users from your company intranet, extranet, or Internet Web site? Our Web-based reports are easy to deploy and allow users to access the information they need, when they need it, from anywhere in the world.

Many of our customers love the idea of providing Web-based access to reports but are concerned about losing control over certain reporting aspects. We’ve provided several options that let you control which reporting functions the end user may perform and in which format they may receive the report. All of these options can be controlled from the HTML that is generated by mrc. The corresponding table shows you which parameters to change.

Run New Reports or View Existing Reports

Running an mrc Web report performs the same function as the MRCRPT command. In most cases, users will run new reports based on their own run-time selection criteria. How do employees get information in your organization? If they must wait for IT to run the report or receive training to run the report themselves, Web-based reporting on your company intranet could improve the way users obtain the information they need to get their jobs done efficiently.

Our Web reports are configured to allow users to run new reports only as the default option. You have the option to allow users to view existing reports that have been run by other users, in essence allowing the user to select existing spool files in an Outq. This is helpful if many employees share the same information and you want to avoid running the same report repeatedly.

Immediate or Batch Results

When you allow users to run new reports on the Web, one concern is the actual distribution of that report to the user. Will the user be allowed to submit the report online and get the results immediately? If the report is submitted to a batch job, how will the user retrieve the report?

Many companies allow users to run jobs online when instant information is critical. For example, a sales manager on the phone with a client will want to give answers immediately whenever possible; when you empower that employee with easy and instant data access, you make that person more efficient and effective.

Some reports, however, take a long time to run or may overload the system if too many online jobs are submitted. For these instances, you might consider forcing all the reports to be run in a batch job queue. The reports are then e-mailed to the user, who supplies their e-mail address when submitting the request, as shown in figure 2. This assumes your AS/400 is configured to send e-mail; please refer to IBM’s documentation for configuration help on this issue (IBM Redbook: AS/400 Electronic-Mail Capabilities, SG24-4703-00).

Report Format Options

Web-based reports are a fast and easy way to distribute information electronically. Both Web pages (HTML files) and PDF files are ideal for electronic distribution since almost all PCs can open these files (PDF documents do require Adobe’s free software, Acrobat Reader®); our Web report template allows you to provide both options to the user. Once the user has received the requested report, the document can be saved to the PC, forwarded via e-mail, uploaded to a Web site, or printed. Whichever way the user has decided to analyze the information, you’ve just given him several new ways to share that information with others. Compare these tremendous options to the way printed reports are shared.

Get Started!

We know that Web-based reporting is something many of you are anxious to deploy to both employees and business partners. Our new Crazy Bikes demonstration site (www.crazybikes.com) provides some excellent examples of reporting applications that you could build with the mrc-Productivity Series. The customers-only section of our Web site is full of information and resources that tell you how to do everything on that demo site and more.

If you need help getting started, please give us a call. Our product specialists are available to assist you. We also provide consulting services for both application development and Web site development. If you need assistance getting your Web project off the ground, our consultants can provide expert advice, direction, and assistance.

mrc offers training sessions at both your location and ours. Visit our education area for more information on our education services, or click here to view our schedule for the entire year. (You will have to log in with your user name and password to visit this area. If you need login instructions, please click here first.)