Thanks to host Denali for sponsoring this meeting. This was the Agenda.

April 16, 2002 Minutes by Rick Cook

v     This meeting was held at the Denali office in Bellevue.

v     Presentation – IT Masters.  Yury Mintskovsky demonstrated the new version 5.0 of their MasterARSuite software, which works with ARS versions through v5.x.

Ø      MasterAnalyzer - Analyzes system performance and CPU utilization, by analyzing how the AR System application interacts with the database.

§         Pinpoints exactly where improvements need to be made.

§         Shows which processes are running optimally and which are not.

Ø      MasterDocumenter - Documents AR Systems

§         Uses a .def file as the basis for its reports, which are in MS Word format.

Ø      MasterNavigator - Navigates and Works with AR System Applications

§         Creates graphical diagrams of the application and color-coded relationships between forms and fields within them.

§         Allows you to drill down to the field level and see which workflow objects touch it, and in what way.  You can even open a visual representation of the workflow object (Active Link, Filter, etc.)

§         You can search on workflow objects by execution action or other characteristics.

§         Show Objects function allows drill down to a field, to show all characteristics of that field.  It is sortable and filterable as you specify.

§         Reporting from Navigator can be time-based, to see code changes since X.

Ø      MasterEditor - Complete Macro development environment

§         Extract macros to an .arq file that is editable within a graphical display.

§         Includes a syntax and context checker to ensure that the macro will run.

Ø      Other applications

§         FirstResponse

·        Works with Help Desk or Service Center.

·        Event management system, automatically creates tickets, or follows a script to say, restart a service or application.

·        Automated proactive monitoring, that can send notifications of different types to different parties, depending on the role of the person being notified.

·        Allows for quicker resolution by identifying the root cause of a problem before the technical staff has time to investigate it.

§         MasterCell

Ø      Licensing is by Developer – not by Server

Ø      What’s New in v5.0?

§         Scheduler

§         Updated GUI

v     Presentation – First Break Consulting – Kevin and Marina demonstrated Reporting software for Remedy systems.

Ø      Digital Dashboards

§         Connect to several different data sources seamlessly

§         Web-based

§         Can export to Excel

§         Drag and Drop for non-tech users for view customization.

Ø      Remedy reporting dashboard

§         Looks and acts like Excel

§         ODBC connection to database – bypasses Remedy

§         Works on Win2K and XP, with SQL or Oracle 8.

§         No requirement for Remedy license to either view or access the reporting information.

§         Customizable fields from the form allowed in the report.

§         Loads a count of the records into the reporting table – but you can drill down into the detail of the record as you wish.

§         Number of records is limited only by system resources and the DBMS at which the application is pointed.

§         Can have two tables up side by side for comparison purposes.

§         Any user you specify can have access to the data.

§         Can only use one chart type at a time.  Application Administrators could change that.  If you want to convert a chart to another type, export it to Excel and switch it there.

§         Can limit the height of the cell rows (all are still shown by use of a scroll bar).

§         Licensed by Server – no user licensing required.

§         No client deployment is required for usage.

§         Total deployment time (by FBC) is 3-4 weeks.  They come back 30 days later to tune the system up.

Ø      New functionality in v2.0

§         Ability to actually open a web read-only view of individual records from the report.

·        Requires Windows Office XP (can run on Win2k, too).

Ø      Data mining tools

v     Questions & Answers:

Ø       

v     Hot Topics

Ø      Meeting Schedule: all are tentatively 6:00 – 8:00 meetings, subject to change.

§         We need to get training up here ASAP.

·        ARS 5.0 Delta class

·        Performance Tuning

·        Customizing Help Desk

 
For comments or questions on this Northwest Remedy User Group website  
please email Geoff Endresen  at nwrug@geoffe.com