Xtraction V2.5: Frequently Asked Questions

Transcription

1 Xtraction V2.5: Frequently Asked Questions Overview 1) What is Xtraction? a) Xtraction is an interactive status reporting and dashboard solution that allows the non-technical end-user to quickly create and design dashboards via drag-and-drop, and provide easy interaction to the information. 2) Who would benefit from Xtraction dashboards? a) Xtraction provides access to data trapped within application databases and presents it as useful, business oriented information. As these benefits span across many areas within the organization, the value is also broad and spans across many levels of service management help desk, change management, auditors, operations, and senior management. 3) What can Xtraction be used for? a) Xtraction can be used very broadly as a BI reporting tool. Some examples are; a real-time status dashboard in a help desk, during analysis and root cause determination, streamlining collection of audit information, reference for change control review, management of asset lifecycle ideally helping present the right data to the right people in the right format to help your business and drive continuous service improvement. 4) How do I create a dashboard with Xtraction? a) Creating a dashboard is done via drag-and-drop from presented components effectively the underlying fields in the database. Anyone who can use a mouse can create a dashboard with Xtraction. There is no coding required to create a dashboard with Xtraction and each dashboard only takes minutes to create. 5) Can I save a dashboard and allow other users to access it? a) Yes, depending upon your user privileges, dashboards can be saved for private or shared access. Dashboard Folders also allow sharing to select users or user groups. 6) Does Xtraction allow me to interact and drill-down through the dashboard data? a) Yes, you can interact with dashboard components, see values and underlying record lists. You cross-filter other dashboard components in context of the selected data. 7) Does Xtraction display real-time information? a) Yes, there is an auto refresh feature and manual refresh button. You can also setup multiple dashboards to cycle through display and refresh. 8) Can I connect multiple systems to Xtraction? RAAH Technologies, Inc P a g e 1

2 a) Yes, you can even build dashboards with data from multiple systems on the same chart. User access can also be controlled at the data level. 9) Can I display comparative data from different time lines for trending purposes? a) Yes, time periods are provided (This time last month, This time last year ) to allow information to be displayed on the same chart with different time lines. 10) Is Xtraction Interactive? a) Yes, Xtraction is extremely interactive, some examples are: live data points upon mouse over, ability to cross-filter other dashboard components, change chart display, time periods and drill-down into underlying data. 11) Can I drill-down to underlying data? a) Yes, you can display record lists and, where applicable, connect to the native application (such as Service Desk) in context and view the record. 12) Can I export the dashboard components? a) Yes, a variety of formats are available to export dashboard components and record lists. You can also export a screen shot of a complete dashboard or select components. 13) Can I export dashboards to reports? a) Yes, the Document Designer function allows multiple dashboard components to be exported to a variety of formats including a pre-defined MS Word template. The template can be pre-built with title, logos, table of contents etc and loaded into Xtraction to have the dashboard components populate it when the export is generated. This can also be scheduled. 14) Can I schedule reports with Xtraction? a) Yes, scheduling of reports can be performed. 15) Can I export information from the dashboards? a) Yes, depending upon the component involved, you can export the information into Word, PowerPoint, HTML, XLS, PDF, PNG, RTF. You can also export dashboard or component screenshots. 16) Can I define custom filters easily? a) Yes, this is done via drop-down and pick lists of the available filter fields. You can also filter against text and numeric values. Filters can also be kept private or shared out. 17) Can I segregate access to data? RAAH Technologies, Inc P a g e 2

3 a) Yes, Xtraction caters for role based access control to restrict user access data from multiple levels including Data Source, Data View, and select filtering. 18) How is Xtraction licensed? a) Xtraction is licensed on concurrent users. 19) How much training is required to use Xtraction? a) Xtraction can be used as soon as it is installed and most users only require a 1 hour session to become fluent in dashboard and document design. Dashboard viewers spend even less time and are usually comfortable within 15mins. 20) Can I install and trial Xtraction on my site? a) Yes, a free, fully-functional, 30-days trial is offered and takes less than an hour to setup. Contact info@raahtech.com or call in USA to request a trial. 21) My users reside in multiple time zones, will Xtraction be able to cater to this? a) Yes, Xtraction can be set with a default time zone and each individual user can also have a time zone allocated. Requirements 22) Are there any client requirements? a) Xtraction is fully browser enabled. 23) What are the minimum install requirements for Xtraction? a) Xtraction can run on minimally installed Windows server environment or virtual image. Server Hardware - 1GHz (2GHz recommended) - 1GB (2GB recommended) - 50MB free space (may vary based on amount of reports) Server Software RAAH Technologies, Inc P a g e 3

4 Client Software t (8.1.7 or greater) if reporting against Oracle database ser machine. *The above is calculated based on typical install environments. 24) What platform does Xtraction run on? a) Xtraction runs on the MS Windows platform, is built on.net technology and supports the Windows IIS web server environment. 25) Does Xtraction run on VMware? a) Yes, as Xtraction has minimal requirements, VMware is a very suitable environment for Xtraction installation. Database 26) How does Xtraction connect to help desk and other application databases? a) Xtraction connects to the application database via a defined user with read only access privileges. 27) Does each database connection have it s own user-id and password? a) Xtraction uses a separate connection string for each database connection and a user is specified during that database connection configuration. A separate user account can be used for each database, although you can use a single user account for all database connections if desired. 28) Does Xtraction cater for custom fields in the database fields that have been added for unique business requirements? a) Yes, Xtraction can cater for custom fields. These can be mapped into Xtraction and presented as components to build dashboard from or filter against. 29) Can Xtraction connect to custom applications? a) Yes, custom connectors can be built to allow these applications to also be connect to. Contact RAAH Solutions for more discussion and details. 30) What databases can Xtraction connect to? RAAH Technologies, Inc P a g e 4

5 a) Oracle and SQL server are supported. 31) Does Xtraction place any overhead on the application database? a) The processing and data collection of Xtraction has been highly optimized to ensure overhead is kept to an absolute minimum. Xtraction has more than impressive response and performance and can source large volumes of information without any detected overhead. Administration 32) What levels of access exist within Xtraction? Can I restrict who can create and who can view dashboards? a) The user roles within Xtraction are; Administrator, Enterprise Designer, Designer, Private Designer, Viewer. The allocation of this access is completely at the discretion of the client and does not affect pricing and licensing. 33) Can I customize the Xtraction interface? a) Customization of colors and column display fields as well as time zone settings can be addressed at two levels i) Group level by an Administrator. ii) Personal level by end-user. These settings override the group level settings. 34) Is there an audit trail for updates made to folders and dashboards by Administrator level users? a) Yes, every insert/update/delete on the dashboard database is logged. 35) Where are users authenticated? a) Users can be authenticated against the Xtraction user table or the Active Directory installation within your environment. Online Demo Xtraction-The Powerful Dashboard Reporting Solution Contact (Americas), (Asia Pacific) - sales@raahtech.com, sales@raahsolutions.com RAAH Technologies, Inc P a g e 5