TABEX/4 Release 4.1.0 - BOI

Newsletter 02 

10 / 2010 

CONTENTS 

Editorial 

TABEX/4 Browser Interface 

TABEX/4 Release 

4 .1.0 

� MS EXCEL import/export 

� SSO - Login 

� PDF Print Enhancement 

� z/OS Installation D ialog 

� SQL Tables 

� JAVA Interface 

� Selection List 

� Linux 64-bit & Shared M. 

� SQL Tables 

� New Views 

� AI Tables 

� Summary Database 

� Utilities Online 

Announcements 

� Administration Tasks 

� Icon Customization 

� TABEX Mail 

� Releasing Procedures 

� Dynamic Table Help 

� Hierarchical Table 

Management 

� PDF Print D ialog 

TABEX/4 Expert Advice 

� MS EXCEL import/export 

� Instance Concept 

� How to archive 

l ogs 

Migration Packages 

� TABSYS, VTAS, SPITAB 

L egal Notice 

Dear TABEX user, 

Editorial 

our second newsletter is all about our new TABEX/4 

Release 4.1.0. 

At BOI we work continuously to further develop TABEX/4. 

We are proud to inform you about new innovations and 

significant functional enhancements in our new release. 

We will provide it for download on our website on October 

10th, 2010. 

In this newsletter we present the new Browser Interface 

in order to give you a general idea of its design and its 

available features. 

In the section TABEX/4 Release 4.1.0, we summarize the 

innovations awaiting you in our new release. These 

include an import / export functionality for working with MS 

EXCEL, login procedure via Single Sign On (SSO), 

enhancement of the JAVA interface, new views, utilities 

online and many more. 

The section Announcements shows what we plan for the 

next release autumn 2011. 

Our BOI TABEX/4 experts give you valuable advice on 

selected TABEX/4 features in the section TABEX/4 Expert 

Advice. In compliance with your requests we describe 

how to export TABEX/4 data in MS EXCEL and import 

data from MS EXCEL into TABEX/4 and explain the 

features of the TABEX/4 instance concept. 

In addition to that, we introduce our TABEX/4 Migration 

Packages for efficient and successful substitution of other 

table maintenance systems. 

We hope you enjoy the newsletter! 

Hans Haiböck 

CEO BOI Software GmbH 

BOI - Newsletter 02 1 10/2010

TABEX/4 Browser Interface 

The view of the new TABEX/4 browser interface is divided into the following sections: 

• navigation bar 

• login / logout area 

• explorer menu 

• icon bar and selection list “more actions” 

• area for system messages 

• dialog area for table view 

• optionally table maintenance area or modification formula for mass changes 

In the dialog area lines with the symbol are used to enter search criteria. 

Via the selection list “more actions” additional actions for which no icons are available can be 

started, e.g “import from CSV file (add)”. 

The icon shows the icon group to perform table row 

operations. 

The icon shows the icon group 

to perform table column operations. 

The icon shows the icon group which allows you to use the table 

maintenance area or the modification formula. 

You can save the open status of your selected icon group. 


TABEX/4 Release 4.1.0 

The new TABEX/4 Release 4.1.0 will be available for download at our website on 2010/10/10. The 

following products are available: 

1. TABEX/4 Basic System and Table Maintenance System 

2. TABEX/4 Basic System with DB2-ODBC Access and Table Maintenance System 

3. TABEX/4 for Windows C/S System 

Please request your login for the download area by e-mail. 

General information about Release 4.1.0: 

New TABEX/4 program 

load library for z/OS 

From this release on, the access routines are separated from the 

table maintenance system. 

Because we want to save our customers the expensive testing of 

application programs, we decided to provide a separate program 

load library (called APPCALL), containing the programs for the table 

access functions only. It is planned to leave the APPCALL library 

unchanged for future releases of TABEX/4. 

Online Help The help system has been redesigned. Now we maintain the help 

contents using a content management system. The help system is 

exported into static HTML format so you do not need to install the 

content management. 

What's new in Release 

4.1.0? 

The file path can be configured to integrate the help system into 

your intranet environment. 

We plan to describe the enhancements of the Release 4.1.0 in the 

document “What is new in Release 4_1_0.pdf”. This document 

describes all changes in detail and gives you a comprehensive 

overview of the new features of TABEX/4. This document will be 

available at our website in November 2010. It will be announced 

separately. 

The change log and the upgrade manual will be published at the 

website with the TABEX release as usual. 



In this section we present a subset of enhancements of the new TABEX/4 Release 4.1.0. 

MS EXCEL import / export Many TABEX/4 users use the benefits of MS EXCEL for generating 

diagrams, statistical analysis, presentations and reports. There is a 

great demand to use this program also for data stored in TABEX or 

DB2 tables. With the new release, table data from data bases can 

be exported to MS EXCEL and imported from MS EXCEL via the 

browser interface. 

The export of tables or of the active table maintenance area into 

CSV format enables the transfer of table data from data bases into 

programs such as MS EXCEL. 

Data formatted as CSV (e.g. MS EXCEL data saved as CSV file) 

can be imported into a TABEX table. The data must meet the 

following requirements for a successful import: The CSV file must 

have the same table structure (table columns) as the table where 

the data shall be imported. The CSV formatted data can either 

replace a whole table or add new rows to the existing table. When 

the table is saved, all imported data are checked (using check 

tables and the referential integrity rules). 

To learn more about how to work with these new functions please 

refer to section “expert advice” in this newsletter. 

SSO – Login The new release includes interfaces for integrating the TABEX 

application into existing Single Sign On solutions. If SSO login is 

activated and configured for the user, the user only needs to log in 

to the operating system. There is no need to extra log in to TABEX, 

the typing of user name and password is no longer necessary. 

You are able to define a customer-specific filter which provides the 

TABEX SSO interface with all needed registration information. 

PDF Print Enhancement Table contents can be printed in PDF format during an online 

session: 

• whole tables 

• parts of tables 

• selected table rows or table fields 

The selection criteria are printed at the front page of the PDF 

document. 

z/OS Installation Dialog The new installation dialog for z/OS adapts the installation 

procedures and examples in the SAMPLE library according to the 

user input during the installation process. All installation steps and 

sample calls of TABEX applications can now be executed without 

any further adaptations by the administrator. 




JAVA Interface The JAVA interface has been extended and the following methods 

were added: 

• insertRow (add table row) 

• saveToDB (save modified data to database) 

• deleteRow (delete table row) 

• deleteRows (delete several rows that match a search 

criterion). 

Selection List As announced in our last newsletter, you can now replace the lookup 

panel (hot key F2) by the new selection list. The look-up panel 

showed the possible values of a field. Now the set of available 

values can be displayed in a pop-up window as is typical for 

Windows applications. This allows the selection of a value out of a 

collection of possible values. If a value has been entered in the 

field, the cursor is automatically placed at this value in the pop-up 

menu. 

Linux 64-bit Version & 

Shared Memory Tables 

Our customers already use the TABEX/4 Linux 64-bit version. The 

platform independent kernel of TABEX – the so-called virtual 

machine – has been ported to Linux 64-bit. All platform independent 

parts of the software run on the virtual machine so these parts 

remained unchanged. 

Now the feature of the high performance memory tables in shared 

memory can be used for a high amount of tables, and the limit of 

the 32-bit addressing was eliminated. 

SQL Tables Tables with SQL connection (type SQLT) can be generated within 

the browser interface. Functions for displaying and changing the 

definitions for these tables are available. 

New Views By using a SELECT statement TABEX table data can be retrieved 

or saved as views or new tables. The syntax corresponds to the 

SQL-standard and has some TABEX specific enhancements. 

Example combining the TABEX tables PRODUKT, PRODNAME 

and PRODGRP in a view: 

SELECT PRODNR,PRODNAME.TEXT,PRODGRP.TEXT,PRODPRICE 

FROM PRODUCT,PRODNAME,PRODGRP, 

WHERE 

PRODUCT.PRODNR = PRODNAME.ID AND PRODUCT.PRODGRP = PRODGRP.ID 




AI Tables Using the browser interface alternate index tables (AI tables) can be 

defined and the directory of all AI tables available in the TABEX 

database can be displayed. 

Summary Database You can combine several databases to one single logical database, 

a so-called summary database. Two types of summary databases 

are available: 

• Standard Summary Database 

• Chain Summary Database 

In a Standard Summary Database, entries of the different 

databases are interpreted as if they were in one single database. 

This enables the user to put together several application databases 

from different projects into one single logical database. 

In a Chain Summary Database, the order of the physical databases 

determines the entries in the Summary Database Index. The 

Summary Database always uses the table of the first physical 

database, and ignore all tables with the same name which might be 

in the following databases. This enables users to put together 

tables of several test environments. 

Utilities Online Utility procedures can now be configured as menu items in the 

browser interface. (Formerly they were only executed in batch jobs.) 

These online-utility procedures are executed immediately in the 

online session. In case of successful completion a system message 

is displayed. In case of error the utility protocol is displayed. 


Announcements 

We plan a new TABEX/4 release for autumn 2011. We will keep you informed about our plans for 

further enhancements of TABEX/4 in our newsletters. In the following months we will work on the 

following projects: 

Administration Tasks The highlights of the 2011 release will be a new administration 

interface. Administration functions will be realized as a GUI. Please 

have a look at the screen shot below for further information on our 

planned administration tasks. 

The configuration of ODBC data sources for relational 

databases has already been integrated in the new Release 4.1.0. 

Icon Customization The icon bar can be customized and adapted to the individual 

requirements of the user. 

TABEX Mail We integrate a mail interface into TABEX/4 to e-mail generated 

PDFs, CSV files or logs from batch jobs etc. 

Extended Releasing 

Procedures 

By classifying release orders release dates can be configured, e.g. 

type M for releases in the morning, type E for releases in the 

evening. The customer can configure his own classifications of 

release orders. 

A special release order class for deleting tables (deletion release) 

is available. 

Additionally the release rules for databases per TABEX instance 

can be configured. For example tables belonging to an instance in 

productive environment must run through the release procedure 

though the same tables belonging to the TABEX test instance need 

not. 


Announcements 

Dynamic Table Help Help texts for tables can be maintained in a TABEX table. A HTML 

file will be generated. Pressing the icon “Table Help” displays its 

content. 

Hierarchical Table 

Management 

Tables which are linked by referential integrity can be maintained in 

one screen form. Thus the maintenance of related tables becomes 

easier. 

PDF Print Dialog To change the print settings a new PDF print dialog will be 

implemented. The following settings can be configured: paper 

format portrait / landscape, contents of the front page etc. 

Export in MS EXCEL 


The icon starts the procedure "Export as CSV file (replace)" 

which saves the currently active table in CSV format: 

The names of the columns appear in the first row, separated by ; . 

Below, the records of the table are listed. Strings are between 

“quotation marks”. Columns are separated by ; 

Example: 

"PERSONALNUMBER";"LASTNAME";"FIRSTNAME";"ADDRESS";"PLZ";"ORT" 

"4001";"Mayer ";"Fritz ";"Grünwaldstraße 5 ";"1234 ";"Walddorf " 

"4444";"Mustermonster ";"Heinrich ";"Hausweg 87 ";"1342 ";"Weggen " 

"4511";"Schröder ";"Cornelius ";"Stadtplatz 14 ";"1423 ";"Hambach " 

"4623";"Schenker ";"Eva ";"St. Georgen 37 ";"1313 ";"Steinhausen " 

The Browser displays the following message: 

INF0100(I) PDF document of PERSONS-99999999($NEWT) has been created 

click here for download of the created document 

By clicking the provided link (underlined part of the message) the 

program attached to the CSV file extension (e.g. MS EXCEL) is 

opened and data of the CSV file are displayed (e.g. as a MS 

EXCEL table). 

Depending on the browser settings a new window is displayed and 

the question “Do you want to open the created document?” is 

displayed. 

Pressing the OK button is an alternative to clicking on the link: the 

program attached to the CSV file (e.g. MS EXCEL) is opened and 

the data are displayed. 


Import from MS EXCEL 


If you want to import data from MS EXCEL or other spreadsheet 

applications or editors into TABEX, you have to save them in CSV 

format. 

There are two options for such an import: 

The first option replaces all table data by the imported data. This 

replacing import is started by clicking the icon . The data are 

checked immediately. If no errors are found, existing table rows are 

replaced by the new rows. In the same step, the replaced rows are 

checked for delete rule violations and the transfer might be 

rejected. 

The second option adds the imported records to the table. This 

adding import is started by choosing the action “import from CSV 

file (add)” in the selection list “more actions”. 

The old records remain unchanged. New table rows will be added 

and marked for later checking. When the table is saved the checks 

using check tables, referential integrity and delete rules are 

performed. 

Instance Concept Beside the general configuration of TABEX/4 at company level you 

can configure so-called instances as sub-systems e.g. at 

department level or for a group of selected users. 

An instance is a predefined “configuration-set” to restrict the 

contents and the available features of TABEX. 

Thus, the configuration-set “instance” might for example define 

• Which menu will be displayed? 

• Which authorizations are valid? 

• Which data bases are used? 

• Which presettings are valid (e.g. SQL creator name)? 

• etc. 

If instances are activated, the instance must be chosen before the 

explorer menu is displayed. The chosen instance will automatically 

be activated in subsequent sessions. 

To change the preset instance, the user has to choose “TABEX/4 

table maintenance” in the navigation bar. 


Instance Concept How to configure an instance: 


The instance definition table is defined by parameter assignments 

(parameter=value). 

The administration menu provides the following administration tasks 

to configure instances, e.g. 

• edit instances text 

• edit instances menu 

• edit default instance 

• edit instance configuration 

• edit instance database 

Another way to generate instances is the use of the TABEX utility 

TBVW01. This batch job can generate several instances in one 

single step. 

How to archive logs Protocol databases (TABPRO and TABCMP) must NOT be 

reorganized using TABN03-SAVE and TABN01-LOADDB 

respectively, because all logs will get lost. In order to merge logs in 

tables please use the utility-function TBVW01-PROTPSUM. 

TBVW01-PROTARCH transfers all logs into an archiving database 

and reorganizes TABPRO and TABCMP. 

TABEX/4 Migration Packages 

Do you have a table management system in use, and do you consider a change? 

TABEX/4 is THE standard software solution for high-speed access to table data. TABEX/4 offers 

outstanding performance coupled with maximum reliability. TABEX/4 works across platforms and 

with all databases and offers a modern, user-friendly, ergonomic browser interface. TABEX/4 is 

fully customizable to your specific needs and requirements. 

BOI GmbH offers three migration packages for successful and efficient migration from the following 

table management systems to TABEX: 

TABSYS msg systems AG 

VTAS InSoft Software GmbH 

SPITAB Le Groupe TECHNOLOGIES 

We have already carried out these migrations for our customers. Due to the comprehensive range 

of functions provided by TABEX/4 the migration from other table management systems is easy and 

smooth. 

TABEX/4 provides of a compatibility interface, thus no application programs have to be 

changed. So time and effort needed for migration is extremely small. Just to give you an idea: we 

succeeded to carry out the migration of table maintenance from TABSYS to TABEX in just one 

day of productive work. 


BOI Company Profile 

BOI GmbH is the leading provider of high-speed table access and secure and comfortable table 

maintenance, optimally adapted to your specific requirements. 

For over 30 years BOI combines highest software quality with outstanding service. Notable and 

well-known TOP companies from different sectors (banks and financial services, insurance, 

industry and services) rely on the solutions of BOI for many years for their most demanding and 

mission-critical data management challenges. 

Our flagship product TABEX/4 offers 

• high-speed table access with maximum performance - fast, reliable,and smooth 

• audit-proof, easy-to-use and ergonomic table maintenance meeting highest security 

requirements - easy, secure and comfortable 

• unlimited copy & move of table data - independent of platforms and data bases 

We would be delighted to provide you with any further information you may need. 

Please contact the BOI team at boi@boi.at. 

Spazgasse 4 

A - 4020 Linz, Austria 

Phone: +43 (0) 732 / 736423 - 0 

Fax: +43 (0) 732 / 736423 - 2 

Email: boi@boi.at 

Web: http:// w ww.boi.at 

FN 81632y Landesgericht Linz 

UID: ATU24421409 

© BOI Linz, 2010 

Legal Notice 

Our Newsletter 03 will be released in February 2011. 

You are receiving this newsletter as a BOI customer or 

because you indicated an interest in BOI's activities. 

You can subscribe to our newsletter on our website 

http://www.boi.at or download our newsletter as a PDF file. 

The web version of the newsletter is available at 

http://www.boi.at. 

You can unsubscribe to the newsletter anytime on our 

website http://www.boi.at. 

Please send feedback to newsletter@boi.at! 

Editors: 

Daniele Haiböck-Sinner 

Gabriele Kasper

TABEX/4 Release 4.1.0 - BOI

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