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Actuate iServer Questions:

What is AFC?

Actuate Foundation Classes. This is the base class.

What are the Actuate features that can be tested only with iServer?

Scheduling, Sending Email Notification. Archiving, Page Level Security Etc

What are API that can be used to customize the Active Portal for JSP?

Not aware of this . Haven’t worked on Active Portal . But I have

Customized Report Cast using by modifying Achtmls

Management Console – it is a tool for distributing & Managing report in

report encyclopedia volume

Iserver services –

Message distribution – Accepts messages from application & balances these

messages across the actuate servers in the cluster.

Factory Services – generates report

View Services

Encylopedia Services – it is reposatry of all information about the volume

such as users, privileges, group, notification, report files & folders

AFC Methods

1 New() – Initializes the object

2 Start() – Initializes the connection & the data stream
3 Build() – Build method reads data rows from the data stream,
instantiates its content & pass data row to content object
4 BuildFromRow() – Passes the data row to its control
Finish()

Privilege access

1. None – No access
2. Read – see view & downloads
3. Secure Read – View Only DHTML Format, Download not possible
4. Write – Create , Change & rename files & folders
5. Delete – Delete files & folders
6. Execute – Run & Schedule Jobs
7. Grant – Change files & folders privileges
8. Visible - See the file or folder but prohibit viewing content of
file
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Q What is LDAP

Ans - LDAP, Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, is an Internet protocol that

email and other programs use to look up information from a server.

Q. Does the actute having default Datasource provider for XML?

YES

Q. ACL stands for?

Access Control List

Q : What is ACDEFRAG ?

A : It is one of the Actuate Report Encyclopedia utilities. It lets you defragment Report
Encyclopedia files. The utilities must be run while the Report Server processes are not
running. There is a process that runs at 5:15 in the morning by default.
Every night at 5:15, the server automatically checks the consistency of
the encyclopedia to see if everything is still ok.
You can run a manual ACDEFRAG from the command line to make sure that
things are ok.

Q : Backup of Actuate on Unix

A : You can backup the Actuate report Encyclopedia -- There are two ways -- you will need to stop
report server first
for either method --
1. Physical backup, i.e., make a copy of the admin, request, and
object folders/directories;
2. Logical backup, i.e., run the acexport utility to generate an
export file. Please see Chapter 5 of the "e.Reporting Server Guide"
for details on how to use acexport

Q : What is the difference between WebAgent and ReportCast?

A : There is no difference between WebAgent and ReportCast. Before Actuate 4.0 it was called Web
Agent and from Actuate 4.0 it is called Report Cast. It
provides access to the Actuate e.Reporting Server from the World Wide
Web. Using ReportCast or WebAgent, you can access and work with reports
in the Actuate Report Encyclopedia with any web browser.

Q : Is there a format to pass the user name and password via a query string so they user is
not prompted ?

A : HTTP:USERNAME:PASSWORD@WEBSERVERNAMEACWEB EPORTSERVERNAME

Q : How to move the report Execuitable from QA Box Report Server to Prod Report Server?
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A : Open admin desktop and login to both servers. Then drag and drop the report from one window to
another. Only thing to check is that the
developers haven't hardcoded the database source.

Q : How to call a Java API from Actuate?

A : You can use CreateJavaObject or CreateJavaClassHandle method to access Java API. For example
to create an object of Java ArrayList, your code may be as follows - dim objArrayList as object set
objArrayList=CreateJavaClassHandle("java.util.ArrayList") dim objArrayListInst as object set
objArrayListInst=objArrayList.ArrayList() Make sure that Java runtime environment is already set
where you are running the report.

Q. What is page level security?

It is a security to a report page at the User level.In PLS, user can able to see only
those pages to which he has given a privelege to access.

Q : what is Page Level Security?

A : For this you need to buy Advanced eReporting Server Under this you can create
a huge report, which will create only one .roi and on the basis of the roll, users can
access parts of it. Rolls are created in the Encyclopedia and assigned in the Devwb.
So a same report can be shared among different users with different access rights.
You can refer to an example of it under
actuatedevwbexamplespagesecuritysecuredetail.rod
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Q HOW TO PUBLISH A REPORT?

To publish a report, you use a web browser, a web server, an Encyclopedia volume,
and Management Console. To locate and view a report, a report user uses Actuate
Active Portal.

Q What are actuate smart reports?

It is a collection of Javascript files would let the users choose the fields want when
they running the reports from the web.these Javascript files would sit on the report
cast.

Q : How to set up an archive driver in order to archive reports?

A : Right click onthe encyclopedia and go to the Auto Archive Tab. In the Archive
Driver field put the location to the archive driver. eg:
d:Actuate5serverexamplesarchivearchive.dll

Also, in that same directory serverexamplesarchive is a txt and a doc

file. It explains in detail the process to setup archiving.

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Q : How to pass the unique ID from another application to the Actuate Report?

A : Basically, create the report with ad-hoc parameters. Then open it via URL
passing the parameters for the report in the URL. Works great with JSP or

Q : What is AcLeftRightPageList?

A : What is AcLeftRightPageList? If we set the properties of AcLeftRightPageList as

true starts the

first page as a

right-hand page. if we set the property as False,

AcLeftRightPageList starts the

first page as a left-hand page.

Q : What is AcTitleBodyPageList?

A : In AcTitleBodyPageList class builds a page list with a title page, followed

by all other pages of another style.

Q : What is AcSimplePagelist?

A : In AcSimplePagelist report style in which all pages have the same layout.

Q : Does actuate need any specific web browser to display reports on internet?

A : The user requests a report using a web browser. The request is received by the
web server (e.g. Apache) and it passes the request to the Actuate ReportCast
server. This in turn passes the request to the relevant Actuate Server, which returns
a report page in the Actuate internal format (ROI). This gets translated to dHTML by
the ReportCast Server and passed to the Web Server which delivers the dHTML
report to the users browser. In simple terms the request URL goes from Apache to
ReportCast to Actuate Server, then the report goes back to ReportCast, and Apache
to the browser.If you want to deliver a 'normal' Actuate report via the internet then
you need to have a web server in addition to the Actuate ReportCast Server (also
sometimes called the Actuate Web Server).
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What SOAP stands for?

Simple object access protocol.

The Information Delivery API helps integrate applications developed using J2EE or
Microsoft .Net with the Actuate iServer. Using IDAPI you can perform tasks such as
uploading of files to the Actuate iServer, downloading files from the iServer,
generating a report on-demand, scheduling a report, sending eMail notification
when a job completes, manage security(users, privileges), etc.

IDAPI uses SOAP over HTTP messaging for communication between the iServer and
the client.

Active portal for .Net

Using Active Portal for .NET, developers can easily tailor their Web-based user
interface for Information Applications or seamlessly integrate reporting and
analytic content from the Actuate iServer with their existing ASP-based
applications. As a result, users across the enterprise will have intuitive, zero-
training access to key enterprise data, deployed efficiently to meet their
evolving requirements.

High level architecture for reports involves three separate applications, web
application and Actuate i-Server, Active Portal.Net.

Components:
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1. Actuate i-Server:
Actuate i-server is used to for tasks such as to host the actuate reports,
which can be executed by ASP application on demand or can be scheduled
for some particular date time. Authentication and Authorization for
Actuate server is externalize thru RSSE. Provide the Services for
View/Execute/Schedule and manage reports.

RSSE (Report Server Security Extension)

Actuate internally uses a component for using external Users, Roles and
groups known as RSSE. So the task of authentication and authorization of
users/roles happen thru RSSE.

Following operations are performed thru RSSE.

i. Authenticate and Authorize users.

ii. Fetch users/roles/groups in actuate.
iii. Creating folder structure for Groups.

2. Active Portal.Net:
Active portal for .NET is a web application of an actuate interface provided
to perform report related activities like view/ execute/schedule reports.

APSE (Active Portal Security Extension)

Active Portal.Net has its own security mechanism that can be customized
using a configurable custom component known as APSE (Active Portal
Security Extension)

Application uses APSE viz. Security Manager Assembly to integrate ASP

Application with Active Portal.Net and provide Single Sign On functionality.

3. Actuate Web Service:

Actuate provides web services to interact with the reports server and to
perform various operation related to reports.

Following are some of the operations web application does with the help
of web services

i. Fetching reports based on the Users/Roles.

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ii. Fetching reports based on the report permissions.

iii. Assign report rights to the users/roles.
iv. Execute report
v. Schedule report.
vi. Delete report.

Actuate iServer
 Actuate Encyclopedia volume is a repository for various report items and data
such as access privileges and requests for report generation and printing.

 The services that manage the information and requests are collectively
known as Actuate iServer

 Actuate iServer supports

 Storing report documents in and viewing a report from an encyclopedia

volume

 Managing users and security information

 Report generation and server side printing of third party reports such
as Crystal & SQRIBE reports

 Supports 2 kinds of configurations: Stand-alone & Cluster

Stand-Alone Configuration
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Cluster Configuration
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iServer Services
 Encyclopedia Service
 View Service
 Factory Service
 Message Distribution Service

Encyclopedia Service
 Controls Encyclopedia Volume administration and secures access to the
volume and its contents
 Manages content such as reports, users, roles and notification groups
 Manages report generation and print requests
 Performs volume tasks such as creation and deletion of volume folders &
adding, moving and deletion of files

View Service
 Handles requests to view the reports ( both ROI & DOI)
 View process supports viewing the report in DHTML format when the user
views the report using a web browser
 Supports conversion of actuate documents to XML format for use with other
web applications
 Allows viewing the report in PDF format for printing
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Factory Service
 Processes Report execution requests and print requests
 Report generation requests are scheduled and batched, these are stored
in the encyclopedia volume
 The encyclopedia service dispatches the requests internally to the
encyclopedia volume
 Printing jobs are batched printing requests. Actuate iServer stores the
schedules for printing jobs in an Encyclopedia volume.
 The factory process generates a report from an executable(ROX or DOX) file
and manages printing of the report using a printer available to the iServer
machine
 Open server process manages generation and printing of a third party
report

Message Distribution service

 Dispatches Actuate Information Delivery API requests that come to Actuate
iServer from clients, users, and applications.
 The Message Distribution service authenticates each message and forwards it
to the proper Actuate iServer service.
 Actuate iServer cluster load balancing is a part of the Message Distribution
service.

Why
Actu
ate?
The main advantages are it is easy to use, and its programmability. Actuate reports can be
viewed from Actuate End User Desktop. With the help of Actuate Web Agent, the reports
can be viewed from any web client also. This doesn’t require any ActiveX to be installed in
the system. When it comes to programmability, Actuate uses Visual Basic. All the basic
language functionality of Visual Basic 3.0 is available in Actuate. So the learning curve of
the programmers is too less. The next advantage in a programmer's view is that it is highly
Object Oriented. One can make objects and reuse the objects in Actuate. Reusability makes
the report design faster as one can make commonly used components and standardize the
reports with company logo etc. By doing so change in a single point will make changes in
all the reports.

To make a simple report, it is not needed to write codes, it can be made only by dragging
and dropping. Security is the next big advantage of Actuate. Administrator can fix security
of each report by using Actuate Administrative Desktop. Centralized Report management is
possible by Actuate Administrative Desktop.
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Config Key :
Set the Config Key to ODBCConnection

Config Connection:

<Config>

<Runtime>

<ConnectOptions

Type="ODBCConnection">

<Property

PropName="DataSource">

epl123

</Property>

<Property

PropName="UserName">

epldev

</Property>

<Property

PropName="Password">

epl#$123

</Property>

</ConnectOptions>

</Runtime>

</Config>
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Actuate 9 Benefits

Actuate 9 extends the breadth of reporting capabilities offered through the Collaborative
Reporting Architecture, including

• An open source-based design environment, now boasting more than 250,000 users
• An ad-hoc web reporting option available through iServer
• Interactive, end-user report personalization that can be added to any Actuate deployment
• A standards-based portlet presentation layer to better fit in corporate environments
• Workgroup deployment capabilities for smaller, single-server projects
• Information Objects generated directly from e.Reports
• Open Data Access connectors for web services, RSS feeds, PeopleSoft trees and SAP
BW InfoCubes

We are introducing the Report Collaboration Architecture which harnesses the power of the
Eclipse Business Intelligence Reporting Tool (BIRT) Open Source project while offering
significant new deployment opportunities to customers.

Migration of Actuate 6 to Actuate 9

Migration of .ROD from Actuate-6 to Actuate-9

1. Before upgrade to Actuate 9 version need to change the connection of .ROD in

Actuate 6 environment.
2. Then open the version 6 designs using Version 9 eRD Pro. It will prompt to convert.
Be sure to backup Version 6 files before upgrade. Actuate is not backward
compatible. Once the report is converted to Version 9 format, it can’t go back.
3. Then recompile the .ROD in version 9.

Migration of encyclopedia from Actuate-6 to Actuate-9

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1. For in-place upgrade install version9 on top of the version6 iServer.It will
automatically be converted to the version9 architecture. However take a backup of
the encyclopedia before running the upgrade just in case something happens during
the upgrade process.
2. If we are not doing an in-place upgrade, then we will simply need to take both the
version6 and version9 iServers offline and then copy over the encyclopedia from
version6 to version9. Then when we have to start up the version9 iServer, it will
automatically upgrade the encyclopedia to the version9 architecture.

Notes: In the Actuate version 9 series, Actuate iPortal replaces Actuate Active Portal for

JSP. Actuate does not support upgrading actuate active portal for JSP to Actuate

IPortal.You must install iPortal in a separate directory from an existing Active

Portal for JSP directory.

• What it is e.reporting ?

e.reporting is a technology that draws data from diverse data sources,

such as databases, flat files, information objects, and presents the data as
a structured content for viewing in a web browser.
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New Features in Actuate 8 SP1

erd - pro

1. Power User Tips

2. Timesaving shortcuts
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3. New data preview

4. watch - window for debugging

5. Drawing - In latest release there is one new kind of control - Drawing. By

using this easily we can create great - looking vector graphics.

6. New chart feature - draw our own charts or custom charts type.

7. dashboard components - Now we can create our own dashboard components

like thermometer, traffic lights etc.

e - spreadsheets

1. Introduction to e.Spreadsheet's new Matrix reports.

2. Deliver powerful, hierarchical, irregular cross-tab reports to users without

code using MatrixScript.

3. Worksheet bursting.

4 Sharing of Data Connection Information – multiple e.spreadsheet design can

now share the same data connection configuration file.

5. Utilizing the power of Visual Basic code in your spreadsheet reports.

6. Using e.Spreadsheet in conjunction with Information Objects to get dynamic

parameter screens and worksheet-level security.