Usage example: C:\CubeMaker.exe myscript.xml
If one or several parameters are specified in the script, they can be passed to the application through the command line. These parameter values are added to the SQL-query. This allows to use different filtering criteria each time you process the script. For example, you can daily produce cubes with previous day data and send them to subscribers.
Usage example: C:\CubeMaker.exe myscript.xml -d curdate
Scheduled cubes updating
With Contour CubeMaker you can easily update microcubes for users who often view their reports linked to a microcube. Contour microcubes are created in less than minutes, because instead of complicated incremental updates CubeMaker just recreates the microcubes, filling them with new data.
The use of command line parameters allows you to create microcubes containing exactly the data you need. As far as CubeMaker is a command line tool it can be run from either Windows scheduler or your custom application.
Multiple microcube production
If the script specifies a master field and an SQL-query to it, the Detail Query is filtered by each master query value; the number of microcubes built will be equal to the number of unique rows in the master query. This allows, for example, to create microcube packages that contain reports for each branch office of your company or one microcube for each quarter of current year.
Interactive request for reports generation
Your application or web page can provide users with a dialog for setting up report parameters. After this the application can generate XML-script or new parameters for existing XML script and run CubeMaker. Generated microcubes can be saved for user on a web server and shown as a link on web page or sent by email.
Main Features Include:
- Data access through ADO, ODBC, BDE, XML
- XML script format support
- Various ways to create microcubes:
- Manually
- From within an application or web page
- Using a scheduler
- Command line parameters can be passed to the SQL-query
- Master fields that provide rules of multiple cube production from Detail Query
- Constants CurDay, CurWe다, CurMonth and CurYear allow to fill microcubes with actual data using one script
Usage scenarios
- Website log analysis: Your script nightly adds a website log into the database. Contour CubeMaker then builds and copies 3 microcubes to the website: today's traffic, 3 last months visitors, 3 last months popular pages, last year referrers. Users get microcubes and analyze the web traffic using a web page powered with ContourCube ActiveX
- Sales reports: Your application allows users to register sales transactions. Contour CubeMaker weekly builds microcubes: sales by regions, sales by products and so on. Users analyses sales of their company with your Windows application powered with ContourCube VCL or ActiveX
- Report distribution to the branch offices: Your Data Warehouse collects data from company branches. Contour CubeMaker monthly produces microcubes by scripts with Master field "Branch" and your script sends microcubes containing different reports for the staff of each branch by email. Users view microcubes with Contour OLAPBrowser
- Interactive reports production: Your company database contains data used for your customers. Users define parameters for Contour CubeMaker in a dialog form on your web site. Then, CubeMaker runs and generates microcubes that are accessed by users with OLAPBrowser or through a web page powered by ContourCube
