WebFOCUS Application Server

Deploy FOCUS Six applications over the Web

If your business uses Information Builders' FOCUS Six to create anddistribute business reports within your company, you can now extend thatcapability over the Web. Information Builders' WebFOCUS Application Server letsyou provide online reports to users in your intranet or your external Web sites.

WebFOCUS is part of Information Builders' WebFOCUS Applications Suite. Thesoftware consists of two components: an executable program and a data accessprogram. You install the executable program in your Web server's cgi-bin (orscripts) directory. When you enter the name of a FOCUS Six report you wish torun, the program executes the report and displays the results in an HTML formatthat you can view through a Web browser. The data access component lets theWebFOCUS executable program retrieve data from various sources.

WebFOCUS runs any report you create with FOCUS Six. The product generatessimple reports or complex master-detail reports. Master-detail reports let youlook at a master report (e.g., a list of invoices for the day) and select thedetail you want to view (e.g., the items on the invoice you select). The productalso generates graphical reports.

Using WebFOCUS to let users run reports is easy. You simply place an HTMLcommand in a hyperlink. For example, to run the latest quarterly earningsreport, you embed the following HTML code in a Web page on your server:

QuarterlyEarnings Report

This code tells the WebFOCUS executable (ibiweb.exe) to run the QUARTERNFOCUS Six report (which you must have already installed and configured to runwith WebFOCUS). Screen 1 shows a FOCUS Sixreport after WebFOCUS has executed it. In some cases, you might want aparameterized report. For instance, you might want to let users access thequarterly earnings report for any quarter of the current year or any prior year.Your HTML code will be more complicated because it lets a user input the desiredquarter and year for the report. The easiest way to create a parameterizedreport is to create an HTML form. A user adds the parameter information to theform, and the form passes the parameters to the WebFOCUS executable. Thefollowing is sample skeleton code that lets you run a quarterly earnings report:

Enter Quarter:

Enter Year:

The first line of code defines the form and the WebFOCUS executable whereyou want to send the form's data. The hidden variable, IBIF_Ex, defines the nameof the FOCUS Six report you intend to run (in my example, QUARTERN). The nexttwo lines ask users which earning quarter and which year they want to view. TheWebFOCUS executable uses these parameters to create the report. The next twolines create a submit and a reset button, and the final line ends the form'screation.

I had difficulty installing WebFOCUS because the program lacks goodinstallation documentation. After running the setup program, I had to answerseveral questions about where to install the software and what components toinstall. Furthermore, as part of the data access component, I had to identifywhich relational databases I wanted to install support for, provide usernamesand passwords for them, and configure the communication gateway. I was unsureabout much of the configuration data, and often I had to guess. Even the onlinedocumentation didn't contain any installation instructions.

WebFOCUS is simple to use (except for installation). The software'sinstallation included several demonstration components. I configured my Web siteto execute these demonstration components, and I was able to view the sample reports from a client machine running Internet Explorer (IE) 4.0.

If you aren't already using Information Builders' FOCUS Six product togenerate business reports, WebFOCUS has little use in your Web environment. However, if you use FOCUS Six, WebFOCUS Server is the logical choice for distributing the reports over the Web.