Same Great Support in an Easier-To-Use Package

While RJS may be best known for its software and excellent customer service, we’re also pretty good at support, too. And that great support is only going to get better with the launch of our new Support Center in January.

If you’ve never used our old support Wiki, a bit of explanation is in order. For several years, our support Wiki has served as the primary repository for all product documentation, including manuals, install and licensing information, troubleshooting articles and revision histories.

Customers have used it to enhance their product knowledge, get answers to vexing support issues, and to upgrade or install software. The site served its purpose but was messy and difficult for customers to use. It was equally difficult for us to manage and maintain. Additionally, we couldn’t extend the site to include future features like a partner portal or integrate with our support ticket software and CRM application.



The new Support Center

The first thing you’ll notice about our new support site is how great it looks. It was built to compliment our main RJS website and provide a consistent user experience across both sites.

Gone from the old support Wiki is the confusing navigation and content layout, and the poor search functionality that made using the site a lot more difficult than it should have been.

Thanks to a lot of analysis and customer feedback, we were able to simplify the site’s content and navigation and, most importantly, make it easy for you – the customer and primary user – to find the information you need.

Key Features

A support site is pretty useless if you can’t quickly find answers to your questions. That’s why we’ve bolstered our search functionality to ensure all content, including web pages, PDFs and other document types, is searched and results are logically displayed in ways that help you find what you need.

We’ve also completely revised our product pages to include tabs for install and license information, documentation, troubleshooting articles and more. Certain key products will have tutorial videos, and all products will include links to related pages so you can see the big picture of how everything works together. The new Support Center homepage will also have a prominent rotating carousel that we’ll use to notify you of important updates, product features and other issues. You’ll also be able to submit support ticket requests directly from our Support Center, so that any concern you may have is addressed as quickly as possible.

Ultimately, we hope the new Support Center helps distinguish us from our competition by giving our customers a world-class site where they can get the tools and training they need to be successful with our software. Keep your eyes peeled for an official launch announcement in the near future.

Vern Hamberg, a software architect at RJS, was recently profiled in the July edition of IBM Systems Magazine. Click the thumbnail below and get to know Vern!

Each month we host a webinar about one of our RJS software product offerings. These webinars are generally 20-minute “X Product: 101″ overviews with a quick product demo included as well. If you want to familiarize yourself with one of our popular products, we highly suggest attending one of our future webinars.

If you prefer to watch a webinar in your spare time, however, we’ve compiled our favorite software webcasts onto an On-Demand Webinars page at RJSSoftware.com. Here are the webinars we are currently hosting on-demand:

- Automate Data Collection and Streamline Workflow with WebForms
- Digital Signature Capture Delivers Real Savings
- Improve AP Workflow and your Bottom Line
- Save Time, Money and Trees with iForms
- Automate Report Distribution with DeliverNow!
- Remove Barriers with Seamless Integration between RPG, Excel and SQL
- 5 Ways CRM can Generate Leads and Improve Customer Service
- Optimum User Group Webinar: Going Paperless in HR

Feel free to watch any of these webinars at your leisure and give us call if you have questions or see something you like!

In the April edition of System iNEWS, our very own Vern Hamberg penned an in-depth System iNews Special Report, titled “Open Access for RPG Special Report: What It Is, How It Works, and Hands-On Experience.”

RJS has been a front-runner in developing technologies that work hand-in-hand with IBM Rational Open Access: RPG Edition and Vern, a software architect with RJS, developed a free RPG handler for our RPG2SQL product.

The special report is a fantastic guide for those looking to adopt Open Access and is packed with all the nitty-gritty details and example images one needs to get started.  Here’s how Vern introduces his article:

It was the best of ideas; it was the worst of ideas (apologies to Mr. Dickens). Response to IBM’s announcement of IBM Rational Open Access: RPG Edition (RPG OA) has certainly run the gamut of these extremes. One may well ask what opportunities are now available to an IBM i shop—and should we step through the door to the future that Open Access for RPG sets before us?

Here we will look at what Open Access is and how the IBM i community has responded to it. We will pursue possible uses for this new technology, as well as what is being done already. Then I will relate my own experience of writing an Open Access handler. Finally, I’ll cover the key considerations for deciding whether to adopt Open Access in your shop.

To check out the entire System iNEWS Special Report on Open Access for RPG, click here.

We’re proud to unveil a brand-spanking new RJS video. The video, produced by our friends at bswing, shares the story of the RJS Document Management Lifecycle in a short, succinct 2-minute animated production. If you ask me, we’re giving Pixar a run for their money.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

For additional RJS technical videos, check out our YouTube channel.

RJS Rational Open Access OAR Handler Demo
Featuring IBM’s Tim Rowe, Business Architect for IBM i Application Development

Date: 12/9/2010
Starting Time: 11:00 AM CST
Location: Online Demo
Register for this event

RJS Software recently released a free extension to its popular RPG2SQL Integrator product – a Rational Open Access: RPG Edition handler. With this added feature, customers are now able to read data in remote database systems using familiar RPG operations. This Rational Open Access: RPG Edition handler conceals the complexity of using RPG2SQL Integrator as the engine for working with these database systems.

IBM’s Rational Open Access: RPG Edition, announced in April, “provides a way for RPG programmers to use the simple and well-understood RPG I/O model to access resources and devices that are not directly supported by RPG.” 

Included in this demo will be a presentation of the Rational Open Access: RPG Edition by IBM’s Tim Rowe. Tim is the Business Architect for Application Development responsible for all middleware and infrastructure needed for applications on IBM i. He has spent the past 8 years as an architect for the IBM i Web integration team.

If you are unable to attend this webinar, but are interested in learning more about how RJS Software integrates Rational Open Access: RPG Edition to provide state-of-the-art programming technology, contact RJS Software Architect Vernon Hamberg at vern@rjssoftware.com.

Remove Barriers with Seamless Integration between RPG, Excel and SQL
Webinar – Thursday, December 2nd - 11am CST 

The gap between key business applications running on different platforms could be the difference between profit and loss. This is especially true for companies with critical business data living on IBM i and other database platforms such as Excel spreadsheets, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL. You need to be able to use all your data without manual intervention.

That’s why RJS Software offers RPG2SQL Integrator. The product allows all your databases and spreadsheets to talk to one another, eliminating complicated file transfers, database replications and manual re-keying. And since data transfer occurs in real time, all your stakeholders get the information they need instantly, which will immediately impact your bottom line and provide maximum ROI.

Key topics to be covered include:

- Real time data-sharing across databases
- Reading and writing to Excel spreadsheets, SQL server, MySQL, IBM Rational Open Access: RPG Edition, etc.
- Our free Rational Open Access OAR handler
- Uses for report generation
- Eliminating re-keying and manual input

Register Today!

Alex Woodie of IT Jungle, recently interviewed our very own, Vern Hamberg, regarding our new (and free) Rational Open Access OAR handler.  Vern, a software architect with RJS, is well-known within the technical community and developed this nifty extension for our popular RPG2SQL product. 

Here’s the article courtesy of IT Jungle: 

RJS Software Systems last week unveiled a free extension to its RPG2SQL Integrator software that uses the new Rational Open Access: RPG Edition (OAR) technology to connect RPG applications running on IBM i to remote databases. According to RJS, the OAR handler conceals some of the complexity of using RPG2SQL Integrator, and makes it easier for programmers to bring outside databases into the IBM i frame.

RPG2SQL Integrator is an established product that allows IBM i programs to read and write to other databases such as Microsoft’s SQL Server and Access, Oracle’s 11g database and MySQL, and even Excel spreadsheets. By creating a real-time connection between IBM i apps (COBOL and CL programs are also supported) and outside data sources, the Windows-based software eliminates the need to adopt other processes to move data, such as file transfers, database replication, and manual re-keying.

According to RJS software architect Vernon Hamberg, there was a bit of a learning curve for programmers to adopt RPG2SQL Integrator and correctly integrate its APIs and procedures into business applications. “The code is more complex than standard I/O. It’s on a par with embedded SQL, perhaps, or ODBC processing in Visual Basic,” he writes in an e-mail. “Although this is no problem for experienced ILE developers, it adds a level of complexity.”

When IBM unveiled OAR as a component of IBM i 7.1 earlier this year, Hamberg immediately thought it could be a good fit for an RJS product. While most ISVs who have adopted OAR use it for driving Web-based GUIs from RPG, Hamberg foresaw its use for simplifying remote database access with RPG2SQL Integrator. “We pride ourselves on staying ahead of the curve,” he says.

More Like IBM i

Before OAR, setting up the RPG2SQL software involved a number of steps that might be unfamiliar to the average IBM i programmer who’s proficient with the standard OPEN, READ, and CLOSE I/O opcodes, but is out of his comfort zone when dealing with lower-level programming on other platforms.

Pre-OAR, the setup process for RPG2SQL Integrator included using GetFld* functions to extract column values from the remote database. Then the programmer needed to use RJS’ binding directory and implement error handling on the PC server before getting to the work of connecting IBM i applications to remote databases.

With the new OAR handler, the setup process will be more familiar to IBM i programmers of all skill levels. As Hamberg explains, the process includes setting up a typical F-spec that incorporates the new OAR I/O handler, which features a template for the optional parameter that’s passed to the handler. Then the programmer sets just two values: the IP address of the PC running the RPG2SQL Integrator middleware, and the connection string for the remote database (as entered in the optional parameter). “It’s very similar to reading a local physical file,” Hamberg says.

After the setup process is complete, the RPG2SQL Integrator user can get down to business specifying which tables to access and what to do with the data. Once again, with the OAR handler doing the dirty work, this process is more familiar to the typical IBM i programmer.

Remote database OPENS, READS, and CLOSES work as IBM i programmers would expect when working with RPG opcodes, and aren’t as lengthy and convoluted as they were before. “In the words of one who has seen a demonstration, the OAR handler conceals the complexity of retrieving data from remote databases,” Hamberg says.

At this point, the OAR I/O handler supports the OPEN, READ, and CLOSE opcodes. Hamberg says it should be fairly easy to add CHAIN, keyed DELETE, and others. Opcodes such as SETLL and READE (with varying numbers of keys) will take more time. The decision to add more advanced features will depend on customer interest, he says.

The new OAR extension is a free download for existing RPG2SQL Integrator users. For more information and trial downloads, see the company’s website at www.rjssoftware.com.

Original article:
RJS Adopts OAR to Simplify Remote Database Access – IT Jungle – 11/2/2010

In the beginning there was ODBC, and it was good enough. Microsoft’s Excel format was a compelling tool, and anyone with an eye for databases saw it’s utility, both as an input into existing database systems but more particularly, as a way to generate and distribute reports from these same database systems.

RPG on the iSeries makes it trivial to work with DB2, the native database on OS/400, but other systems can be more difficult, and as you get to the more esoteric databases, there may be no support at all. However, nearly every database in existence has an ODBC driver or an OLE DB provider (courtesy of the MDAC framework). Our RPG2SQL product was designed around the flexibility of ODBC. It consists of two pieces; a library on the iSeries which contains the function calls available to intrepid RPG programmers, and a PC component which parlays between our library and various ODBC drivers, installed in Windows’ Data Sources control panel.

This two-(or more)-way communication stream looks roughly like this:

This comes back to Excel in important ways. Microsoft has an ODBC driver for Excel, and our original example of reading from an Excel spreadsheet showcases this method (it’s still available, in the SOURCE file in the RJSRPGSQL library; you can use WRKMBRPDM or Option 10 from the RJSRPGSQL menu to find it. The program is called SQTEST04R).

An example from SQTEST04R shows RPG2SQL opening a connection to an existing Excel spreadsheet using the Microsoft Excel ODBC driver:

SQL_DBOpenConn(SQL_Socket:'Driver={Microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls)}; DriverID=790; DBQ=c:\program files\rpgsqlsv\; nameaddr.xls; DefaultDir=c:\program files\; Pwd=;)

However, ODBC/OLE DB has its limitations (for example, this, this and this). Development on the Excel ODBC driver appears to have ended around 1998. In its stead, Microsoft added OLE automation that granted access to the data-management aspects of the application, permitting changes to be made with the full flexibility of Excel, modifying, for example, cell formatting or coloration. In late 2003, support for this method of communication with Excel was added to RPG2SQL. To differentiate these function calls from those of the ODBC method, XLS_ is prepended to each function name, instead of the SQL_ of the ODBC functions.

The communication method is similar to, but distinct from, the ODBC method of communication:

The SQTEST29R source sample shows RPG2SQL opening a spreadsheet as in SQTEST04R, but this time using the OLE automation calls:


*-------------------------------------------------------------------------
* ** Launch MS Excel and make it visible
*-------------------------------------------------------------------------
C Eval Rtn = XLS_Launch(SQL_Socket)
C Eval Rtn = XLS_Visible(SQL_Socket:1)

*————————————————————————-
* ** Open spreadsheet file
*————————————————————————-
C Eval Rtn = XLS_Command(SQL_Socket:
C ‘FILEOPEN’:
C ‘C:\Program Files\RPGSQLSV\nameaddr.xls’)

*————————————————————————-
* ** Set the initial spreadsheet positions
*————————————————————————-
C Z-ADD 0 EOF1
* ** Set to spreadsheet row 2 (Column headings are in row 1)
C Eval CurRow = 2
* ** Our record in the spreadsheet is comprised of columns 1 – 13)
C Eval StartCol = 1
C Eval EndCol = 13

*————————————————————————-
* ** Read all records from our sample spreadsheet
*————————————————————————-
C DOW EOF1 = 0

*————————————————————————-
* ** Read second delimited record from spreadsheet.
* ** The first row is the header row in our sample Excel file.
* ** so we will not read it in.
*————————————————————————-
C Eval RtnRecord = XLS_GetDelimRec(SQL_Socket:
C CurRow:StartCol:EndCol:”:”:’;')

The full code sample may be downloaded here.

Best practices: When referencing Excel files on remote systems, use the UNC path rather than mapped drives. Mapped drives will not work by default if the RPG2SQL PC component is running as a Windows service.

The flexibility of directly interacting with Excel extends far beyond mere data entry, with functions such as FILESAVEAS, FILEPRINT, SETACTIVECELLFORMULA, SETACTIVECELLFONTNAME and SETACTIVECELLNUMBERFORMAT as but a few examples. Additionally, you can convert Excel macros to scripts and call them via RPG as well, expanding one’s range of possibilities immensely.

If you’re using the old, ODBC method, that’s not ideal but if it’s not broke, the fix isn’t strictly required, and the functionality isn’t going away. But if you’re coming to RPG2SQL for the first time, do yourself a favor and explore the XLS functions. The RPG2SQL manual has detailed information on each function, and RPG prototypes for the functions, and the RJSRPGSQL library on the iSeries has source samples (SQTEST29R, and SQTEST26R) which you can modify and compile at your leisure.

As always, if you have specific questions you may contact RJS Software Systems at 1-800-RJS-SOFT during business hours, and we’d be happy to talk.