Theme 2: Integration With Other Data Sources

« Back | Forward »

Four features that give you tighter integration with other data sources are:

  1. Database Integration Wizard
  2. Write to Excel files from templates
  3. Chart External Data
  4. Select Database Name (DSN - Data Source Names)

A. Database Integration Wizard

The Database Integration Wizard helps template developers easily build GainSeeker® templates to retrieve or update data in any Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) compliant data source. Examples of ODBC complaint databases include Microsoft SQL Server, Pervasive.SQL, Access, Oracle, Foxpro, and even Excel. While prior versions of GainSeeker allowed you to connect to ODBC data sources, the new wizard greatly simplifies the setup of these interfaces. This means faster and cheaper setup of data acquisition from any ODBC data source. The wizard also provides a robust structure for building complex templates.

This functionality is especially useful if you want to set up data collection in a transactional environment. For example, many customers recognize that on-time delivery is a critical contributor to (and measure of) customer satisfaction. Order entry and billing modules of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems typically record a time stamp for important transactions such as receipt of order, submission of material goods purchase order, release to production, and shipping. GainSeeker is uniquely equipped to mine those time stamps from the ERP system and calculate cycle times for critical steps in the process. The Database Integration Wizard greatly simplifies creating this interface.

The Database Integration Wizard includes a drag and drop interface to help you build SQL queries needed for the template.

You can also drag-and-drop fields from the database query into the GainSeeker database. This makes building very complex templates much faster. While the Database Integration Wizard doesn't make setting up these sophisticated templates child's play, it puts them within the reach of people with average skill levels.

B. Write to Excel Files From a Template

A new family of commands has been added to the Data Entry Designer to let you write data directly into Excel files. This feature opens up all kinds of options for formatting data and sharing it with others.

For example, if you have a customer who requests a report in a standard Excel format, this new feature makes building that report much easier. And since you can now run templates from within the Charts & Reports module, this means that you can use Excel as a report writer. More on running templates from within Charts & Reports in the next section: Chart External Data.

C. Chart External Data

Charting External Data is an exciting little tool that makes it easy to grab data from any source and paste it into a GainSeeker control chart or histogram. This data is not stored in the GainSeeker database (although you can write the data back to the database if you wish).

Data can come from the clipboard, a template or a stored session.

Use External Data from Clipboard any time you have rows and columns of data that you want to chart. This data could come from a spreadsheet, a text file or a web page.

For example, to analyze the impact of Hurricane Katrina on our economy, you might browse the US Department of Labor Statistics web site and retrieve data on weekly Unemployment Claims. (Follow link 'Unemployment Initial Claims' at the bottom of the home page in the Latest Labor Market Data box to see current data. Then follow the link 'UI Claims Series 1967 to current' at the bottom of the current data page. Request a date range and you'll see a report similar to the screen on the left.)

Highlight that data by clicking and dragging the mouse. Then right-click and select Copy. This places the data in the clipboard. Once it is in the clipboard you can switch to GainSeeker SPC Charts & Reports.

From the File menu, choose External Data > Clipboard.

This opens the External Data from Clipboard screen. You may need to do a little tweaking to get exactly what you want in the correct format. (Sometimes it helps to paste it into Excel or Notepad, make a few adjustments, and then copy it back into the clipboard.)

To identify they types of data in your columns, you can drag a label from the Column Type box onto the data grid below. You can select or type in a part number in the top center. Then click the OK button to see the control chart for the data:

Obviously Hurricane Katrina is having an incredible impact on jobless claims!

You can also use Data Entry Templates to chart external data. The opportunities for innovation with this feature are unlimited.

For example, you might have a template that summarizes weekly sales revenue from an invoicing system for the prior 6 months. The template could launch and run from within GainSeeker Charts & Reports every week and get the most recent data. GainSeeker would automatically display the charts, but never store the data in the GainSeeker database. Furthermore, you can turn on real-time checks so that as the query executes, it looks for special cause variation and notifies you automatically if the process has shifted.

Or you might have a template that extracts process data from a process historian (such as iHistorian from Intellution). The template can perform all the real-time tests and give you control charts, histograms or other useful analysis. At the end of the day there is no need to store the data a second time in the GainSeeker database.

D. Select Data Source Names

The Select Data Source Names (DSNs) feature is for advanced users who use GainSeeker on multiple database servers within their corporation. It increases flexibility in accessing GainSeeker data sources and removes the restriction that you have only one DSN per machine to access GainSeeker data.

« Back | Forward »