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I am so happy to announce that my relationship is...FIXED!  Yes, I though it was beyond repair and destroyed forever... My wife hates me still but...meh. 

...BOARD is fixed 

In all sincerity, thank you to the BOARD Lab and the engineers for your support.  Your quick responses and supportive correspondence prevented me from embarking on devising a whole new architecture which would have been painful to have to create and implement.

Thanks guys.

Hi Pierre Rosnarho

Quick response: As a start point, you can achieve all you need to do using 1 entity, 1 procedure and 2 cubes*, with Nexel applied to the second cube.  I've attached a simple model to illustrate some of what you want.  If you do not know how to use Nexel, access the online manual and use the community to find the formulations for use with Nexel.

A little more explanation

What you're asking for is beautifully achieved with NEXEL in which BOARD enables the user to write to cubes and carry out on-the-fly calculations.  Figures, dates and text - it's all good, you do need to be aware of some nuances when using NEXEL and user inputs but it's straight forward.  I'll attach a model that you can play with and use to develop your queries if more come from this.

(Please Note, the calculations above are 1.the date, 2. The serial of the date, 3.  The first day of the month of the date, 4.  The last day of the month of the date.  5.  The number of days between 2 given dates; in this case it is the 1st and last of the month but that is irrelevant for the calculation as you can also show result in months, years, minutes or parsecs ).

NEXEL FORMULATION

I do not currently have time to do a how-to so here are all the NEXEL formulations used. 

Using the link to the NEXEL pdf, one can see the immense amount of formulation that is valid and soon realise that you can do anything here - Nexel's true brilliance is to take what we all know, EXCEL formulation, and apply it in BOARD to create very complex dynamic calculations so you don't have to build convoluted cubes and entity structures that are impossible to hand over to fellow developers.

SETUP - Initial steps (Less Nexel Setup - for now):

1.   Create a single entity with five members E:[User Input]  M:[Input1], [Input2]...[Input5]

2.   Create Cube1* - the input cube.  Use the entity from step 1 and ensure that the datatype is set to DATE.  This cube will be used to input your dates.  A procedure will then carry them to the target cube where Nexel will transform them into what you want.

3   Create Cube2* - The Target cube.  Use the entity from step 1 and ensure that the datatype is set to DATE.  This cube will form the dataview with a NEXEL structure and will perform the calculations you want on the dates you submit from Cube1.

4.   Create a screen

5.   Create dataview1 - Use the input cube, set to enable dataentry, axis row on User Input and to show all:

6.   Enter a date into the area for Input1 - note the calendar pop-out (pretty nifty no?)

7.   Create dataview2 - Use the Target cube, axis row on User Input and to show all:

IMPORTANT: Set Formulas in the FUNCTIONS Tab of the dataview to the Deepest Entity Rule (This allows you to create a pseudo spreadsheet cell structure where each cell can hold a unique formula).

8.   Select capsule Procedure Modelling

...And create the following procedure (NB: If you can't see something in the image below, you don't need to set it).

9.   Return to Screen

10.   Create a button & embed the procedure:

11.   Press it to populate the target cube.

12.   Using the Target Datview, access the sliding toolbar and select  - you were always curious about this one, weren't you?

13.   Now you need to use Nexel - here are some links to help:

   a.   Training by BOARD's very own  Peter Foulkes: https://boardeducation.talentlms.com/unit/view/id:2327 

   b.   NEXEL Formulations:   https://community.board.com/docs/DOC-1241-nexel-complete-formulae-library

14.   Note that you create the new block from within NEXEL.  However, you must then pop outof the NEXEL editor and change the data type of the new block as DATE before you re-enter NEXEL to enter the formulas - I told you there were 'nuances'.

Now, I'm not forsaking you Pierre.  I've attached the model for you to pull and prod too.

By the way, the attached zipped file was created using the hotkey combo [Shift][Ctrl][Alt] + [T] - useful feature don't you think?

Reply when you've completed these steps and I'll assist with moving forward where needed. 

If this response resolves your query, please mark as CORRECT in order to notify future community users that this was a solution. 

Regards

Paul Wyatt

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*We use 2 cubes, Cube1 to accept data entry and Cube2 to process the value using Nexel.  The data is transferred using a capsule procedure.  We do this for 2 reasons, even though we can try it with only one data entry enabled cube.  The first is best practice - we have a stable datasource - Cube1.  The second is to avoid an error caused when using NEXEL with a data entry enabled cube (...ok, the second reason is actually the first but shsssss, don't want to hurt her feelings?).

Thank you very much Etienne CAUSSE.  That is very clear and I look forward to having some time to play. 

To Brendan Broughton, my apologies for not acknowledging you as the first to respond to my query and also for proposing the mapping cube approach.  I was departing on holiday when I posted the question and then came back to six responses, acting on the last posts first.

Hi Nicolas CHIGROS

You are not alone in your view.  Well done for highlighting the point that feedback does indeed take time and effort.  Any user submitting a post is clearly driven, motivated and truly believes that their point is worth it.

Nicolas wrote:

...it's time consuming to document them clearly into a forum post and I'm wondering to what avail should I choose to spend my time doing so?

I too can understand that BOARD are busy and I do know that the ideas are regularly read and the roadmap built to incorporate those ideas that are considered feasible.  However, without direct feedback from BOARD, it is hard to maintain the motivation required to describe specific scenarios, sometimes requiring models to be uploaded and built especially to make the point. 

Feedback is now pervasive throughout society, influencing our habits and opinions and playing a major part in driving our financial decisions - it has become a commodity.

FEDBACK LOOP

BOARD Community user feedback is no different to any other type of feedback.  It is not free, nor is it financially without value. 

Firstly, the organisation that purchased the software - believing this to be an astute financial and business decision - have paid for staff to develop specialist understandings in order to get a greater return on their investment.  The user, providing the feedback, spent time and effort to first identify their point and then to consider and write up their insight or frame their argument.  

BOARD gain valuable real-world insights from user ideas, inspirations and questions as the product is tested, bent, and imaginative and innovative solutions are applied and shared within the community. And, BOARD provide the 'community' website to specifically capture all of this knowledge.

Findings from feedback are used to improve the product, driving sales with greater claims of the product functionality, accuracy or stability.  In turn, product respect is developed by community users who will each feedback, to managers, directors or partners, their opinion of how good they think the chosen contracted service provider is - close loop.

Hi Dirk,

Board 11 can do anything.  BOARD would never take a feature away without good reason or without telling its users.  I've not had any conversion problems what-so-ever.  See for yourself.  My doughnuts look good enough to dunk.

I call this one 'tired pie'

OK, they're fake...I can't do it either.  Maybe it can be done but I've searched and have resolved to 'work-a-round' the issue in my migration plan.  I think the doughnuts were eaten by the 'new kids', Gauge and Bullet.  We still have good ole' pie though and we can overlay that with a shaped label which is how I created these.  Can we take a minute to reflect on that point a moment?  Ah, so they fixed the overlap issue, fan-blooming-tastic.  

COLOUR & FORMATTING

You can apply a general colour (color ) style in the Right hand PIE drop-down menu - Here, I've applied 'Flower'. 

To colour specific segments, drop down the SERIES menu and select each category in turn - Here I've chosen LH of the three segments and coloured it amazing grays.

Hope this made you smile cause I know it sure didn't fix your problem much - sorry .  

Regards,

Paul

Hi Hendrik,

I'm a customer and have transitioned from BOARD 9 to BOARD 10 and can tell you that you need only carry out some minor planning as the upgrade itself is very simple.  I have separate DEV, Test and Production servers.  Planning will be a little more involving if you only have one server.  If this is the case, you are going to want to plan for downtime or book in some overtime to test upgrade out of hours to make yourself fully happy with steps before formulating your upgrade plan to all users.  Testing is easy as you can upgrade your server then downgrade it again for the next day.  Also, 

• Read this link regarding moving from 9 to 10: Knowledgebase: BOARD 10
• Know that all other relevant information - BOARD manual, in the release notes and after Chapter 13.
• BOARD 9 Capsules can be opened in BOARD 10 but if they are then saved, they are converted and cannot be re-opened in BOARD 9.

To upgrade, you only need to install BOARD 10.x.x to your server.  Your company upgrade plan should involve a notification to users that, once server is updated, all users will be informed that, on logging on to their desktop client, they will be asked for permission for their installation to update itself - it is automatic.  Also install the WEB server either on the same server or on your nominated location for use through IIS.  That is it.

There are a few steps you will want to carry out before create your upgrade plan and deploy the update:

1. DATALOAD - Test your capsules on an updated server and run the dataload process for each one.  I found that BOARD 9 processes with broken SQL datareaders would fail on BOARD 10 - because it found the broken process
2. WEB - what you see is not what you get.  You will want to test all capsules online and identify visual issues.  Also, be aware that broadcasting functions do not function on HTML 5 platform.  I can export to Excel and PDF but I cannot create a PDF catalogue of a capsuled screen with one item to a page.
3. IIS - WEB Themes.  Discuss with BOARD support about the config steps to allow for DEVs to update the WEB THEME.  I had issues which our infrastructure manager resolved with some scripts on the IIS server.  If you have issues, ask and I'll explain.
4. TEST your production capsules - Consider the functionality of your processes and understand what you currently cannot do on BOARD 10.1.4 so that you can mitigate that functionality.  All is coming in BOARD 10.5.0
5. UPGRADE CAPSULES. Once you have tested everything and formulated your upgrade plan, factor in the CAPSULE update work.

I hope that this helps.  Please feel free to ask more questions and I will do what I can to answer from a customer's perspective.

Found a way to do it with a funny Workaround:

1. Create an 1-item-Enttiy and create a text-cube with only this Dimension.
2. Fill this cube in a dataview with:
   "1
   2"
   So you have CR;LF on Position 2 and 3
3. Use this cube (defined as b) in your dataflow with 

    

   right(left(b,3),2)

4. And you can get your CR;LF on the desired Position.

I'm not quite happy with this solution, so if you know a better one, please post it.

I'm also interested in a how-to-in-nexcel from Helmut Heimann :-)

BR
Moritz