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Why You Should Think About Analytics And Reporting Tools

Delphi

Data is the biggest asset for any business. It can help enterprises better understand their customers. It also improves their advertising campaigns and personalizes their content. However, you cannot access these benefits without proper analytics and reporting tools. While raw data has a lot of potential, a business needs data analytics and reporting too. This article will cover why analytics and reporting tools are essential. We will also see how businesses can use these to improve their performances. But before that, let’s understand the difference between data analytics, reporting, and picturing. What is the difference between data Analytics and reporting tools for visualization? Data analytics refers to examining data sets to conclude the information they contain. It is a technique that enables a business to take raw data to extract valuable insights from it.  Data visualization is a term used to represent data through typical graphics. It uses charts, plots, animations, and infographics to represent data. These visuals display information that communicates complex data affairs. It also shows data-driven insights that are easy to grasp.  Data reporting is the process of collecting and formatting raw data. It also includes translating it into a clear format to assess the ongoing performance. This data can then be used to answer basic questions about the state of a business.  Why analytics and reporting tools for visualizations are essential for businesses What are data analytics?  Data analytics is generally used to help companies better understand their customers. It also helps in personalizing content and creating content strategies. With analytics, businesses evaluate their ad campaigns and develop products. Generally, businesses use data analytics to boost performance and improve their worth. The data can include historical or new information businesses get for a particular initiative.  The sublime example of data analytics is segmentation. It is used to help segment audiences by different demographic groups and analyze attitudes and trends. The businesses can then produce more specific, accurate, and just snapshots of public opinion.  What do we mean by data visualizations? Data visuals are essential for businesses that want to communicate information clearly and efficiently. It is an advanced step in data analysis and data science. As per the report of Vitaly Friedman (2008), business groups use data visuals. They use it as an essential component of assertive connection. Visuals make research and data analysis effective and quicker. It does so by combining user-friendly and pleasing features.  The best example of data picturing is making an institution’s budget. Budget numbers that are otherwise obscure and tough can be made simple and digestible with data visuals. This can then be delivered to the members to estimate the budget better.  Why is data reporting important? Data reporting is essential when measuring the progress of every area of a business group. It informs professional decisions and day-to-day matters at any company. A data report is also essential to prioritize business tasks. It tells where a company should spend most of its time and resources and what needs more attention.  The prime example of data reporting is business intelligence (BI) in healthcare. With its help, physicians can save lives by providing more effective and efficient patient care.  Once you know why data analytics, reporting, and visuals are essential for business. Let’s understand how companies can improve their processes using analytics and […]

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Extend TMS WEB Core with JS Libraries with Andrew: Tabulator Part 4: Interacting with Tabulator

TMS Software

Last time, we looked at many possible customizations for Tabulator and other parts of a TMS WEB Core Project that were generally focused on the “look” of the application.  This included a handful of customizations to the content and format of the tables, as well as to other elements like images, fonts, and buttons.  The overall theme was changed a few times, resulting in the styling we have now, with a handful of CSS customizations to tweak every little detail.  This time out, we’re going to dig a bit deeper into the “feel” of the application.  Interacting with various elements, particularly with Tabulator, breathing a little more life into the application. Motivation. While there are many JavaScript grids available that work great within TMS WEB Core projects, and even when considering elements beyond grids and projects beyond TMS WEB Core, there are aesthetic properties (what we can see) but also interactive properties (what we can do) of the elements we select, as developers.  The aesthetic properties are perhaps easier to see and adjust, and in the TMS WEB Core project we’ve been creating, now called Actorious, we’ve seen how easy it is to use CSS to override the appearance of very nearly anything we want, from scrollbars to cell padding to fonts to borders.  Customizing interactions for a particular element is potentially more difficult, however, and we’re generally more reliant on an element’s built-in capabilities to help us out. But a web application has enormous potential for customizations even in this area.  We can add functionality and change element behaviors at will, with the goal of making the user experience as enjoyable as possible.  So in this post, we’re going to explore a bunch of these kinds of enhancements, while striving for a certain level of consistency and performance, filing off some rough edges along the way. Tooltips. Let’s ease into this topic with something that seems simple enough.  Tooltips.  In Delphi, they’re called hints.  And they work the same way straight out of the box in a TMS WEB Core application.  Add a button to a form. Add something to the Hint property. Hovering your mouse over the button produces a tooltip. We’re done, right?  Well, if you’ve been following along, you must know by now that we’re certainly not done at all.  We’ve not even really started! When it comes to tooltips generally, there are quite a few things you can customize to make them more useful or, alternatively, to get them out of your way.  The properties we’re going to address here are the overall look of the tooltip, the placement (relative to what it is linked to), as well as the delay – how quickly a tooltip appears and disappears.  For some tooltips, we actually want them to be almost instant.  And for others, we’d rather not see them at all most of the time.  Also keep in mind that tooltips might have varying levels of usefulness under different conditions.  Having a tooltip that shows “Biography” when you have a button that is clearly labeled “Biography” probably doesn’t make much sense, initially.  But later, when that row of buttons shrinks to just an icon if the form is displayed on a narrower display, suddenly the tooltip might be more useful. The look of a tooltip is […]

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This Is How To Use ADO And FireDAC With Databases

Delphi

From this article, you will learn the difference between working with databases via the ADO technology and the FireDAC library. Using the right database technology is often a critical part of designing your apps, particularly for Windows application development where there is a very rich array of database choices, not all of which may be hosted on a Windows server. ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) is an app programming interface developed by Microsoft and based on the component technology ActiveX. ADO allows providing data from different sources (relational databases, text files, etc.) in an object-oriented format.  FireDAC is a universal data access library that is intended for developing apps for different devices that should be connected to corporate databases. Thanks to a universal and highly-effective architecture, FireDAC ensures high-speed direct native access from Delphi and C++Builder to InterBase, SQLite, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, DB2, SQL Anywhere, Advantage DB, Firebird, Access, Informix, etc. It’s important to understand that FireDAC is a library. At the same time, ADO is a global technology that ensures access not only to databases but also to texts, documents, tables, and others. In this article, we will consider the connection to MS Access and SQLite databases using both technologies, conduct data sampling and display them on the grid. How to set up a connection to MS Access databases using ADO? To get connected to the MS Access database we need to add a TADOConnection component to the form and tune it. For setting the connection we can move to the ConnectionString property in the object inspector and press the button with three dots “…” or make a double-click on the component. We will see a form where it will be required to choose an option Use Connection String and press a Build button. In the next form, it is necessary to choose Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider and press Next >> We will get to the next tab “Connection”. Here we need to indicate the path to the database file and click OK. Then we need to click OK once again in the window where you can see our Connection String We have only one step left. In the Object Inspector window, it is necessary to switch the LoginPrompt property to False so that after connecting to the database we won’t get a window for inserting login and password. Setting the ADO connection to active If everything is set correctly, we are able to add the Connected property to True and our component will connect to the database. But we won’t do that. The best practice is to get connected to a database during the program launch. For doing that, we can make a double-click on the form and open a code editor where we will see a procedure for a form creation event and add there one code line as you can see in the screenshot below. Then we need to add a TADOQuery component to the form and make all the settings. First of all, we need to set the Connection property. In order to do it, from the dropdown list we need to choose ADOConnection1 which has been set at the previous steps. Now in the SQL property, we will set a question for data sampling. After that let’s go back to the […]

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FreeAndNil() – Delphi Developer Debate

Delphi

You are familiar with FreeAndNil(), but do you use it? How often? Are you using it right? As with most things in software development, it is a complicated topic. So let’s see what the experts have to say. We are going to debate the details in a friendly discussion with some of your favorite MVPs. Webinar details: This blog post will include the replay, slides, and more after the webinar. The Survey Says… When you register for the webinar we’ve included a short survey to see where you stand on the issue. During the webinar we will compare the general consensus with that of our MVP panel of experts. The following MVPs have weighed in on the topic, register today to see what they have to say! Dalija Prasnikar Frank Lauter Uwe Raabe Paul TOTH Radek Cervinka Olaf Monien Dr. Holger Flick Patrick Prémartin Boian Mitov Matthew Vesperman Vinicius Sanchez Darian Miller Juliomar Marchetti Erik van Bilsen Allen Bauer Nick Hodges

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Build your live game in a single modular platform with Unity Gaming Services

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Let’s start with building your foundation. Building backend and multiplayer infrastructure early in production is vital for our developers – like InnerSloth, Riot Games, and Fika Productions. Pick what your game needs from multiplayer tools, player data management, and in-game content publishing.  Managing accounts Authentication, currently installed in more than 4,000 projects, allows you to assign an account to players and attach to them all the data generated by the backend products. Cloud Save lets you track and store player data including abilities, statistics, and more, enabling cross-device accounts for your players – the service saw over 14 million API calls over beta.  “Having the ability to link Economy and Authentication in one place to achieve synchronization across devices was literally a game changer for us.” – Mike Hardy, Lead Game Designer and UI Engineer, Line Drift Enabling multiplayer Lobby enables players to come together in either private or public lobbies before joining into the core game session. Lobby is already supporting over 400 unique game projects, including both in-development and live games. Relay enables developers to build peer-to-peer games without needing to tackle the complexities of dedicated game server hosting. Relay ensures security and privacy by never requiring IPs to be shared and encrypting all game traffic with DTLS. In addition, Relay can be set up with Netcode for GameObjects (beta) for small scale co-op projects, and works out-of-the-box with Unity’s Lobby service. Today, Relay is powering more than 2,500 unique game projects. 

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5 Examples Of The Best Low Code Platforms

Delphi

Thanks to the best low code platforms, it is now possible to develop applications with less effort. These won’t let you burn your budget, wait for days/ months, or hire a number of engineers. Low-code platforms help firms optimize their software development process. They provide various easy visual tools. According to Gartner, 65 percent of application development projects will use low-code development by 2024.[1] The importance of applications in our daily lives is certainly unprecedented. They are crucial in both personal and professional life. Low-code platforms are a beneficial investment for many corporate users. Businesses that want to grow must find new ways to increase their production. Investing in low-code platforms could be a more current approach to this problem. What are low code platforms and what are the benefits? A low code platform allows business users to develop applications without writing code. This makes it easier to create custom applications that meet specific business needs. Low code platforms have become increasingly popular in the last few years. These platforms are useful for companies that have limited knowledge of coding. Also, for companies who don’t have the resources to hire teams of developers to build applications from scratch. Lowering the barrier to entry The biggest benefit of low code is that it lowers the barrier for entry-level software development even further. There’s no need for developers to write code. Anyone with basic skills in user interface design can create software on a low code platform. This means that businesses can build an application without having full-time developers on staff.  Increased speed and agility Low code allows organizations to move faster than before. They allow less-expereinced users to create software directly from their business requirements. So, instead of designing and developing, organizations can quickly move from prototype through testing. This often happens within days or weeks instead of months. More reliable and scalable Low code platforms deliver more reliable applications. They allow users to create applications that are easy to use, easy to change, and easy to maintain. The apps created with low code platforms are easy to scale compared to ones created with traditional programming languages like Java or C++. Greater resilience and control Data is stored in the application while using standard programming languages like Java or C++. It’s still saved externally in a database or cloud storage provider like Amazon S3 or Google Cloud Storage using a low code platform. This means you may keep your data private if necessary (for example, if it contains sensitive personal information) while maintaining complete control over who has access to it. Five examples of the best low code platforms Each low code platform has a distinct approach. This raises the question, do you have to choose one, or are there multiple platforms that you can select from? Here are the top 5 low code platforms that you can choose.  1. RAD Studio RAD Studio is a software development suite. It enables developers to create software for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux. Development environment The RAD Studio development environment is easy to use. It provides all the tools to develop cross-platform applications. It includes a code editor, Integrated Development Environment (IDE), database tools, web server, database connectivity, reporting tools, etc. You can build desktop apps with native controls by using C++ […]

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Extend TMS WEB Core with JS Libraries with Andrew: Tabulator Part 3: Viewing Data in Tabulator

TMS Software

In this third stop on our Tabulator adventure, we’re going to focus mostly on the options available for how data is displayed.  But in order to help narrow our focus a little further, we’re going to take the TMS WEB Core project from last time, what we were calling ActorInfo, and explore ways we can view the data we have available, covering many Tabulator options along the way.  Styling and theming a modern web application potentially involves some amount of CSS work, so we’ll cover a bit of that as well.  And to keep it interesting for those not all that keen on Tabulator specifically, we’ll also cover how such a TMS WEB Core app might be deployed in a production setting. Motivation. As we discussed in the first of these Tabulator posts, having a grid control that does what you want, as a developer, makes for an enormously powerful tool. And for web applications, what developers are often after is the ability to customize, as much as possible, anything that is visible to the user.  This may arise from a need for a responsive interface that is accessible to everyone on every device. Or it may come from a desire to apply a specific style or theme, including color, logos, iconography, and that sort of thing.  Or some level of customization may be needed to address certain mechanical aspects of the interface or the underlying data.  Or it can be any combination of these, or other considerations entirely.  Point being, more options for customization are generally better for the developer.  Better still if there are reasonable defaults to start with and a consistent approach to customization that is not overly difficult to implement. The approach I’m going to take here is perhaps a little less organized than I’d like but reflects more accurately how this has come together.  We’ll start with where we ended up last time, and then systematically make changes to implement whatever customization is desired, outlining the steps and the thought-process along the way.  By the time we’re done today, we’ll have a pretty functional app, deployed and ready for users. And while I don’t expect anyone to particularly agree with my styling or theming or layout choices, the main takeaway should be, as usual, that you’ve got options!    Starting Point Two Disclaimers.  Just a couple of things to point out before we get too immersed in our work here.  First, there countless ways a developer can choose to implement any particular bit of functionality. And the same developer, facing the same choices, in the same app, may even implement the same thing in different ways.  And there are some examples of that on display here.  Sometimes, this is because I learned something new and haven’t gone back and updated the original code.  Sometimes, it’s because I’m lazy and cut and paste code where it isn’t really important (code executed infrequently, say), but might spend more time on the same thing in another spot where it is more important (code executed frequently in a loop, for example).  So don’t be too harsh when looking at any of this code.  I’ve tried to clean up the worst examples, but I’m sure some are lingering still.  Case in point, in the XData application, in the service endpoint, […]

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Break the black box of software delivery with GitLab Value Stream Management and DORA Metrics

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Our customers frequently tell us that despite being very effective DevOps practitioners, they still struggle to build a data-driven DevOps culture. They find it especially hard to answer the fundamental question: What are the right things to measure? This becomes more challenging in enterprise organizations when there are hundreds of different development groups, and there’s no normalization between how things are done or measured. Because of this, we see a strong interest from customers for metrics that would allow them to standardize between teams and benchmark themselves against the industry. Value Streams Analytics helps you visualize and manage the DevOps flow from ideation to customer delivery. What Are DORA Metrics? With the continued acceleration of digital transformation, most organizations realize that technology delivery excellence is a must for long-term success and competitive advantage. After seven years of data collection and research, the DORA’s State of DevOps research program has developed and validated four metrics that measure software delivery performance: (1) deployment frequency, (2) lead time for changes, (3) time to restore service and (4) change failure rate. In GitLab, The One DevOps Platform, Value Stream Analytics (VSA) surfaces a single source of insight for each stage of the software development process. The analytics are available out of the box for teams to drive performance improvements. What does DORA bring to Value Stream Analytics? Value Stream Analytics (VSA) measures the entire journey from customer request to release and automatically displays the overall performance of the stream. Each stage in the value stream is transparent and compliant in a shared experience for everyone in the company. This makes the VSA the single source of truth (SSoT) about what’s happening within the entire software supply chain, with DORA’s metrics as the key measure of the value stream outputs. How do Value Stream Analytics work? Value stream analytics measures the median time spent by issues or merge requests in each development stage. As an example, a stage might begin with the addition of a label to an issue and end with the addition of another label: Value stream analytics measures each stage from its start event to its end event. For each stage, a table list displays the workflow items filtered in the context of that stage. In stages based on labels, the table will list Issues, and in stages based on Commits, it will list MRs: The VSA MR table provides a deeper insight into stage time breakdown. The tables provide a deep dive into the stage performance and allow users to answer questions such as: How to easily see bottlenecks that are slowing down the delivery of value to customers? How to reduce the time spent in each stage so I can deliver features faster and stay competitive? How can we develop code faster? How can we hand off to QA faster? How can we push changes to Production more quickly? Using the Filter results text box, you can filter by a project (example below) or parameter (e.g., Milestone, Label). Value stream analytics filtering. No login is required to view Value stream analytics for projects where you can become familiar with stream filtering, default stages and deep-dive tables. For a full view of the DORA metrics, you have to log in with your GitLab Ultimate-tier account or sign up for a free […]

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GitLab’s commitment to enhanced application security in the modern DevOps world

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With GitLab 14, we saw deep emphasis on modernizing our DevOps capabilities. This modernization enabled enhanced application security and strenghtened collaboration between developers and security professionals. We saw enhancments such as: global rule registry and customization for policy requriements with support for separation of duties a newly developed browser-based Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) scanner used to test and secure modern APIs and Single Page Applications more support for different languages using Semgrep new vulnerability management capabilities to increase visibility With the GitLab 15 release, we can see how our commitment to enhancing application security across the board is stronger than ever. In this blog post, I will provide details on how GitLab is commited to enhancing not only security, but efficiency. Discover how GitLab 15 can help your team deliver secure software, while maintaining compliance and automating manual processes. Save the date for our GitLab 15 launch event on June 23rd! GitLab 15 security features We see that with every GitLab release, there are plenty of enhancements to our security tools. GitLab 15 is no exception! We can see a boatload ? of security enhacements released in GitLab 15 below: These features run across different stages of the software development lifecycle. I have created a video showing some of the coolest new security features in GitLab 15: Scanners moved to GitLab Free Tier A lot of our scanners were only part of GitLab Ultimate in the past. However, over time, certain scanners have been moved over to GitLab Free Tier, enabling you to enhance the security of your application no matter what tier of GitLab you are using. Scanner Introduced Moved to Free SAST 10.3 13.3 Container Scanning 10.4 15.0 Secret Detection 11.9 13.3 Within the free tier, you are able to download the reports generated by the security scanners. This allows developers to see what vulnerabilites were detected within their source code and container images. However, there are benefits to upgrading to Ultimate, which are described below. Benefits of upgrading to Ultimate Some organizations have multiple groups and projects they are working on, as well as a the security team, which manages all the detected vulnerabilities. While having security scan reports ready for download is useful, it is not exactly scalable across an organization. This is where Ultimate assists in enhancing DevSecOps efficiency. Scanners While the GitLab Free Tier includes SAST, Secret Detection, and Container Scanning to find vulnerabilities in your source code, when you upgrade to Ultimate, you are provided with even more scanners. Here are some of the additional scanners provided in Ultimate: Developer Lifecycle In Ultimate, there is enhanced functionality within the developer lifecycle. The merge request a developer creates will contain a security widget which displays a summary of the new security scan results. New results are determined by comparing the current findings against existing findings in the default branch. The results contain not only detailed information on the vulnerability and how it affects the system, but also solutions to mitigating or resolving the issue. These vulnerabilities are also actionable, meaning that a comment can be added in order to notify the security team, so they may review – enhancing developer and appsec collaboration. A confidential issue can also be created so that developers and security professionals can work together towards a resolution safely […]

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