Working with a ton of data from multiple datasources? If you’re like many of our customers, you’re probably working with important corporate information that’s stored in dozens of different databases. Windward can help you create a single, comprehensive report drawing from these distinct datasources. With our powerful feature that allows items from two or more datasources to be correlated with one another to create a single integrated list or table, it’s amazingly easy to manipulate, correlate, and manage large datasets regardless of the number of datasources. Is this too good to be true? Read on to learn the details.
What if the data sources are not only distinct, but from different types, say SQL and XML?
As long as the data sources contain a common data element, datasources of different types can be combined into a single list or table using Windward’s solution. Windward’s online Wiki article describes how to combine data from distinct datasources of the same type.
Can Windward also combine data from separate data sources of heterogeneous types?
Yes! Here’s how it works. Below is an example report template and output, where we create an outer ForEach Tag loop that retrieves company IDs and names from an XML data source.
XML and SQL ForEach
XML and SQL Output
These values are then used in an inner ForEach Tag that pulls data from a different datasource to group together product IDs and unit prices retrieved from an SQL datasource. The resulting output will first return the data value (company name) for the outer loop and then return all the related data values (product ID, unit price) for the inner loop before advancing to the next data value returned by the outer loop.
In the outer ForEach Tag loop, we query an XML datasource for company names and IDs.
Then we create an inner ForEach Tag loop, where we query an XML datasource, using the customer ID retrieved by the outer loop stored in a variable.
The outer and inner loops are combined into a single table, which will display order product IDs and unit prices grouped by company name.
Remember, this displayed data has been pulled from two distinct datasources, and combined into a single table. Here is the final output:
Why offer support for heterogeneous datasources?
In an era where companies are moving away from monolithic, on-premise datasources to cloud-based micro services, combining data from heterogeneous datasources becomes ever more important. It's easy to add Windward's solution to your existing Microsoft Office software and Widnward is compatible with virtually every data repository, so it fits with your already-existing data structure.
Let Windward be your bridge between today's legacy reporting requirements and the reporting requirements of the future. Learn more about how Windward works on our website.
Adds various capabilities such as inequalities,descending sort, joins, and other functions.
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SQL Select Debugger
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Added a Query tab as a field for typing or pasting in a select statement
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All tags using that Data source will be automatically updated with that name.
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New single interface to replace 2 separate dialog boxes
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Displays of all the tags in the template, structured as they are placed in the template. This provides a simple & intuitive way to see the structure of your template. Also provides the capability to go to any tag and/or see the properties of any tag.
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The ability to integrate the Windward Engine into Google’s cloud computing platform for developing and hosting web applications dubbed Google Applications Engine (GAE).
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If you've just discovered us, we're excited. Learn more about Windward document automation software now.
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This new integration will allow for processing of complex scripts and bi-directional text such as Arabic. Your PDF output will be much tighter and more closely match your template, and we’ll be able to respond rapidly to PDF requests and fixes.
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Includes support for new ForEach and slide break handling, table header row repeat across slide breaks, and native Microsoft support for charts and images.
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Tags are color coded in the template by type, making it easy to visually identify them.
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Version 13’s core code has been reworked and optimized to offer a reduced memory footprint, faster PDF generation and full documentation of supported features and limitations in the specifications for DOCX, XLSX and PPTX.
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Documents can include advanced Word image properties such as shadows, borders, and styles.
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Windward has updated HTML output to reflect changing HTML standards.
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Windward now works with a slew of new datasources: MongoDB, JSON, Cassandra, OData, Salesforce.com
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The Generate Code tool in the designer allows you to open an existing template and, with a click of a button, automatically create a window with the code needed to run your current template with all data sources and variables. Simply copy this code and paste into your application's code in the appropriate place. You now have Windward integrated into your application.
You only need to do this once. You do not do this for each template. Instead, where it has explicit files for the template and output, change that to parameters you pass to this code. Same for the parameters passed to Windward. This example uses explicit values to show you what to substitute in where.
Any pivot tables in an XLSX template are carried over to the XLSX output. The ranges in the pivot ranges are adjusted to match the generated output. So your final XLSX will have pivot tables set as expected in the generated file.
This makes creating an XLSX workbook with pivot tables trivial.
In an imported sub-template, if its properties for a style (ex. Normal) differ from the parent template's properties for the style, the use in the sub-template can be set to either use the properties in the sub-template, or the properties in the parent.
You set to retain when you don't want the child template's styling to change when imported. You set to use the parent when you want the styling of the imported template to match the styling in the parent.
Any explicit styling is always retained. This only impacts styling set by styles.
Tags can be placed in text boxes. Including linked text boxes. This gives you the ability to set the text in a textbox from your data.
Tags can be placed in shapes & smart art. This gives you the ability to set the text in a shape from your data.
When generating HTML output, the engine can either write bitmaps as distinct files the generate HTML references, or it can embed the images in the HTML providing a single file for the output.
You can place tags in pretty much any part of a template, including in footnotes & endnotes.
Any parts of a DOCX or XLSX (PowerPoint does not support this) file that are locked in the template, will be locked the same in the output.
If a font used in the template does not exist on the server generating a report, the font to substitute can be specified.
In addition, if a glyph to be rendered does not exist in the font specified, you can specify the replacement font. This can be set distinctly for European, Bi-Directional, and Far East fonts.
If you need this - it's essential. And if you don't need it, it's irrelevant.
Windward enables you to build a document by applying multiple datasources to the template simultaneously. When Windward is merging the data into a template, it processes the template by handling each tag in order, and each tag pulls from different datasources. (As opposed to processing all of one datasource, then processing the next.)
This allows the select tag to use data from another datasource in its select. For example, if you are pulling customer information from one data source, you can then pull data from the sales datasource using the customer ID of the customer presently processing to pull the sales information for that customer. If you're interested in patching together your data from multiple datasources, read this post on our blog.
