Rapid response to user input is critical to the success of any Web application. FlowForce Server administrators can leverage result caching, a new feature introduced in version 2014, to deliver nearly instantaneous results to users running FlowForce Server jobs in a browser window as HTTP services. Configuring a FlowForce Server job to take advantage of […]
FlowForce Server administrators can define jobs as HTTP services to empower end users to execute the job on demand, as easily as opening a Web page. When a FlowForce Server job runs as an HTTP service results are delivered back to the Web browser. If the last step is a StyleVision Server transformation, the job […]
In our earlier post titled Use XPath Expressions to Refine Data Selection, we described how to use XMLSpy to develop an XPath expression to select one table of data contained in a much larger data set provided by the US Department of Education. We can reuse the work in XMLSpy to quickly create a StyleVision […]
In this era of big data we often need to simplify analysis and communication by creating customized views into sections of a larger file. XPath, short for XML Path Language, is designed to allow users to address parts of large XML documents. XMLSpy supports XPath with an XPath Analyzer window and in its interface for […]
In our earlier posts on FlowForce Server, we described jobs that execute MapForce Server for data transformations, StyleVision Server for report and document rendering, and RaptorXML Server for XML processing. In each scenario we also used built-in system functions to copy move, or delete files, as is often required in real-world workflows. In this post […]
In last week’s blog post titled FlowForce Server Supports RaptorXML, we created a FlowForce Server job that defined a RaptorXML execution step to validate XML files, and we called that job as a step at the end of our job that processes camera GPS data, as a final check on the output. That was a […]
Altova FlowForce Server supports RaptorXML Server and RaptorXML+XBRL Server. Altova RaptorXML is the third-generation, hyper-fast XML and XBRL processor from the makers of XMLSpy. RaptorXML is built from the ground up to be optimized for the latest standards and parallel computing environments. Now FlowForce Server jobs can include steps to validate XML, transform XML with […]
In response to an interested reader’s suggestion, the Altova MapForce mapping files and StyleVision stylesheet we deployed to FlowForce Server for the job described in the blog post Taming Bad Input Data with FlowForce Server are now available for download on the Altova Web site at www.altova.com/documents/AltovaBlogExampleFiles.zip Simply unzip the archive into a new folder […]
Whenever you accept data from an outside source you risk encountering errors. We have blogged about this phenomenon in the past in Expect the Unexpected – Altova MissionKit Solves a Number Format Mystery and in the series of posts on Processing the Groupon API. Bad data in an input file can cause the data transformation […]
In our earlier post titled Automate Data Mapping and Transformation with FlowForce Server, we created a job called SimpleMapAndTransform to automate data mapping with MapForce Server and creation of html reports by StyleVision Server. After the FlowForce Server job ran several times, we have accumulated many output files in the same folder we use to […]
Altova FlowForce Server, launched on April 29, 2013, includes numerous enhancements over earlier beta releases and one of the most exciting new features is the implementation of StyleVision Server. Now a FlowForce Server job can automate a complete data transformation workflow by executing MapForce Server for data mapping and pipelining results to StyleVision Server to […]
On the heels of our RaptorXML announcement earlier this month, we are very excited to tell you about the availability of three more new products that round out the Altova server software product family. These high-performance server products are optimized for multi-CPU servers and are highly complementary when used together for defining and managing information […]
FlowForce Server is a new product designed to provide automation of data transformations performed by dedicated high-speed servers. FlowForce Server can start jobs based on a variety of triggers, runs multiple jobs simultaneously, and can even run multiple instances of the same job, depending on workflow.Monitoring all these complex activities is critical to success in […]
Three user preferences in DiffDog work together to accelerate directory differencing tasks into hyperdrive, especially when you compare folders with thousands of files.DiffDog can perform specialized comparisons. For instance, XML comparison mode commands DiffDog to determine whether two files contain equivalent XML content, even if they would be different in a text comparison because of […]
Altova designed FlowForce Server to provide comprehensive automation, management, and control over data transformations performed by dedicated high-speed servers. FlowForce Server Beta 3 is currently available to users of MapForce Enterprise and Professional Editions at no charge during the beta test period.FlowForce Server can provide hot folder automation of data mappings and maintains a detailed […]
Typical data conversion tasks require processing numerous input files that arrive in batches. Altova MapForce includes features that let you handle groups of files with minimal intervention.For instance, we recently copied a set of files from the memory card of a digital camera with GPS support. Each .LOG file is a CSV containing GPS coordinates […]
Every time you receive data from an outside source, there is a chance it won’t arrive in the form you expect. This can require special accommodations for the rare and unlikely to make a real-world data mapping and transformation solution robust and reliable. We processed literally dozens of .gpx files, containing hundreds of coordinates each, […]
In response to user requests, the new release of MapForce 2013 includes robust support for stored procedures in database mappings as: input components (for stored procedures that provide results) output components (for stored procedures that insert or update data in a database) or, stored procedures may be inserted as a function-like call (allowing users to […]
MapForce 2012 users who need to automate data transformations in a centralized environment are enthusiastic about FlowForce Server, the new server product from Altova that automates execution of MapForce data transformations. Now we are pleased to announce the release of FlowForce Server Beta 3, offered as a free public beta test to all licensed users […]
Elevation data recorded by GPS devices is notoriously inaccurate, especially in hilly terrain like the Russian River Valley example from our earlier post. The final elevation track plotted from the Russian River Valley GPX file is suspicious for several reasons. First, the graph shows we descended almost 50 feet below sea level. That’s hard to […]
The Internet makes massive amounts of data available for lots of interesting applications. But whenever you design a unique analysis and presentation of information you don’t privately control, you risk that the owner will offer the same view at some point in the future, instantly making your application redundant. That’s exactly what happened to the […]
In our previous post on Creating Elegant Reports for GPS XML Data we used an XPath expression to select nodes from an XML document for an elevation line chart. You can also use XPath to compute values. Altova StyleVision includes strong support for XPath, and we can write XPath expressions to add interesting information to […]
In our earlier post on XML for Global Positioning Systems, we mentioned that adventurers and athletes might want to use XML data from their devices to keep a record of their trips, or even training sessions leading up a marathon or other special event. Several colleagues responded by offering example files! Looking through all this […]
FlowForce Server, the new server product from Altova that automates execution of MapForce data transformations, has gained hundreds of enthusiastic followers since the release of FlowForce Server Beta 1 last December. Now we are pleased to announce the release of FlowForce Server Beta 2, offered as a free public beta test to all licensed users […]
XML is everywhere. If you don’t believe it, get a USB cable and connect a GPS device to a computer, then browse for any file with the extension .gpx. We quickly found a 2 MB file named Current.gpx on a Garmin GPS. Opening it in XMLSpy reveals XML data and an XML Schema assignment at […]
For Version 2012, UModel introduces Model Driven Architecture (MDA), with platform-independent models and a Model Transformation feature that transforms all code relevant modeling elements to and from UML, C#, Visual Basic, Java, databases, and XML Schema. Model Transformation A Model Driven Architecture approach to software engineering with platform independent models provides two primary advantages: During […]
Here at Altova we like to share user interface features across products to give the MissionKit a consistent look and feel, and to help users leverage experience gained using one tool to get up to speed more quickly with the others. In version 2012 we introduced new visual alignment guides in both UModel and MapForce […]
Altova FlowForce® Server Beta 1 is an exciting new tool for execution of automated data mappings designed to provide comprehensive management and control over data transformations performed by dedicated high-speed servers, virtual machines, or even regular workstations, depending on the size of the task. To gather user input and accelerate product development, Altova is offering […]
Rare edge cases can derail loosely coupled data mapping applications. This is especially true when you are consuming large datasets available over the Internet and have little or no influence over the source data. In this article we describe a debugging technique that lets developers working on data mapping and transformation projects quickly identify and […]
Anyone who manages paid keyword search knows it is hard work! You can look at vast reports of raw statistics and quickly get lost in trivia. At Altova we designed a better way to analyze and manage the performance data for our Google Adwords campaigns. We can creatively query the numbers to: · Quickly aggregate […]
Techy folks generally have a good diff tool they rely on to compare and sync files and directories. But what happens when, as more and more info is bound for the cloud, your data lives on servers accessed via URL? There are myriad applications today that live on servers accessed via HTPP – but let’s […]
Every day tens of thousands of encrypted data transactions occur between health care providers, pharmacies, insurers, medical billing services, and employers who provide worker health coverage. Everyone in the United States covered by health or dental insurance depends on the automation, accuracy, and security of these largely unnoticed data streams to verify eligibility and process […]
Concluding the series in this post, we will apply a stylesheet to transform the XML data created from our mapping of the Groupon API into HTML. Here is an example of the XML output from the data mapping we created last time: Assign a Stylesheet to Transform XML The Component Settings dialog for the output […]
In Part 1 of this series we described how to connect Altova MapForce to the Groupon API. We queried the API for a list of Groupon divisions, then used the list to create API queries for all the current deals from every division. In this part, we will execute the /deals queries and filter the […]
We often think of a data integration project as a translation from one singular data input file to some other data set, but Altova MapForce lets you greatly expand the concept of an input file. For instance, the MergeMultipleFiles.mfd example installed with MapForce illustrates how you can use a filename with wildcard characters to merge […]
Altova products have long been recognized for their rich, intuitive user interface. One example is the UModel diagram window, which includes multiple display options for class diagrams to facilitate ease of use and improve information clarity in objected-oriented models. Class diagram style for projects that generate .NET (C# and Visual Basic) application code UModel 2011 […]
Some data conversions require multiple steps to satisfy today’s complex data communication requirements. Altova MapForce 2011 lets you graphically combine a wide variety of mathematical, logical, string, and other specialized functions to build complicated "data equations" to get the results you need. If you’re working on a big, complicated mapping, if you’re using an unfamiliar […]
Altova DiffDog was originally launched in 2005 as a diff/merge tool with XML-aware functionality to help users identify differences between XML files. It even identifies files that are XML-equivalent but appear different in a text comparison because of spacing, line-ending, or attribute order variations. DiffDog has continually improved over time with many new features including: […]
One of the great things about working with software developers is you not only get to create new things that never existed before, you also get to see how other peoples’ minds work when they discover alternate solutions to any design challenge. We received a comment from a software developer on our recent post titled […]
You may already be familiar with the diff/merge functionality Altova DiffDog brings to working with source code, XML, and Word files – but did you know you can also connect to, compare, and merge database data and structures? DiffDog supports all major relational databases and includes a Connection Wizard that lets you quickly connect to […]
Last month in our blog on Software Testing for State Machines with Altova UModel we discovered unexpected behavior in our model of an air conditioning system and challenged readers to improve the design. This post describes one possible solution. When we ran the Tester application for our model, we saw that the Power switch did […]
In response to several user requests, the if-else component in MapForce has been enhanced in MapForce 2011 Release 2 to accommodate any number of variables. This feature, which is equivalent to a switch statement in many programming languages, enables you to easily control the flow of data in a mapping project by matching a value […]
Many varieties of software testing have gained prominence as developers search for ways to improve quality and meet project deadlines – code review, unit testing, regression testing, beta testing, test-driven development, and more. Regardless of a project’s goals or the source code language employed, it’s well accepted that the earlier a defect is found, the […]
Altova MapForce includes the ability to define chained transformations. Chained transformations let you create complex mappings where the output of one mapping becomes the input to another. In other words, two or more components can be directly connected to a final target component.
Sometimes following an example someone else created is a good way to get a quick start on a project. The downside is you might miss a better, more efficient solution. In our recent post on XML in the Cloud, we used DatabaseSpy to connect to a local MySQL database and to the Amazon Relational Database […]
Altova first added support for charts and reporting the Altova MissionKit with the launch of Version 2011 last September. The v2011 reporting functionality includes options for line charts, 2D and 3D bar charts, 2D and 3D pie charts, round gauge and bar gauge charts. Here are a few examples: Advanced chart features in v2011r2 Version […]
Altova UModel® 2011 allows users to organize diagrams into subgroups and place each group in an individual layer. Layers can be selectively hidden or exposed, providing a convenient way to decompose a BPMN diagram that describes a complex business process involving multiple departments or enterprises. This layers feature can be used with all diagram types […]
Working with Altova Tools and the Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS) More and more enterprises are discovering the advantages of implementing database applications in the cloud: High availability and reliability Automatic scaling Freedom from hardware costs and maintenance requirements In this blog post we demonstrate how to connect to the Amazon Relational Database Service […]
A colorful, eye-catching chart is much more vivid and communicates meaning more quickly than a table of numeric data. As part of the v2011 launch of the Altova Missionkit on September 8, 2010, DatabaseSpy 2011 includes a new SQL charts tool that provides a wide variety of charting features to graphically represent SQL query results. […]
As software applications interact with growing amounts of data, database designs and structures become critical to development of successful projects. UModel® 2011, just launched on September 8, 2010, adds a new feature that empowers users to extend software modeling functionality by modeling relational databases along with Java, C#, and Visual Basic software applications. UModel 2011 […]