SEQUEL enhances data analysis with a number of different drill-down approaches that let you explore both System i data and information contained in other applications or platforms:

• Dynamic Drill-Down
• Application Builder
• Hyperlinks in a View
• Client Table

SEQUEL's dynamic drill-down capability lets you review your System i database like no other way possible. Best of all, it can be deployed in just a few minutes, even by non-technical staff.

Dynamic drill-down:

Is Easy to Deploy

In less than 2 minutes, even non-technical staff can design a SEQUEL view with drill-down capabilities. There's no further steps required other than a single view. No predefined drill paths or definitions need to be set up.

Works Directly with Non-Summarized Transaction Files

There's no need to go through the lengthy process of setting up a 'datamart' or 'cube' in order to take advantage of drill-down operations. You can use SEQUEL to drill-down into System i transaction databases - even those containing a million+ records.

Lets You See System i Data Like Never Before

Within just a couple minutes after installing SEQUEL, you'll be able to explore your System i database like no other way possible before.

For example, using just one SEQUEL view that takes less than a minute to set up, you can:

Display company information at a Region summary level....
then drill-down to explore details by State ....
and then show details for each Customer.

You could even continue to explore more detail for each customer! The number of drill-down levels is determined by your own data.

See also:

Video: Dynamic Drill-Down

SEQUEL contains an Application Builder function that can be used to create drill-down applications with specific pre-defined paths and results. You can define drill-down options that show data summarized at different levels or link to other related applications or documents. You can set up drill paths that navigate "down", "up" or even "sideways" to analyze pertinent information.

The simple application below shows how you can drill-down from a high-level Company summary to a Region summary to a Customer order summary.

In additional to SEQUEL results, you can also define options that drill-to Windows and Web-based applications using relationships within your System i information. With a single mouse click, you can run options that automatically:

• Download System i data and open MS-Excel with the new spreadsheet
• Format an e-mail message with data merged into the message body. You could also create and attach downloaded files in the same option
• Open Windows applications using switches passed from SEQUEL
• Display relevant PDF documents or spooled file output
• Run web applications using variables passed from SEQUEL
• Run SEQUEL Web Interface requests

The Application Builder makes it easy for both non-technical and technical staff to define drill-down options. First, it includes a series of design wizards which help generate the necessary syntax. It also automatically generates "implicit" drill-down options based upon inferences with the data used in related views. As a final step in the design process, it displays an interactive, graphical flowchart of the relationships (drill-down pathways) between SEQUEL objects, Windows applications and web browser views used in the application (below). From here, it's a simple matter to add, change or delete options.

Note how the DDREGON view is surrounded by a shaded box. Within the application, this view was designated as the "starting point object" and will be displayed when a user clicks a desktop shortcut for the application. Once the results are displayed, the user will have the ability to "drill-down" into the other options shown above. Again, we can also include drill-down options to Windows- and Web-based functions, too. For instance, if your view results show an invoice number, you could now "drill-down" to display a PDF copy of the original invoice or automatically create a new Excel spreadsheet with the related invoice information.

The possibilities for using the Application Builder are almost endless. It allows significant opportunities for integrating your System i data with other corporate data and applications.

SEQUEL lets you embed simple hyperlinks within your view results, without having to create an application. This is a very useful function for linking your view results to related documents, spreadsheets or web pages. For instance, the "Recent Customer Orders" view shown below contains a summary of recent orders for each customer. The Order Number field is hyperlinked to a PDF copy of the order on a network drive. When a user displays the view and wants to find out more detail about the order, they can simply click on the order number and the PDF copy will automatically be displayed in another window.

Hyperlinks can be set up to display any type of Windows- or Web-based object on the Internet or a network drive. Thus, you can link to Excel spreadsheets, PDF documents, SEQUEL objects, web sites or any other type of application.

SEQUEL Client Tabling is an interactive OLAP solution designed for dynamic data mining and analysis that allows users a wide array of drill-down, reporting and analysis features. Drag-and-drop features let you reorganize the dimensions and view the new results. Additional data filtering, drill-down, data marking, dimensional pivoting, ranking and graphing functions are also available.

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