WebFOCUS Newsletter July 2003 - New MR Developer for Windows

In WebFOCUS Version 5 Release 2.3, we are responding to customer feedback with a new offering tailored to the needs of Managed Reporting developers. That offering is WebFOCUS Managed Reporting Developer for Windows.

The name is a mouthful, but we expect the MR Developer to be received well by customers currently using the full Developer Studio product to create and manage domain content. This is because the full product has built-in features many customers don’t need, and they include MR Administration, Maintain, and Project Deployment.

MR Developer was actually introduced to the Information Builders Fee Schedule in April 2003, although that was merely a pricing action and still resulted in a shipment of the full Developer Studio product (with an implied agreement to only use it for MR development). Now in 5.2.3, a new license key is sent to customers to install Developer Studio with the appropriate new behavior.

During installation, you will notice that you are not presented with options to install a WebFOCUS Reporting Server. You also do not need to have a local Web server on your workstation. This is because MR development is typically done on a remote WebFOCUS environment shared by all the developers. You can do local MR development (for a standalone demo at a trade show or a meeting) but you will need to use the WebFOCUS Client and Server CD-ROMs and install those products separately.

Once you open MR Developer, the first thing you will notice is that the Projects on localhost node no longer appears displayed in the Explorer tree. As I mentioned before, MR development is done exclusively from the WebFOCUS Environments tree in Explorer.

The project-based features of Developer Studio/Power Reporter are geared toward self-service and/or Maintain development and have been removed from MR Developer to simplify the developer’s experience. Certain toolbar icons that don’t apply have also been removed.

When you configure a WebFOCUS environment in Explorer, you will notice that the Project Development button no longer appears in the dialog (Screen 1). The Managed Reporting/ReportCaster button now appears directly underneath the WebFOCUS Client button.

Screen 1

The MR credentials you supply are now validated before the Data Servers node is opened in Explorer. If you are a Domain Administrator (this is the user type that equates to an MR content developer; in the 5.2.3 release Domain Administrator was renamed Developer throughout the product) and don’t have the Data Server privilege, you will be unable to open the Data Servers node, and a message will appear with an explanation (Screen 2). It proved impractical to actually hide the Data Servers node in this case, but we think the message will suffice.

Screen 2

Domain Administrators with the Data Server privilege will be able to view and edit the Server and Application Path properties on a domain (Screen 3), report or reporting object. But if you don’t have the Data Server privilege, you will only be able to view these properties.

Screen 3

You will also notice the Web Applications and User Management nodes are hidden in Explorer because they do not apply to this product. You might wonder why an MR Administrator using MR Developer for Windows shouldn’t have access to the User Management feature. By design, all MR administrative features are disabled in this product. That means that you cannot create, delete, or rename Domains using MR Developer.

In addition, there is no access to User Administrator, Dashboard View Builder, PDA Sync Administrator, or the ReportCaster Console. An MR Administrator can use the product, but the behavior will be the same as that of an MR Domain Administrator who has the Data Server privilege.

As we were putting this new offering together, a common question was whether MR Developer could be used to create self-service applications. The answer is a qualified yes. You can certainly create server procedures and metadata via the Data Server node (provided you are either an MR Administrator or a Domain Administrator with the Data Server privilege).

But you can’t access the Web Applications folder from Explorer, which you might want to do to create launch pages. And you cannot work in the "Project development" paradigm, which includes support for source code control and deployment scenarios. If you are interested in those things, you must use either the Power Reporter or the Developer Studio products.

MR Developer for Windows is priced slightly higher than MR Developer for Web Browsers because of its additional capability (Task Viewer, Report Painter, Resource Layout and Change Management, to name a few). Speak with your account team for help selecting the right products for your organization.

We hope to hear from you about this new offering. Send feedback through your account team or to me directly at jim_thorstad@ibi.com.