Executive Viewer (Temtec International)

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Reporting flexibility

As might be expected, Executive Viewer is strong in this area — more so than most OLAP viewers. It has all the normal multidimensional manipulation capabilities, including nested dimensions, sorting, selection, etc. Version 5 also supports asymmetric nested dimensions. It also has above-average facilities for formatting the grid and chart, in terms of colors, borders, lines, etc. Styles can be set up for cell number formats, row and column headers and report headers, but they can be overridden at a detailed level. This is all possible without any programming, and can be set up by end-users rather than the trained IT professionals who would be needed to achieve similar results in Crystal Reports.

But, perhaps because the need is less, Executive Viewer does not help create reports in Microsoft Reporting Services, unlike Panorama and ProClarity. Those products make it easier to create mixed multidimensional/relational reports. It also has no Excel add-in, used by those products for creating more elaborate reports than are possible directly in any OLAP client tool (though Executive Viewer does have an export to Excel capability). Executive Viewer also lacks an automated or alert-driven report distribution capability, such as that offered by Panorama.

Views combining both a grid and a chart are available in Executive Viewer. In the example above, the two nested column dimensions have been combined in one axis of the chart. Most OLAP front-ends allow this, but Executive Viewer is unusual in making it optional whether or not to combine dimensions, to avoid the clutter of charts like that above. In the example below, the user has opted not to combine the column dimensions (so there is now a slicer button for periods):

Formatting is possible at the grid, row, column or cell level, and it is possible to format nested columns either in a repeating fashion or independently (asymmetric dimension nesting). Using a simple selection technique, it is possible to remove nested columns and rows in one group, but not in another. This could be used, for example, to show only actuals for last year, budget, actuals and variance for the current year and only forecasts and budgets for future periods. Many products do not allow this. It is possible to set formats for member-combinations so as to display different measurement units in a cell depending on product for a measure like ‘volume’ or to display the correct currency symbol depending on country.

As with calculations, Executive Viewer allows the precedence of intersecting row and column formats to be controlled. Note how in this case, the white text from the columns and the red background from the rows have been combined in the intersecting cell. This feature is often needed when, for example shaded totals rows and columns intersect, and the resulting ‘grand total’ needs to have a special format — something that is easy to set up in Excel, but hard in many OLAP viewers. This example also illustrates how different format styles can be applied to different levels, with blue text applied to product groups.

Executive Viewer also allows setting different scaling factors for each member, useful when working with databases that contain very different measures like multiple currencies, volumes in large quantities and performance ratios. Drill-through to the underlying database is supported, and some basic formatting controls are possible when viewing the relational data; however, this cannot be considered a relational report writer.

Sorting of both rows and columns is available, including when they are nested. Beginning with version 5.2, a ‘Sort within Hierarchy’ option is available, so Executive Viewer no longer breaks hierarchies when sorting a dimension where multiple levels are shown.

This garish example shows some of the rich formatting options available in Executive Viewer. It includes member and cell level formatting, boxing of headers and data cells, color-coded variances, background shading, etc. Few OLAP front-ends provide such a wide range of options.

Reports are organized as sheets within books within book shelves. These can be stored on the server for sharing between users, including across the Internet.

Executive Viewer pays more attention to printed output than do many OLAP front-ends. It will generate title and contents pages, and provides controls over print ranges, margins, headers, footers, fonts, colors, etc. Though not quite as slick or functional as Excel, these features are more multidimensionally aware and include, for example, particularly detailed multidimensional control over paging. It is now possible to produce output in PDF form for e-mail attachments, without having Acrobat installed. It is also possible to export formatted reports to Excel (via BIFF), and to generate multiple Excel sheets using the ‘print range’ option. However, as previously mentioned, Temtec does not offer an Excel add-in.

Some of the print options available in Executive Viewer. A number of standard fields can be included in headers covering such items as book, server and database name.

Unlike some other OLAP viewers, Executive Viewer provides a print preview capability for a whole report book. One useful feature is that it is possible to copy a sheet from the print preview window to the Windows clipboard from where it can be placed in, say, Word. It could then be merged into a report containing material from other sources. It is copied in the form of a Windows metafile (wmf), so the copy is clean and free from ‘jaggies’. It is also possible to copy just the data from a sheet for use in, for example, Excel; this is done directly from the normal viewer window.

The contents of this Word document were copied from Executive Viewer’s print preview. Note that despite the 200% magnified view, the pie charts are smooth edged, indicating that the image was copied as a high quality metafile made up of geometric shapes, and not as a bit map.

The print range facility, in conjunction with DynaSelect allows the production of analysis/exception reports and bulk reports containing tables, charts and comments — Temtec calls this dynamic reporting. A typical application is to have a report always look at the actual current time period by using Essbase substitution variable (a maintenance-free, non-programming task in Executive Viewer). Other common applications are, for example, to print a report with a page per sales person listing only the products behind target or a report by business unit ranking the top customers based on 80 percent of total revenue. Temtec reports that this is one of the most popular features with customers.

This is an example of less-than-smart behavior in Executive Viewer charts, which remains in the 4.2 release. Like some other OLAP viewers, it plots everything in the grid, even as in this case, where it has misleadingly allowed the total product to be stacked with its children, and the year, quarters and months to be shown as a single (apparently declining) series. Temtec says that it has not been able to devise a form of ‘smart charting’ that would not also be annoying, and points out that this sort of data selection would not occur while drilling, but only through deliberate choice.

The 4.1 release added map displays. Executive Viewer treats maps as an additional chart type and comes with a selection of maps and more can be downloaded from the Temtec Web site or purchased elsewhere. Charts are generated using industry-standard vector shape file, not bit maps. An XML-based lookup scheme allows codes used in maps to be linked with dimension member names (so that the names used in a model to not have to match the codes used in a map). Executive Viewer supports Auto-Zoom in maps, particular useful when drilling-up or down or selecting- or de-selecting members. Maps are as interactive as all other graph-types in Executive Viewer and can be printed with the same high print quality, thanks to the use of vector shapes.

The 5.0 release added a capability to export to Excel, using printer style data selection. Unfortunately, this is not an Excel add-in as such, but simply a one-way data export capability, but it nevertheless allows users to take advantage of Excel’s additional formatting capabilities. It also allows reports to be created that include both OLAP data and other information already in Excel.

One neat feature is that Executive Viewer allow mini charts to be placed automatically over geographic regions, in addition to the more typical traffic lights:

Executive Viewer offers this unusual way of combining conventional business charts with a map display.

Executive Viewer does not include any other advanced visualization or dashboard building tools.

THIS PAGE REPRESENTS ONLY A VERY SHORT EXTRACT FROM THE FULL REVIEW.

TO VIEW THE FULL REVIEW YOU CAN PURCHASE THE REVIEW INDIVIDUALLY OR PURCHASE AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION TO THE OLAP REPORT WHICH ALLOWS ACCESS TO ALL OLAP REPORT CONTENT.