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Learn About OIM for XBRL

November 17, 2021/in Software, XBRL, XML /by Erin Cavanaugh

XBRL – the eXtensible Business Reporting Language – is a global framework for exchanging business information. The standard, maintained by XBRL International, is based on XML and designed to offer a standards-based approach to communicating and exchanging financial information between business systems.

The current version of the standard was finalized in 2003 and since then has received widespread uptake and eventual mandates from numerous countries and regulatory agencies, including the United States SEC. Adoption of the standard is due to advantages that include enabling automation and cost savings, better quality of reported data, improved analysis, and better quality of information used for decision making.

Despite its benefits, the complexity of XBRL presents a sharp learning curve for accountants and other stakeholders not familiar with XML, leading to errors and increased consultancy costs. In addition, coinciding with the adoption of big data technologies, XBRL has been used to represent ever growing datasets, which can be resource intensive.

XBRL International has worked over the years to modernize and simplify the standard in response to those challenges, and the Open Information Model (OIM) is an exciting and innovative solution.

Mapping Structured Data with Enhanced Node Functions

December 6, 2018/in Data Integration, Tools /by David McGahey

We’ve reported previously on support for node functions that simplify mapping structured data by eliminating need to copy-paste a function multiple times into a mapping. Repeating the same function unnecessarily clutters the mapping layout and makes the data mapping more difficult to understand or revise.

Now in MapForce 2019, additional filters are available for defining node functions. These new parameters allow developers to apply functions and default values to specific nodes based on custom-defined criteria. For example, you can apply a node function based on node metadata such as the node name, node length, precision of the node’s data type, customized node annotations, and more.

Let’s look at a mapping with enhanced node functions.

Early Software Testing Validates Design

July 2, 2018/in App Development, Mobile, mobile development, MobileTogether /by David McGahey

“Test early and often,” is a strategy from agile software engineering that has evolved to become a mandate for software developers in every field. Early software testing is especially important for developers working on cross-platform apps, who must support mobile devices with varying physical characteristics and operating system functionalities.

MobileTogether includes features to incorporate early software testing into the development process without time-consuming compile, deploy, and debug cycles for each mobile platform. The Altova Web site describes the MobileTogether Simulator early software testing feature, and we have blogged about the ability to record and re-run specific sets of actions in test cases.

This post describes Trial Run on Client. It’s built into the MobileTogether Designer to let developers instantly examine app designs and validate logic and functionality across any supported mobile device or platform – Android, iOS, and Windows Desktop or Windows Phone.

Node Functions Simplify Mapping Hierarchical Data Structures

June 12, 2018/in Data Integration, Tools /by David McGahey

MapForce node functions simplify mapping hierarchical data such as XML nodes or CSV, JSON, EDI, or database fields by permitting users to define a data processing function at the node level and apply it recursively to all descendant items.

Similarly, default values can also be assigned to nodes and automatically applied to descendants.

Defaults and node functions are particularly useful when a data mapping and transformation task requires the same processing logic for multiple descendant items in a structure, for example:

Replace null values with some other value, recursively for all descendant items
Replace a specific value (for example, “N/A”) with some other value recursively for all descendant items
Replace all database null values when reading from a database table
Trim all trailing spaces for all values from a source database
Append a custom prefix or suffix to all values written to a target file or database
Formatting of output values
And many others

Defaults and node functions simplify mapping hierarchical data by eliminating need to copy-paste the same function multiple times into a mapping. Repeating the same function unnecessarily clutters the mapping layout and makes it more difficult to understand or revise.

Let’s look at an example.

Inform Users with Sound Effects in Mobile Apps

April 3, 2018/in Development, Mobile, Software, Tools /by David McGahey

Sound effects in mobile apps can reinforce functionality and make an app more fun to use. MobileTogether makes it easy and convenient for mobile developers to add a standard set of sounds to user interface actions across all mobile platforms. For instance, developers might want to add sound effects to signify the success or failure of a file transfer or database transaction. Or simply add a keyclick sound to a button as feedback for a user tap.

Multi-Language Localization for Mobile Apps

February 21, 2018/in Mobile, Software, Tools /by David McGahey

MobileTogether includes support to seamlessly localize mobile apps in multiple languages. This empowers developers to build one version of a mobile app that works across many languages as well as across multiple platforms.

Developers can include translations in a single MobileTogether app design for all text phrases required, and when any end-user runs the app, whether on an Android phone, an iPhone, Windows desktop, or any other supported platform, the language for the app is selected to match the language for the device operating system.

With multi-language localization, even text-to-speech functionality is localized to the user’s native language.

Text-to-Speech for Mobile Apps

August 28, 2017/in Mobile, mobile development, MobileTogether, Tools /by David McGahey

Altova MobileTogether supports text-to-speech functionality for cross-platform mobile apps, empowering developers to add speech and build a rich multi-media user experience.

Speech can be fully integrated with text anywhere it appears in an app. For instance, an app like the Parcel Delivery MobileTogether example can be enhanced by speaking the next delivery address aloud – especially if the driver is in traffic! Or, text in message boxes of other information blocks can also be spoken by the mobile device.

We created a simple demo to experiment with the functionality of text-to-speech for mobile apps then added text-to-speech features to the Parcel Delivery app.

Text-to-speech for mobile apps