Extentech Inc: It's 1 a.m. - Do You Know Where Your Business Logic Is?

THE WORLD'S TOP IT SOLUTION PROVIDERS ( Issue: 3 )

If it's locked up in a spreadsheet, ExtenXLS can bring it home

Oct. 16, 2005 01:15 PM

To download your free evaluation of ExtenXLS, please visit: www.extentech.com/itsg/

You don't need a whitepaper to tell you that whenever numbers and calculations are involved, the spreadsheet is the de facto standard for business applications. Ever since the invention of the graphical user interface, businesses have relied heavily on the spreadsheet as an invaluable analysis tool.

Perhaps not as obvious is the black hole that exists when it comes to the reuse, versioning, and access control of spreadsheet documents. Every single day, important work is misplaced on network drives, lost in inboxes, mistakenly deleted, or simply forgotten. Even if the files are handled well, the data behind the numbers quickly becomes out of date - which costs time and money to update and redistribute. Worst of all, vital business decisions can be made based on stale data contained in stand-alone spreadsheet files.

The business-specific formulas, charts, pivot tables, and presentation formatting of spreadsheets are simply too important to risk to this haphazard environment.

What if you could retrieve the business logic trapped in file-based spreadsheets and reuse it in dynamically generated, server-based reports?

What if you could update and expose business-critical formula logic to your Enterprise applications simply by uploading a spreadsheet to your server?

What if you could combine the interactivity of a spreadsheet containing VB macros with the data and access control provided by your J2EE server?

ExtenXLS does all of this and more.

ExtenXLS bridges the benefits of Java with the ubiquity and functionality of the spreadsheet, providing a powerful, supported, and scalable solution for generating native spreadsheet files from dynamic data sources.

Supported data sources include: XML, EJBs, Plain Old Java Objects, and of course JDBC. Additionally, any number and type of data source can easily be used within the same report. And Power Users, designing their reports using their favorite spreadsheet program, are freed from having to train on yet another report design tool.

ExtenXLS unlocks the business logic tied up on hard drives by parsing spreadsheet files into robust, full-featured Java WorkBook objects. Using XML report definition files, ExtenXLS automates data retrieval from any number of sources, executing parameterized queries and placing the resulting values into the appropriate cells of a spreadsheet. From there, ExtenXLS can convert the output spreadsheets to XML for consumption by external programs or to HTML for static delivery to a variety of display devices.

Managers, analysts, and other end users can view the generated spreadsheet reports within their browsers or they can download and open them using any compatible spreadsheet program.

In combination with Servlets and JSP pages, ExtenXLS streams dynamic spreadsheet files to users visiting web sites - an essential feature for organizations that are reporting in real time to a broad audience.

As a pure-Java API, ExtenXLS runs on any platform, including all J2EE servers. This flexibility and portability of ExtenXLS is a key element for any organization wishing to incorporate reporting capabilities into their heterogeneous IT environment.

Version 4 of ExtenXLS continues the Extentech tradition of high-quality, feature-rich releases. Along with huge gains in memory efficiency and scalability, ExtenXLS 4 also boasts many robust new features:

Support for unlimited spreadsheet file sizes
Customizable conversion of spreadsheets to XML and HTML formats
Enhanced CellBinder functionality including Hyperlink drilldowns and JNDI data sources
Improved GUI components for embedding spreadsheets in Java applications
Support for explicit formula calculation control
High performance default settings
Improved color and pattern handling
Flexible cross-platform installer - includes server deploy and custom install
Row and column grouping
New font alignment and border formatting functions
Totally revised user manual and API documentation
New comprehensive CellBinder API documentation
Disk-based IO - reduces the need for in-memory storage and improves scalability

To download your free evaluation of ExtenXLS, please visit: www.extentech.com/itsg/

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