SupportConnect - Advantage VISION Newsletter, Version 03.02
  

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Computer Associates
E-News
Advantage™ VISION Newsletter
Version 03.02
July 01, 2003

In This Newsletter
General Information
> Handling Two-Digit Year Date Data in Advantage™ VISION:Report®
> Advantage™ VISION:Results® and the Advantage™ CA-Datacom® Database
Transparency Option for VSAM
> Advantage™ VISION:Builder® - Reports can be Viewed via Web Browsers
> Advantage™ VISION:Inform® and the Virtual Relational Table
> Contacting Technical Support for Advantage™ VISION Products - Many Great Choices!

Special Events
> CA WorldSM 2003 - July 13-17, Las Vegas, NV

General Information
Handling Two-Digit Year Date Data in Advantage™ VISION:Report®
Many legacy databases still have two-digit year date fields. The Advantage VISION:Report's QUIKDATE routine simplifies working with dates. When dates with two-digit year fields are input to QUIKDATE, it frequently needs to associate a century with the date in order for it to perform proper conversions and calculations.

Click here to learn how QUIKDATE determines the century to associate with a date containing a two-digit year.

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Advantage™ VISION:Results® and the Advantage™ CA-Datacom® Database Transparency Option for VSAM
Advantage VISION:Results seamlessly interfaces with the Advantage CA-Datacom Database Transparency Option for VSAM.

Advantage CA-Datacom Database Transparency Option for VSAM is a tool that permits a VSAM-based application to operate unchanged under the control of Advantage™
CA-Datacom®/DB Database using data that has been moved from VSAM to Advantage
CA-Datacom/DB. Organizations may bypass the costly and time-consuming task of program conversion normally associated with this change of technology. Advantage CA-Datacom Database Transparency Option for VSAM provides an easy and fast transition into the many benefits of database management, without any program changes or link-edits.

As VSAM files are converted into Advantage CA-Datacom database tables, Advantage VISION:Results programs you originally created to access those VSAM files, will transition, unchanged, to access those Advantage CA-Datacom database tables. You need not change the VSAM access logic to Advantage CA-Datacom database access logic in your Advantage VISION:Results programs; the Advantage VISION:Results programs remain unchanged. The Advantage CA-Datacom Transparency Option for VSAM makes this possible. Learn how to make this transition seamless by clicking here.

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Advantage™ VISION:Builder® - Reports can be Viewed via Web Browsers
As users increasingly have employed Advantage VISION:Builder as a tool to prepare data for input to other tools, processes, and platforms, it has become even more important to present that data in industry-standard open formats. Therefore, Advantage VISION:Builder includes specifications to allow users to specify the alternate report output methods. The most exciting is the ability to output reports as HTML documents so they can be viewed using web browsers.

The report data is written as a set of files bracketed by appropriate HTML coding so that the report can be viewed using a web browser that supports frames technology. This allows users to:
  • Place the report headings as a top-of-the-screen frame.
  • Place the major control break values as a table-of-contents frame on the left.
  • Place the detail information as the body of the screen.
Using the table-of-contents frame, users can make the corresponding detail information visible using the mouse. The browser automatically provides vertical and horizontal scrolling for each frame as needed. The report body of an HTML document may contain any combination of detail and summary data. In addition to the default style, you can define up to 99 additional styles for HTML documents.

For more information, click here.

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Advantage™ VISION:Inform® and the Virtual Relational Table
Advantage VISION:Inform provides end users with the ability to retrieve host data without knowing the format or location of the actual physical data being requested. This way, the mechanics of the actual data extraction process are transparent to the users. Seamless, transparent data extraction is made possible by a powerful concept that is unique to Advantage VISION:Inform. This is the concept of the virtual relational table. Advantage VISION:Inform gives your database administrator the ability to present your corporate data as a simple relational table to end users. It is a virtual relational table because the structure does not actually exist in physical storage. Rather, it is created in memory at execution time. The virtual relational table is dynamically created by Advantage VISION:Inform to simplify data access for end users.

Using the concept of the virtual relational table, all Advantage VISION:Inform data extraction requests boil down to simply picking columns from the in-memory relational table. The selected columns are then downloaded to the workstation in a simple table format. You do not have to decipher complex hierarchical data structures. Advantage VISION:Inform does all that for you behind the scenes.

With Advantage VISION:Inform, you can simultaneously access any combination of DB2, IMS, VSAM, or other databases as if all of the data existed in a single virtual relational table. To find out how to access these files and databases, click here.

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Contacting Technical Support for Advantage™ VISION Products - Many Great Choices!
Customers using Advantage VISION products now have many avenues for seeking technical support. In this article, you will learn:
  • About the CA SupportConnect website.
  • All phone numbers to call for technical support, product codes, LMP keys, and so on.
  • The email address that goes directly to Advantage VISION Products Technical Support.
  • Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
  • Open Forum on many Advantage VISION products.
  • How to obtain online documentation.
For more information about contacting technical support, click here.

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Special Events
CA WorldSM 2003 - July 13-17, Las Vegas, NV
Time is running out to register for CA World 2003. This year's event takes place July 13-17 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV. CA World features technical sessions, hands-on labs, and panel discussions on today's most extraordinary and innovative technology solutions. Don't miss out on the valuable networking opportunities with CA User Groups and CA Development and Support staff. If there's only one IT conference you can attend this summer, make it CA World 2003.

Visit ca.com/caworld for more information.

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