HP 3000 Manuals

Information Access Server: Learning the Administrator Utility

B : Configuration Worksheets 

Stage 3 of the setting up process is planning.  Once you've finished all
the lessons in this manual, you'll have enough knowledge to plan your own
configuration.

Access Server includes three worksheets to help you gather information as
you plan your configuration.  You'll be able to "feed" information
directly from these worksheets into the data dictionary during the
configuration stage of setting up Access Server.

For this lesson, assume that you have completed your information
gathering, the first part of the planning process, and that the results
of your analysis are recorded on the worksheets.

These are shown on the following pages as Figures 2-2, 2-3, and 2-4.  The
information we have gathered is in COLORED ITALICS.

The key at the bottom of each worksheet lists options for many of the
columns.  Detailed explanations of each column are in the Information 
Access Server:  Planning and Configuring manual.
__________________________________________________________
|                                                        |
|     Blank Configuration Worksheets are provided for you|
|     to copy and use.  You'll find them in Appendix A of|
|     the Information Access Server: Planning and        |
|     Configuring manual.                                |
|                                                        |
|     Reference (in that manual):                        |
|        Chapter 1, Planning Your Configuration          |
__________________________________________________________

            

Worksheet 1:  PC Data 

In the course of your analysis, you have found two PC users who need
information from your two sample databases.  These users are TUTORIAL and
SALESMGR. They currently extract information from various reports (refer
to the CURRENT SOURCE OF DATA column on Worksheet 1) and enter the data
manually into their PC application (dBASE II). The information each user
needs is defined in Figure 2-2.

Additionally, your analysis shows that SALESMGR will need information
from the SAMPL1 database.  (You've recorded this information on another
copy of Worksheet 1, not shown.)


          Figure 2-2.  Worksheet 1 Completed 

Here's an explanation of each entry on the first line of Worksheet 1
(Figure 2-2), by column title:

APPLICATION         BASE II: The application which will use the information extracted
                    by Access Server.  In this case, Access PC will place the
                    information in a dBASE II database.

NAME OF DATA        NUMBER: The data item name required in the dBASE II application.
                    In the table Access PC displays, this will be the column heading.

          Table 2-0.  (cont.) 

TYP                 AN: The item will be handled as AlphaNumeric data (A-Z, a-z, 0-9,
                    space).

MTD                 D: The information extracted will be loaded Directly into a dBASE
                    II database.

DESCRIPTION OF DATA PRODUCT NUMBER: This data item is a product number.

FRQ                 W: The user receives Weekly updates.

CURRENT SOURCE OF   REPORT 100:  The data comes from a report called "REPORT 100".
DATA                This is helpful in understanding what manipulations may have
                    occurred on the data.  In this case, the remaining columns
                    indicate that this is raw data.

LOC                 H: The raw data is located on the Host HP 3000.

SYSTEM NAME         - - - :  Here no entry has been made because the information is
                    located on the host system rather than on a remote system.

DATABASE OR FILE    SAMPL2:  The name of the host database containing the desired
NAME                information.  The asterisk means that a note has been made (see
                    NOTES on the form).

DATASET NAME        PRODUCT-MASTER: The name of the dataset within the SAMPL2
                    database.

DATA ITEM OR FIELD  PRODUCT-NBR: The raw data is named "PRODUCT-NBR" in the dataset.
NAME                Notice that the DATA ITEM NAME differs from the NAME OF DATA. This
                    tells you that you will need to "rename" the data when you define
                    your view tables.

FMT                 X6:  The format within the IMAGE database is X6.

                    To conserve space, two users have been included on Worksheet 1.
                    These two users share a need for the data shown, but SALESMGR has
                    additional data needs not shown on the worksheet.  Consequently,
                    these users will be placed in different access groups.

Worksheet 2:  Access Group 

At this point, you would normally compare your PC users' needs.  Those
users with the same data needs are assigned to an access group.  (Access
groups, not to be confused with MPE groups, give you a handy way to
provide data security according to users' needs.)

Assume that you plan to make the access group assignments recorded in
Figure 2-3.  (You'll step through the configuration process later in this
lesson.)


          Figure 2-3.  Worksheet 2 Completed 

You have placed the PC user TUTORIAL in an access group called TUTORIAL,
you've given the user a password (USER), and you've allowed the user to
save an unlimited number of tables (UNLMT) with no restrictions on disc
space (UNLMT). The user's MPE priority queue is the CS queue and
secondary DBA capability has not been assigned.

Your analysis shows that the access group TUTORIAL will use two view
tables (V) called PRODUCTS and STATUS. These tables will not be public 
tables (N), and they will include the descriptions shown in the last
column.

Worksheet 3:  View Table 

The next step is to define view tables.  View tables are required in this
example because dBASE II uses smaller item names (10 characters) than
those allowed in IMAGE (16 characters).

In defining the view tables, you will "rename" the items selected.
(Note:  PC applications that do support item names of 16 characters will
not require renaming for that reason.  However, renaming may be required
if a valid character in an IMAGE item name is not valid in the PC
application.)

Figure 2-4 shows worksheets for two view tables--PRODUCTS and STATUS.


          Figure 2-4.  Worksheet 3 Completed 

The two view tables in Figure 2-4 replace old item names with new ones.
For example, the data item PRODUCT-NBR in the dataset PRODUCT-MASTER will
be named NUMBER (of products) when retrieved and returned to Access PC.
The data retrieved will be the same.

If we had defined a new item name by entering a mathematical formula
using the data items in the EXPRESSION column, the values returned for
that item name would be the results of the computation.

At this point, you should have a good idea how to use the Configuration
Worksheets to gather information about your PC users' data needs.  Later
in this lesson, you'll use these worksheets to configure part of Access
Server.

MPE/iX 5.0 Documentation