How to develop web functions with Visual Studio

There are a number of different sub-topics here:

1. Creating a developer sandbox on your desktop
2. Loading the Manage 2000 DAC components and WebControls into Visual Studio
3. Configuring Visual Studio to 'see' the Manage 2000 web function wizards
4. Where to find out more about Manage 2000 Web Technology and how to use it

You can find answers on all of these topics in Manage 2000 7.3 sp3 on the SYS.WEB.HOWTOS menu:

1. SYS.DEV.SETUP describes how to set up your PC for Manage 2000 web function development.
2. WEB.VS.TOOLBOX.SETUP describes how to add Manage 2000 Web Components and Controls into your installation of Visual Studio.
3. WEB.VS.WIZARDS.SETUP describes how to configure Visual Studio to 'see' the M2k wizards.

And in the related courseware section you will find links to INTRO.WEB.COURSE and ADV.WEB.COURSE which are chock-full of web function development minutia.

But if you want to get somewhere quickly check out the new wizards for generating Visual Studio projects for HyperQueries, Mobile Web, and BTO Posting type functions.  These wizards allow you to describe your function in terms of Unidata file names and dictionaries, or in terms of Manage 2000 Business Transactions and then generate for you a working prototype with controls configured and named in useful ways and in some cases with extensive amounts of code-behind already plumbed out.

There are a couple of webex videos available under the Manage 2000 Web Presentations link above on the right.  For Visual Studio Manage 2000 web function development knowledge check out Mastering ASP.NET 3.5 and VisualStudio2008 for Manage2000 Parts I and II.

Setting Up Mobile Access to Manage 2000 7.3 sp3

Manage 2000 7.3 sp3 mobile features are designed to run in webkit browsers such as Mobile Chrome or Mobile Safari.  These are the built-in browsers for IPhones and many Android phones. The next major version of Manage 2000, currently under development, supports many other mobile device browsers.

To configure mobile users on Manage 2000 7.3 sp3:

Use CNT.SYSTEM.REFS to assign mobile preferences for a web user role

For example on the SYSUSER role assign MobileUser as the menu for system users

1. Start CNT.SYSTEM.REFS
2. Call up record SYSUSER
3. Add a Preference Code of 25 Mobile Menu
4. Set the value to MobileUser
5. Add a Preference Code of 22 Mobile Stylesheet
6. Set the value to mobile.css
7. Add a Preference Code of 26 Mobile Items Per Page
8. Set the value to 5

You may assign preference codes 22, and 26 in WEB.CONSTANTS Default Web Preference settings instead of on each role in CNT.SYSTEM.REFS since they are likely to be constant for all roles.

Use CNT.SYSTEM.REFS record CM to assign preferences for customers accessing Manage 2000 via an externally facing portal. The MobileCustomer menu can be used as the mobile menu.

Use CNT.SYSTEM.REFS record SLSREP to assign preferences for sales representatitves accessing Manage 2000 via an externally facing portal. The MobileSalesRep menu can be used as the mobile menu.

Use CNT.SYSTEM.REFS record DEVELOPER to assign preferences for developers or administrators. The MobileAdmin menu can be used as the mobile menu.

Mobile devices are automatically detected. If the user has a mobile menu assigned and is accessing the site from a recognized mobile device then the user will be directed to a mobile login and from there to the M2000Mobile navigation app. The FullSite web function may be used to re-enter the site in non-mobile mode. Logging off the website and logging back in will place the mobile user back in mobile mode.

The a fore mentioned menus have been supplied as examples and starting points for configuring mobile access to Manage 2000 7.3 sp3.  The mobile navigation options may be modified in MENU.BUILD by changing the menu items. REPORT.BUILD web function definitions may be used (See WEB.REPORT.BUILD for information on setting up FN.BUILD entries to run REPORT.BUILD reports from the web). Web functions built using the roiHyperQueryControl will also be optimized for mobile automatically, this includes about 65 standard Manage 2000 web functions.

While the desktop portal system is not yet available from this mobile navigation you can recover some of the portal feature by setting the Use Last Key As Default preference to Y. This will default in the last key used as users select different web functions from the mobile menu emulating the key integration you get from portals.

There are about 220 Web functions that have not yet been optimized for mobile use in Manage 2000 7.3 sp3.  They may be used, but will likely prove inconvenient for the user.  The next major release of Manage 2000, currently under development, has all web functions and portals optimized for mobile.

Extending web portals by publishing REPORT.BUILD functions as web functions

Use FN.BUILD to create a web function that runs a specific REPORT.BUILD report from the web

Start FN.BUILD.

Create a new item with a name that matches the REPORT.BUILD report function name without space or periods and with only the first letter of each word captialized; so an entry to run RCVNG.RPTS.BY.DATE would be called RcvngRptsByDate.

Set the Type to W to specify a web function.

The module should match the module where the REPORT.BUILD report function exists.

Enter a suitable description. Shorter descriptions are nicer on mobile devices.

End out of the first screen.

Enter an extended description.

The additional parameters prompt will bring up a new screen with web function specific prompts.

For Web URL enter the Url to the REPORT.BUILD report interpreter /mt/ReportBuildRpt/ReportBuildRpt.aspx

Add a Web Query Parameter to specifiy the library (module) that the report resides in.
Use ReportLibary for the parameter. Use your module for the value.

Add A Web Query Parameter to specify the REPORT Id that should be used to generate the web page. Use ReportID for the paramter. Use the actual REPORT.BUILD report id (The PWS report name) for the value.

End out of FN.BUILD.

Test your web version of the report by typing in the upper and lower case version of the report name at a Menu or from ECL.

This web function may now be added to a web or PWS menu in MENU.BUILD

Note: In Release 8.1 this has been automated into the REPORT.BUILD function. Setting the Create Web Also flag to Y will create the corresponding FN.BUILD record for you.

Enabling Attachments in Web Portal Functions

Manage 2000 web portal  functions may be used to view and/or upload attachments. Web portal attachments are viewable from PWS and vice versa.

To enable viewing and downloading link type attachments from Manage 2000 web portals, add web preference 17 Enable Attachments and set the value to 'Y'. This may be done globally in WEB.CONSTANTS, or by ROLE in CNT.SYSTEM.REFS, or individually in CONTACTS. It may be necessary to logoff the web site and log back on to refresh your web preference settings. After entering a key in a portal, any objects attached to the portal base file and current key (that the user has security to access) will be added to a local menu named attachments.

To enable uploading attachments from Manage 2000 web portals add web preference 16 Attachment Storage UNC and set its value to a fully qualified UNC location or a UNC location relative to web site virtual directory root. After entering a key in a portal the user may click on the paperclip icon in the upper right corner of the portal which will navigate to the upload attachment page. Any objects uploaded will be attached to the current portal base file and current key.

Attachment Storage specifications starting with "\\" will be treated as UNC format. Specification starting with a letter followed by ":\" will be treated as a local disk drive location. Other formats will be treated as directories relative to the web site application root directory, "Documents\Attachments", for instance, specifies a directory in the websites "Documents" directory named "Attachments".

The suggested storage format is a UNC to a network resource that is available to the AppPool Identity on all Manage 2000 site hosting web servers, that is backed up regularly, and that is available to PWS users. Attachments from PWS users should be moved to the UNC Attachments Storage location and linked from that location in PWS using \O.I and specifying the file location using \\server\... rather than just attaching something from a location localized to the users PC.

How to setup AR KPI dashboard displays

Manage 2000 has included an AR Monitoring System since release 6.5.  Monitoring must be turned on in SOP.CONSTANTS and AR.CONSTANTS.

This results in real time updates in the MCD_DATA file tracking SO and AR activity.  The original interface in 6.5 for this information was found on the SYS.MONITOR menu.  But with release 7.3 these KPI counters can  be much more elegantly presented as a news feed into MS Outlook 2007 or 2010.

MSO's 1290 -1300 provide a variety of standard dashboard widgets. You can, of course, copy one of these and change time fences, graph types, and so forth for a particular result.

To get them to OUTLOOK simply wrap them in a NEWS.ARTICLE and attach to a NEWS.FEED. By specifying a news source of MSO and the MSO.ID to use as the source for the article almost all of the required setup will default in.

To find the feed run a Manage 2000 web function and then use IE9 Feed Discovery from the Tools menu. Then just copy and paste the required URL into the Outlook Add RSS Feed wizard.

Here is an ARCHIVER package of example AR news articles and a feed:

DASH.PMN AR Dashboard RSS example

1. Click to download it to your PC
2. From PWS use FILE.PASS to upload it into the PROJECT_LIBRARY
3. From PWS use the ARCHIVER function bring up record DASH.PMN and use the Extraction screen 4 to put the example feed into the NEWS_FEED and NEWS_ARTICLE files.

Web Performance Exception Reporting

One of the diabolical aspects of n-tier pooled connection processing used in web functions is the degree of difficulty there is trouble-shooting performance issues. The reality of many users sharing the same Unidata session as they make calls across responders make it difficult to untangle who's process is burning up bandwidth and forcing others to queue behind them.

In 7.3 sp3 we added a tune-able performance exception trace based on the RPC History tracing infrastructure used for development debugging.

You can set a performance benchmark in WEB.CONSTANTS defining how long an RPC call must last before being considered a performance exception and also how long to retain the RPC trace information for review.

Later, after activity across the responders, run WEB.PERFORMANCE.EXCPT to see RPC calls that exceeded the defined performance target. The report attempts to display 'important' parameters about what the responder was requested to do.

Since the performance exception logging is built on the RPC History trace tools you can use DEBUG.NET to dig deeper into the 'problem' calls and even re-run them from PWS for debugging and profiling purposes.

Web Function Usage Tracking

Previous releases have attempted to provide usage tracking beyond the standard IIS logging, but have not been all that useful. Manage 2000 release 7.3 provides better tracking by recording web function start events in the WEB_USAGE_LOG file within the UniData database where Manage 2000 reporting tools are available. To enable tracking simply go to WEB.CONSTANTS screen 5 and turn it on.
Enter 'Y' to post WEB_USAGE_LOG records as web functions are run on this account. Enter 'N' to disable posting of log records. A null entry is treated the same as 'N'. Control the purging of WEB_USAGE_LOG records through PURGE.CONTROLS. The purge type is WUL and the standard configuration is to purge back to the last 3 weeks once a month. View log records through WEB.USAGE.

The standard functionality provides lots of identifiers, but if you want meaningful company and person names you will need to set up some I-Descriptors in the WEB_USAGE_LOG file and copy the WEB.USAGE REPORT.BUILD report from the MT library to your local library and add the fields you want.

Top Ten Things To Know on Manage 2000 7.3

1. What preferences settings exist and how to set them globally, by role
2. How to turn on and use web function usage tracking
3. How to use web performance exception reporting
4. How to present different views to different roles
5. How to setup mobile access to Manage 2000
6. How to setup an externally facing portal
7. How to setup AR KPI dashboard displays
8. How to enable attachments in web portals
9. How to extend web portals by creating REPORT.BUILD functions as web functions
10. How to develop web functions with Visual Studio

I'll try to post on these topics over the coming weeks.

Web Preferences

Web preferences allow you to configure behavioral characteristics of Manage 2000 web sites. They can be set globally in WEB.CONSTANTS on screen 3. They can be set per role in the CNT.SYSTEM.REFS function. They can be set per user in screen 8 of CONTACTS.

Web Preferences are cached on a per user basis. To get preference changes to take effect you need to logoff your web session and start a new one. You can logoff the web session from the Welcome Portal or the My Account menu or by running WebLogoff from PWS.

The most sought after preference change has been turning off the autocomplete behavior in web functions which seems to annoy users more than help them. So in WEB.CONSTANTS on screen 3 add Preference Code 12 Minimum Length for Autofill and set the value to 999.

Preference 1 External Home Page controls what happens when a user logs off the website. You can use it to redirect them to your company web site. You can also set it to a value of ../../default.aspx which redirects them to the web login page. This feels nice and somehow harmonic to end the session where it began.

Preference 9 M2k Home Page controls what happens when a user logs into the web site. Using this preference in CNT.SYSTEM.REFS and by selecting the appropriate web function name you can start your customers in the shopping cart when they login, while directing sales reps to select the customer they wish to represent as they login, and direct service reps in the service portal as they come in.

As a developer constantly testing web functions I particularly like 13 Use LK as Default set to Y. Which does pretty much what you would expect. If users often want to view in a web function what they were just accessing in PWS then they might like this too.

Explore other preferences using ?? in one of the web preferences prompts. To avoid disturbing other users you can test just on yourself by setting preferences in CONTACTS screen 8.

Some preferences are fairly obvious like 4 Items Per Page. Others are a bit more mysterious like 8 Page Smoothing which can be used on users with older version of IE to cut down on the screen flickering during postbacks.

A number of them like the ...PDF.. settings can be tested from the REPORT.BUILD report viewer, or HyperQuery functions like CustOpenSalesOrders which provide export links for PDF viewing.

I'll cover the mobile and attachments preference settings in later postings on those topics.

In Defense of the Multi-Value Database

Reading Andrew E. Wade's chapter "Business Objects in Object Databases" of Andrew Carmichael's anthology of OO practitioners "Developing Business Objects" from 1997 I am struck by the parallels between the advantages of Object Oriented databases and Multi-Value databases over RDBMS for complex business modeling such as ERP systems.

RDBMSs provide a simple, flat, tabular view of all information. The user must map his application data structures, whatever they might be, into those tables. Other traditional database systems require similar mapping down to simple, flat records. The user must work at the level of only the table data structure and only a small set of simple operations (select,project,join). Now, if the application data structures is naturally simple and flat, and the application operations are also simple, this mapping is straightforward and not an issue. On the other hand, when the application structures and operations become complex, the RDMBS approach forces the user to deal with this directly. An ODBMS offers the ability to model an application in terms of objects, which may have any user-defined structure and any user-defined operations. Applications that require nested structures, dynamically varying sized structures, many-to-many relationships, and complex operations can map these directly to objects. Not only is the support far more efficient, far faster at run time, but the user may work at higher levels of abstraction. Instead of translating the application down to records and tuples with joins, the user can work directly with objects such as customers or manufacturing processes, and the natural, application-defined operations on these. The result is easier and faster for the developer and the end user. ...

When to Use an ODMS

... Second, if the application's information is complex and interconnected, an ODBMS can provide much better performance and ease of use. To contrast, if the information being modeled consists of simple, flat, fixed-length field, that fit nicely into tables, an RDMBS can be a fine fit. On the other hand, if the information contains complex structure, nested structures, dynamically varying sized structures, including images, audio, and video, all these can be represented directly as objects. Saving the need to translate not only eases the developer's load, but also eliminates the need to translate at run time, making it faster. To some users, the interconnections in their information model are even more important. In an RDBMS, such relationships are represented by creating secondary data structures, foreign keys. At run time, the system searches down two tables, comparing key values, until it discovers two that match.This search-and -compare process is called a join, an it's the weak point of relational technology. Even with the help of indices, it's slow, and the bigger the database, the slower it gets. In an ODBMS, there is no need to create and manage secondary data structures... Referential integrity, a difficult issue in traditional database systems, comes along automatically and easily. Moreover, the traversal is direct, with no need to search or compare, resulting in performance that is orders of magnitude faster. The more relationships, the more the application will benefit from an ODMBS.

Although to my way of thinking the most critical advantage of Multi-Value databases is their elasticity. They accomodate change. And change is the greatest challenge to software development and software field operations. One example of this is the ability to add domain specific vocabulary to a database in the field. The I-Descriptor feature in file dictionaries allows one (among other things) to describe how the system should retrieve a single foreign field. This is, effectively, a class definition for a field level join. Once defined the foreign sourced field may be used as if it were local for query and record selection purposes. Some users shy away from creating new custom dictionaries, but I see this as teaching the database how to be more useful to the users, how to be more functional in the users natural business vocabulary. Some argue that Multi-Value is dead. I hear this mostly in context of sales and marketing. But the absolute dominance of the healthcare sector by Intersystem's Cache and its predecessor MUMPS would seem to contradict this assertion. Critics will point out that Cache is not Multi-Value, but it most certainly is NOT first normal! In fact, one can argue that the Multi-Value database design is a subset of Cache's architecture. I would argue that the default Multi-Value Telnet based UI is the major problem for sales and marketing. Cache supports HTML as an immediate client protocol. This has been a conspicuously missing piece in U2 and other Multi-Value vendors offerings. While there are many ways to mix-in HTML client protocols such as UO, RBO, BlueFinity, or developing your own data components as we did on the Manage 2000 team, these all introduce tons of extra complexity. On most Multi-Value platforms there is no native MV Basic way to simply and directly code HTML UI's.