Hot off the digital press is an updated Drillbridge. Version 1.0.2 brings several fixes, enhancements, and more. There’s still a few rough edges but I’m trying to keep a fast cadence with releases so I don’t get too bogged down. Of particular note is the following:

• New infrastructure in place that should make applying upgrades much easier. So when 1.0.3 comes out you should be able to pretty smoothly update. Note on this version: you CANNOT upgrade from 1.0.0 or 1.0.1 to 1.0.2. Sorry. You should copy and paste the contents of your connections/reports and recreate them. This should be the last time you have to do this.
• You can now create and modify server mappings, cube mappings, and deployment specifications. So you can create an entry for your main Essbase server, then a mapping for Sample/Basic, then a list of members that the drill-through report is valid for in Sample Basic, and then just deploy the report directly to the cube (no more need to copy and paste code using EAS!) Of course, you might still want to crack open EAS so you can validate that everything got setup properly.
• Very powerful expression syntax and convenience functions (please see previous post about how it looks). This should eliminate the new to setup mapping tables and views in a huge number of use cases. For example, if your cube has members like Jan, Feb, Mar, and the database has 01, 02, and 03, then you can use a new handy #monthAbbreviationToTwoDigits function to convert without a mapping table. This is super cool.
• The initial version of drilling from upper level members in an Essbase cube is now implemented (!). For example, drilling on Qtr1 will create a query with Jan, Feb, and Mar because Drillbridge will open the outline up real fast and read the members. Please note that this feature works but has not been extensively tested. I am thinking that future versions will need an outline cache module in front of this in case it just takes too long to ransack the outline. Please let me know how it goes for you.
• Note that row limit and debug mode are not implemented yet, they just have GUI elements so far.

The road to 1.0.3

This release packs a lot of great stuff that I’m proud of. As time permits I will be working on the next version, 1.0.3, which will further enhance and refine things. In particular I am looking to implement some or all of the following:

• Row limit
• Debug mode
• Create/edit/delete server variables
• Ability to use variables in queries
• More information when errors occur
• Example connections built-in to help get things started
• Result pagination

For now the only major feature on the horizon will be drilling further from an drill sheet – this is partially implemented right now but it’s a little tricky to get right so I’m taking my time on this. From there on out I predict that the majority of changes to Drillbridge in the future will be fixes and simple enhancements.

As always, please head over to the Saxifrage Systems Drillbridge page to get to the downloads. Please don’t hesitate to check out the support forums which I monitor regularly.

Thank you again to everyone out there that has downloaded and played with this thing. The feedback has been incredibly useful. Any problem or issue you run into I am happy to take a look at and fix up if possible. No issue is too small – literally anything you can report to me that I’m unaware of will result in me being able to make this tool better for everyone in the community. Also, if you deploy this to production, please tell me about it! Drillbridge is officially in production at a major restaurant chain (more info coming as soon as possible) and I would love to know about more.