Tools Archives

Mobile Apps for Enterprise Operations Management

June 7, 2017/in Development, Mobile, Tools /by David McGahey

Combining rapid mobile app development (RMAD) with a single development environment for building cross-platform apps makes Altova MobileTogether an ideal tool to create specialized mobile apps for enterprise operations management at all levels.

The development schedule using MobileTogether can be as short as a few days vs. weeks or months for traditional native platform coding. That kind of productivity makes it practical to build specialized apps that might only be used by a small number of operations managers, but greatly improve enterprise efficiency.

For instance, an app for the inventory manager for a manufacturing operation with just-in-time supply chain management can link to back-end systems to monitor inventory levels using any mobile device from anywhere in the plant or even offsite.

3 Ways XML Text View Just Got Better

May 30, 2017/in Tools, XML, XPath /by Erin Cavanaugh

Though XMLSpy includes a helpful Grid View for visual editing, Text View remains the most popular pane for developers using the XML editor. Intelligent XML editing functionality helps make the job easier, and we’re continuously adding functionality to the XMLSpy Text View to facilitate this.

Let’s look at some new functionality XML developers will have at their disposal starting with Release 3 of XMLSpy 2017.

XML developer

Tags: XML Editor, XMLSpy, xpath, XSLT

MapForce Server Accelerator Edition Achieves a New Level of Data Transformation Performance

May 23, 2017/in Data Integration, Software, Tools /by David McGahey

MapForce Server automates recurring execution of data mappings and transformations designed and tested using Altova MapForce. Every day, MapForce Server is employed in business communication, financial reporting, database ETL, and many other applications to transform critical data between any of XML, JSON, database, EDI, XBRL, flat file, CSV, Excel, and/or Web service formats.

Now, MapForce Server Accelerator Edition offers even faster throughput for high-performance server platforms.

Update to Altova’s Database Tool Adds Important New Features

April 24, 2017/in Database, Tools /by David McGahey

DatabaseSpy is the unique database tool that supports all major databases and facilitates database query, design, structure comparison, table content editing and comparison, and even generates elegant charts from query results.

The recent update of DatabaseSpy to version 2017 Release 3 adds several new features, including the ability to automatically generate a complete DDL script for any database schema.

Use Join to Integrate Data in Any Format

April 18, 2017/in Data Integration, Tools /by David McGahey

Join is a powerful SQL operation implemented across most database types and familiar to database users. Join is typically used to select and combine information from multiple database tables.

Altova MapForce includes a join component for data mapping that works like a SQL join for database tables and extends data integration functionality by empowering users to join data trees of any data format. Anyone familiar with join operations for database tables will find the MapForce join component especially intuitive. A join operation in MapForce can even combine two different data formats and produce output in a new format altogether.

A Typical MapForce Server Use Case

March 2, 2017/in Data Integration, JSON, Tools /by David McGahey

Envision a manufacturing company that controls costs by exploiting a just-in-time assembly process with a very low supply of parts inventory on hand. New customer orders are logged in a sales database and at the end of every day the components needed to assemble that day’s sales are tabulated.

The IT department runs a SQL query to identify the required parts and transforms the list into a purchase order in JSON format to be transmitted to the supply chain.

Sound familiar? Our recent blog series on JSON tools and JSON data mapping were based on this real-life scenario. In this post we describe a MapForce Server use case that automates the repetitive task of generating each day’s purchase order.

JSON Data Mapping and Transformation with MapForce

February 15, 2017/in Data Integration, JSON, Tools /by David McGahey

JSON is a popular format for transferring data between systems thanks to its simple markup, small footprint, and heritage based on the JavaScript programming language. MapForce supports JSON as both an input and output format for JSON data mapping and transformation. For instance, MapForce can extract information from any popular database and produce a JSON file ready for transfer.
The Requirement: Here is an example of a typical need for JSON data mapping: A manufacturing company controls costs by exploiting a just-in-time assembly process with very little parts inventory on hand. New customer orders are logged in a sales database, and at the end of every day the components needed to assemble that day’s sales are tabulated via a query into the database. The required parts will be ordered from suppliers via a purchase order transferred in JSON format.

Tags: data mapping, JSON, MapForce, XMLSpy