ContourCube - .NET
What's New in V3.0
VS 2005 enabled .NET edition: New ContourCube.NET for Windows forms enables development of native .NET Business Intelligence applications. ContourCube.NET is tested with both Microsoft® Visual Studio .NET 2003 and 2005 and brings its extremely high performance to this platform
Wrapping long strings. Programmatic control of the report witdth. Long dimension members occupying all the space in width, in ContourCube 3.0 are wrapped. Programmatic field width adjustment improves the control over report appearance in application forms, exported and printed documents
Date arithmetics for sophisticated date-aware business calculations: A large set of functions for date-dependent calculations make critical business algorithms easier. Write custom functions referring to the number of days in given year or month, current date / time, and much more. With those functions it became possible, for example, to get averages by all days in year rather than only days with data
Trend functions: A number of positional functions for fast trending calculations, running sums and other recursive computings. To get three major business values like trend from previous period, from same period of the last year, and from the very first year is just matter of a simple formula with new trend functions
Flat appearance for web applications: ContourCube 3.0 has a switchable flat grid appearance designed specially for web applications
XP style look & feel. Support of Windows XP themes: For Windows applications, ContourCube 3.0 offers dynamic support of XP-style look and feel and appearance themes, ideal for applications running on Microsoft Windows® XP and 2003
Wrapping outside area. Display of outside fields in multiple rows or vertically. In real life OLAP cubes, where a lot of unused dimensions may occupy too much space, ContourCube 3.0 offers control over their arrangement: one may put fields horizontally, in multiple rows or even vertically, improving report navigation and lisibility
Dynamic captions:Making cube fields behave as list boxes: This feature switches cube dimension to look and behave just like usual dropdown list boxes: selecting a value in such dimension changes its caption and unselects all previously checked items
Clipboard copy: Like plain data grids, ContourCube 3.0 supports selection of data cells with mouse or keyboard and copying it to Windows clipboard. Copied data then ideally pastes into any text or spreadsheet application like Microsoft® Excel.
Direct data access: New data feeder interface enables loading data from multiple source databases, with no need of copying entire record sets to client computer, which reduces the total memory used to build a cube
What's new in V2.0.3.09
Added getting grid views function - Since Contour Microcubes may store buckets of reports, all containing tables and graphs, web developers asked us a possibility to retrieve only grid views, for web pages that do not contain charts. ContourCube 2.0.3.09 now meets their wishes
Version attribute - This feature will help people having problems on updating ContourCube in their web pages. Now it is possible to perform all version checks and initiate update downloads in client scripting code
Improved hierarchical filtering - In web solutions, it is convenient to make use of single-value dimensions showing only one active value at a time, which allows microcubes to contain multiple disjoined data sets (for example, currency rates). The new release now complements this useful functionality with the ability to filter out such dimensions hierarchically from parents
ContourCube 2.0.3.09 provides five more examples, available in five programming languages, among them:
CellDims example puts in evidence how to easily obtain dimension values corresponding to the current data cell. This is an indispensable knowledge for makin custom reporting add-ons to ContourCube
OnBeforeEvents are very useful for controlling user access to dimensions, their filters and facts list. This sample quickly shows the use of those events
The primitive “HelloWorld“ application for Microsoft Visual C++ is another frequently-asked-for sample, specifically MFC programmers interested in using ContourCube within this environment
What's new in V2.0
Multidimensional formula language - Brand new formula language makes the product functionally very close to the most well known OLAP servers. It allows you to create calculated fields with the use of totals and intermediate totals as well as any other cube elements. It has a library of built-in mathematical, statistical and financial functions - percents of different kinds and so on. It allows you to define custom functions and constants, and to fulfill the expressions with conditional operators
Flexible percentage calculations - The advanced formula language has been added with new functions for most used business reports. ContourCube can now show your data as percents to total, subtotal, or grand total, by row or column, keeping displayed absolute values. It allows you to get percent rate relative to the previous data, and to view different quantitative characteristics simultaneously, such as regular amount, number of rows in dataset, of items in a group, numer of leaves or children of an aggregated cell. All this makes ContourCube a critical part of any decision support solution.
Higher Degree Of Interactivity - In the new version, users can interactively define and edit formulae and algorithms of calculated columns in the OLAP report like it is done in Microsoft Excel. Affected fields are automatically recalculated with no need to deactivate the cube. Besides, facts can be interactively added to or removed from the cube with no need to deactivate it. You can also activate or turn off one fact without removing it from the cube, this way ContourCube performance is optimized with the minimum of code
Conditional styles - Conditional styles technology gives user the opportunity for a better understanding of data, marking up key values, which most influence the business. Conditional styles allow you to set colors, fonts and backgrounds by conditions, described by comparison operators or formulae. In the simplest case it's a color markup of a given range of facts. In more complex cases it's a cascaded set of calculated rules. A set of conditionals works simultaneously, thus data meeting specified criteria will change in color and font type. For your convenience the component allows you to predefine a set of cell styles to use them repeatedly
Hierarchical dimension filtering - This noticeably raises convenience in data navigation, while simplifying selection and data filtering. Drop-down selection lists won't show up all the values - only those, that meet the given filter criteria, included in other selections. By functionality, it is equal to hierarchical dimensions, but much more convenient, because it doesn't require preliminary configuration
New object model - The new version is much more convenient to work with. It introduces the selection and fact hierarchy and lots of other objects and properties
Printing features (for ContourCube VCL) - The package now includes the printing component and report builder, allowing you to build presentation-quality printable reports without programming at all
Runtime editors - Design-time and runtime report editors allow you to configure the report layout without programming. These editors empower the user to add nicely formatted headers and footers to the interface, adding value to the report. In ContourCube ActiveX all the editors are implemented as property pages, which can be made accessable at runtime
Cell and DataPoint objects - Increased integration with external components. Cell object allows you to export grid data to reports, diagrams and arbitrary visual components easily
Mask and conditional filtering of dimensions - This feature of include/exclude by mask filter in the dropdown selection lists allows you to filter data faster, and drastically improves user convenience with lots of selections
Enhanced printing - Preview with zoom and fit to page features will allow you to print paper reports that are more comfortable for reading
Localization technology - Localization technology is now built in. This allows you to create international applications for sales on the international market
A lot of other improvements - Numerous improvements in ContourCube were made as a direct result of the feedback from clients
ContourCube is a high-performance OLAP component for interactive reporting and data analysis. It offers embeddable OLAP technology for all Windows and web applications based on relational data. Application powered with ContourCube allows users to create numerous nice-formed screen and printable reports in a minute. User can interact with data: slice and dice, drill down and roll up, pivot with sub-second response times and without additional server.
ContourCube enables you to embed reach Business Intelligence functionality into native windows or web applications and distribute this application royalty-free. Embedded OLAP is easy to install, zero administration and low cost. ContourCube can get data from any data source of your application via ADO, BDE, ODBC and unbound data source, so you can just drop ContourCube onto a form in your project, link it to your data and get all of new opportunities of embedded OLAP.
There are threee editions of ContourCube for developers using different environments:
ContourCube ActiveX - For MS Visual Basic, MS Visual C++, MS Access, MS Visual FoxPro, MS Internet Explorer, Borland Delphi, Power Builder
ContourCube VCL - For Borland C++ Builder developers
ContourCube .NET - For MS Visual Studio .NET 2003 and Visual Studio 2005 developers
Benefits:
Interactive data analysis and reporting with sub-second response times
ContourCube allows your users to analyze data, build and print reports interactively simply with a click and drag&drop (with sub-second response times). Users can dynamically interact with data: move rows and columns, filter data, drill-down, roll-up, pivot table and get all possible reports from one dataset. ContourCube will make millions of calculations simultaneously and show new subtotals and totals instantly.
Embeddable OLAP for any database application
ContourCube allows you to integrate OLAP functionality into your General Ledger, ERP, CRM and all other database applications. No additional multidimensional database system (OLAP server) is required. Just substitute the ordinal grid to ContourCube and link it to your data source. You don't need hard programming of hundreds of reports for your application anymore. Your users will be impressed with the way your native windows or web application enables them to understand their data. You will save time and leave your competitors behind. Distribution of this functionality in your application is royalty-free. Embedded OLAP is easy to install, zero administration and not expensive.
Affordable Web based OLAP solution
ContourCube allows you to create affordable Web based OLAP solutions. You can place ContourCube on a Web page, link it to Contour microcube or directly to a corporate data source and all your users will get highly interactive reports from anywhere without additional software and training. Only one license for unlimited numbers of users is needed. It's very suitable solution for creating public information sites and extranet or internet corporate reporting systems.
Rich multidimensional calculations
ContourCube provides rich built-in calculation algorithms palette for business and statistical reports. This palette was based on experience of our users and includes all popular algorithms:
You can also create your custom calculations using the powerful multidimensional formula language. ContourCube allows you to add calculated fields and edit formulae at runtime dynamically, so users can make OLAP calculations in a manner similar to the use of Excel.
High quality data visualization
ContourCube provides tools for report formatting at design-time and for producing presentation quality reports at run-time. Developer and user can change all colors and fonts and add Titles and Headers containing explanations as well as Footers with footnotes. Header and Footer have RTF formating and allow you to format texts in MS Word style.
Conditional formatting allows developers and users to define conditional colors and fonts of table elements in cascading stylesheets which can make reports far clearer. You can use this feature to create Executive Information systems providing data to decision makers in a simple and convenient form.
Reports distribution technology
Contour microcube contains an extremely compact, well formed report that enables you to rapidly deploy business intelligence applications and information delivery systems to distribute reports to a wide range of users via extranet, intranet, internet and e-mail.
Usage scenarios
Web based OLAP solution for public or corporate users
Embedded OLAP in your database application for rich data visualization, interactive reporting and analysis
Enterprise-wide information delivery solutions
Special Analytical applications
Main Features Include
Interactive data analysis and reporting features
Processing millions of rows with sub-second response times
Dynamic data filtering, pivoting, drill-down and roll-up
Interactive drill-down into multiple detail levels
Show/hide detail levels in summary views
Interactive filtering of dimension data values
Sorting table by dimension members or facts values
Hierarchical filtering for navigation in thousands of dimension members
Instant switching between ascending and descending sort orders
Automatic sizing of columns and rows to fit values into cells
Header and footer in RTF format
Exporting reports into HTML format, showing reports in Excel and Word
Presentation quality colored or grayscale reports generated with zero programming
Print preview with Zoom, Scale and Fit to Page
Web based OLAP features
Allows you to create web-based OLAP solutions
Users can view and interact with reports stored on Web sites
Reads data and report definitions via HTTP and FTP
Calculations features
Multiple aggregation functions: Sum, Min, Max, Count, and many others
Calculated facts, based on predefined functions or user-defined formulae
Powerful multidimensional Formula language allows you to operate with Totals, Subtotals and any elements of cube data
Conditional operators, built-in functions, user-defined functions and constants in formulae
Multiple calculated facts can be based on other calculated facts
Allows user to interactively add and edit formula facts at runtime like in Excel
Several percentage calculation algorithms: by totals, subtotals, or grand totals
The unique "LAST" aggregation algorithm allows to analyze stocks, inventory stock, balance sheets, loan balance and other datasheets with balance carried forward
Advanced dynamic Ranking
Breaking date and time fields into series dimensions (Year, Quarter, Month, Week, Ten-Day Period, Day of Month, Day Of Week, Time, Hour, Minute, Second )
Rich set of dynamically calculated statistical functions: Average, Variance, Standard Deviation, Root Mean Square, Variance Ratio
Data visualization features
Allows to change all appearance properties at design time and at runtime
Conditional style rules grouped in cascaded stylesheets allow users to highlight various data
Runtime editors for connection settings, fields used, report layout, header and footer, styles and rules
Professional looking toolbar with source code included
Report distribution features
Generates extremely compact microcubes for persistent data storage
Microcube data is compressed from 10 to 1000 times, and generates low traffic while transferring by email or internet and can be saved for offline working
Contour microcube contains not only data but all report layout settings and is a universal mobile report container
Any ContourCube-powered tool and application can exchange reports stored in microcubes
Microcube allows you to develop corporate and public information delivery systems
Support
Professional and Enterprise support licenses are valid for one year as of the date of purchase and are not limited in the number of enquiries. Please, read 'Support Plans Comparison' document on the 'evals and downloads' section for more information on the different support options available
Professional Support includes:
Enterprise Support includes:
Guaranteed 48-hours replies
On-demand code examples
Phone support
Modeling your situations
Access to beta versions
Free major version upgrades
Priority request tracking
BI consulting services