July 2010

Controlling SEQUEL with the ViewPoint Administrator

The ViewPoint Administrator provides access to housekeeping and administrative functions that can help you manage ViewPoint users. Whether you have ten users or a hundred, the ViewPoint Administrator saves you time and effort by giving you a single point of access to a user’s program defaults, auditing, field level
authorization, user and job management, and more.

This article focuses on three powerful Administrator modules—Set Defaults, Manage ViewPoint Jobs, and SQL Join Data Base.

What do these modules do?

• Set Defaults maintains and manages SEQUEL user defaults. As the SEQUEL Administrator, you can create and apply templates and change multiple users’ defaults in a single pass.
• Manage ViewPoint Jobs lets you monitor the status of all active ViewPoint jobs. You can review job logs and end jobs.
• SQL Join Data Base lets you maintain the SQL join file to predefine the join clause for all your files. This file works directly with the ViewPoint feature that ensures files are joined when users create views.

Let’s look at each module in detail.

Set Defaults and Apply Templates
With the Set Defaults module, you can create and maintain the interface defaults that SEQUEL presents in the view, table, and report designers, and on the main ViewPoint Explorer display.

SEQUEL uses a data area object (DTAARA) on the System i to store each ViewPoint user’s default settings. SEQUEL creates this data area for users the first time they access SEQUEL or ViewPoint by making a copy of the ViewPoint “global default” data area. SEQUEL stores a user’s data area in the same library, usually SEQUEL, as the global data area and names it with the same name as the user’s profile.

The ViewPoint Administrator module lets you create two types of users, each having different levels of access and authority.

• A SEQUEL Administrator has full access to the module. These users can:
  • Modify defaults for any other user.
  • Create default templates and apply them to other users.
  • Grant administrative rights to users.
• A SEQUEL User can modify only their own defaults.

The SEQUEL Defaults Selection window displays a list of templates and all ViewPoint users, divided into Administrators and Users. If you drag a name from the Users column to the Administrators column, SEQUEL grants the user administrative rights within the ViewPoint Administrator module. If you drag a name in the opposite direction, SEQUEL revokes administrative rights.

Note: If a SEQUEL Administrator already has administrative authority granted by the OS (such as *ALLOBJ authority, a group profile authorization, or *PUBLIC authority), SEQUEL can’t revoke their rights.

As a SEQUEL Administrator, you can create a template and apply it to multiple users. For instance, you may want to create default templates for users based on a department or job function. You can copy any template or user and use it as the starting point for a new template or new user.

Double-click any template or user to access the default settings. The SEQUEL Defaults window for that user or template displays the various default parameters organized into six tabs. You can review and change any parameter. If you started from a user, any items that you change apply to the user when you press OK.

But, the real power of this module is the ability to apply a change to multiple users. Press Apply to User(s) and select users from the list that displays.

Then, press OK to apply the changes to the selected users.

Manage ViewPoint Jobs
If you are a SEQUEL Administrator, the Manage ViewPoint Jobs window displays a list of all active SEQUEL ViewPoint jobs on your system along with statistics for the jobs. As an Administrator, you can right-click any job in the list and choose an option to cancel the job, display the job log, or e-mail the job log. Users can manage only their own jobs.

SEQUEL Administrators also have access to a “magnifying glass” icon that appears on the System Tray/Notification Area on their PC. Right-click the icon and select Active ViewPoint Job(s) to display a Job Status window containing statistics for the job.

From this window, you can review the detailed job log or cancel the ViewPoint job. If you need to cancel a job, this is the best method. It also ends the job on the System i.

SQL Join Data Base
ViewPoint provides an AutoJoin capability that automates the process of joining files. AutoJoin is a user-selectable option that draws on information stored in the SQLJOINDB file in the SEQUEL library.

With the SQL Join Data Base module, you can maintain the SQLJOINDB file and create join options for the common file pairs you expect your users to define in their ViewPoint views. When AutoJoin is enabled, the join statement is added to the view when it is defined, so users never create an un-joined statement. This speeds the creation process for the user and ensures that views are always created with the correct join statement.

Using the Manage SQL Join File window, you can add join statements directly by pressing Add, or scan them from existing views by pressing Load from View.

To quickly populate the SQLJOINDB file, you can create a view containing all of your most common file pairs and their corresponding JOIN statements. This is not a view that you would ever run; it is simply used as the source view for the Load from View option.

We hope this quick overview will help you to get started using the ViewPoint Administrator. In the next issue of SEQUEL Connections, we will review three more Administrator modules.

Contributed by Steven Smith, Technical Consultant