BI Documenter

New Database Engine in BI Documenter 2.0

jgunning — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:59:00 GMT

The time taken to make a documentation snapshot in BI Documenter has been dramatically reduced thanks the use of a new embedded database engine for snapshot storage and retrieval: Microsoft SQL Server Compact Edition 2005.

Using version BI Documenter 2.0 to make a snapshot of the "AdventureWorks" sample database now averages around 20 seconds, representing a two-fold increase in application performance over the previous version of BI Documenter.

In addition to this massive performance increase, the new database engine included in the BI Documenter 2.0 also delivers significantly increased reliability, including support for “self-healing” and management technologies that are designed to handle “instant off”.

And because SQL Server Compact Edition 2005 supports connectivity via the SQL Compact OLEDB data provider, your metadata is now more accessible than ever.

BI Documenter 2.0 is a free upgrade for all paid users of previous versions of BI Documenter.

BI Documenter 2.0 Released!

jgunning — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:13:00 GMT

Version 2.0.0.0 (March 12th 2007)

Replaced database engine with SQL Server Compact Edition 2005.
Documentation attachments now stored in database for increased portability.

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR VERSION 2.0 UPGRADE

Version 2.0 of BI Documenter is installed into a different directory to previous versions of BI Documenter and uses a new database store.

Snapshot data is not portable between version 2.0 of BI Documenter and previous versions, however both versions can be installed and used "side-by-side" on the same machine.

BI Documenter 1.x default install directory: c:\Program Files\BI Documenter

BI Documenter 2.x default install directory: c:\Program Files\BI Documenter 2

All the flags of the world

jgunning — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:02:14 GMT

The team here at BI Documenter are always very interested in customer statistics, as this information was certainly thin on the ground when we got started with BI Documenter. Now has come time for us to reciprocate in our own small way.

So without further ado we present to you the some aggregated data representing where in the world our customers come from. No I won't give you the scale - needless to say it's not huge as the product has been around only 6 months. However we can say that we are constantly surprised at the variety of locations and different types of businesses that utilize BI Documenter. Eighty percent of our business is direct via our website and this list represents that business.

In descending order:

Network (net)
Australia (au)
Commercial (com)
Netherlands (nl)
United Kingdom (uk)
Germany (de)
Italy (it)
India (in)
Belgium (be)
Poland (pl)
Canada (ca)
Mexico (mx)
Denmark (dk)
New Zealand (nz)
France (fr)
Brazil (br)
Non-Profit Organizations (org)
Switzerland (ch)
Norway (no)
Sweden (se)
Czech Republic (cz)
Israel (il)
USA Education (edu)
Russian Federation (ru)
Finland (fi)
Argentina (ar)
Portugal (pt)
USA Government (gov)
Slovenia (si)
Spain (es)
Pakistan (pk)
Japan (jp)

Seasons Greetings and Best Wishes for 2007 from the whole team at BI Documenter and may all your documentation problems be small ones!

BI Documenter, Windows Vista and Elevated Privileges

jgunning — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 06:07:35 GMT

Background

Microsoft Windows Vista includes a new feature, User Account Control (UAC), which helps administrators manage their use of elevated privileges. When running on Microsoft Windows Vista, administrators do not use their administrative privileges by default. They perform most actions as standard (non-administrative) users, temporarily assuming their administrative privileges only when necessary.

How UAC impacts BI Documenter

Versions 1.6.5 and upwards of BI Documenter will run perfectly o.k on 32-bit versions of Vista if BI Documenter is run with elevated privileges. Without elevated privileges BI Documenter will not run at all on Windows Vista.

We encourage all users of versions of BI Documenter prior to 1.6.5 to upgrade to the latest version (1.6.6 at the time of writing) in order to run BI Documenter on Windows Vista.

How to run BI Documenter with Elevated Privileges on Windows Vista

Below are two methods to launch BI Documenter with elevated privileges:

How to run BI Documenter with elevated privileges (temporary solution):

From the "Start" menu, right-click on the "BI Documenter" program icon and select "Run as Administrator".

How to run BI Documenter with elevated privileges (more permanent solution):

From the "Start" menu, right-click on the "BI Documenter" program, select "Properties" and on the "Compatibility" tab and check "Run this program as an administrator".

Column Cross Referencing (or Impact Analysis Lite) in BI Documenter

jgunning — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:36:44 GMT

As business intelligence and database architects and designers, we often need to assess and affect a data definition change across an entire database.

An example of this is changing the data type of a column AccountNumber from the generic data type varchar(10) to a user defined SQL data type of AccountNumber across an entire database.

The manual method for this is to attempt to recall from memory every table, view, etc, where the account number value is used, hope you haven't forgotten any, then visit each remembered object and change the definition. BI Documenter makes this task a lot easier with a cross referenced list of columns within a database called the Columns Cross Index.

The Columns Cross Index shows column names cross referenced with a list of tables and views that contain a column with the same name:

And is also clickable to reveal the data type definitions for each column (and a column that we have forgotten to change!):

Thanks to the team at SDM for suggesting this and the Parameters Cross Index in BI Documenter!

BI Documenter 1.6.5 Release Notes

jgunning — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 04:52:00 GMT

Version 1.6.5.0 (October 18th 2006)
• Add Reporting Services folder selection.
• Fixed file locking problem with custom banners.
• Changed behavior. Cross indexes no longer included when parents are not.
• Fixed arithmetic overflow error.
• Fixed error retrieving user defined function text on some system objects, exhibited on SQL Server 2000 master database.
• Fixed HTML encoding problem with SP params.

Version 1.6.3.0 (October 16th 2006)
• Fixed NullReferenceExpection when excluding views from documentation.
• Enhanced Unicode support for diagram objects.
• Increased the maximium diagram table height to 3200 pixels.

Version 1.6.2.0 (October 13th 2006)
• Added KPIs to the cube diagram object.
• Added Unicode support for diagram objects.
• Fixed PropertyCannotBeRetrievedException for Full Text Catalogs
• Fixed DirectoryNotFoundException on cross column index pages.
• Added save button to diagram editor allowing diagram editor to be closed without saving changes.
• Added property to specify individual folders on a report server to snapshot.
• Fixed object type label on documentation home page.

Version 1.6.1 Release Notes

jgunning — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:56:00 GMT

Version 1.6.1.0 (October 9th 2006)

• Add Reporting Services as a documentation target.

• Add a Snapshot Management applet.

• Add hierarchies to the Dimension objects in an SSIS diagram.

• Add Script Tasks to Diagram Editor.

• Fail gracefully on snapshots when the underlying solution objects are no longer available

• Documentation enhancements, including improved home page navigation and icons.

• Add Unicode encoding option for CHM output to enable correct table of contents encoding for extended character sets, including Western European, Baltic, Cyrillic.

• Redesigned menu system for the user interface.

• Fix invalid operation when bad file name is used saving diagram.

• Remove empty menus in documentation output.

• Fix response time for quick cancel of version write.

• Fix for AMO ItemNotFound exception.

• Fix behavior when writing cubes that contain Perspectives (Enterprise Edition SQL Server only).

• Fix version write problem when a Data Flow Component references a connection manager which no longer exists.

• Strengthen integrity checking on Analysis Services version write.

• Add missing Script Task dependency.

• Numerous other performance and user interface improvements.

Version 1.6 of BI Documenter Looming

jgunning — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 01:42:18 GMT

After a short working week following the Labor Day long weekend here in Australia we are very close to releasing another installment of BI Documenter.

The big news about this release is that we have added SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 as a documentation and diagram target.

This means that with BI Documenter 1.6 you can now document your entire Microsoft BI solution in the one documentation set, including:

SQL Server databases
Analysis Services Databases
Integration Services Packages (located on the File system, SSIS package store, or SQL database)
Reporting Services

In addition the new Reporting Services documentation functionality this release has a focus on stability and performance, including the following bug fixes and enhancements:

Add hierarchies to the Dimension objects in an SSIS diagram.
Add Script Tasks to Diagram Editor
Fail gracefully on snapshots when the underlying solution objects are no longer available.
Implement database independence for the repository backend.
Add SQL Server User Defined Aggregates to documentation.
Documentation enhancements, including improved home navigation and iconography.
Add Unicode encoding option for CHM output to enable correct encoding of extended character sets, including Western European, Baltic, Cyrillic.
Remove empty menus in documentation output.
Fix response time for "quick" cancel of version write.
Fix for AMO ItemNotFound exception.
Fix behavior when writing cubes that contain Perspectives (Enterprise Edition SQL Server only). (Thanks: PK)
Fix version write problem when a Data Flow Component references a connection manager which no longer exists. (Thanks: SK)
Fix integrity checking on Analysis Services version write.
Increase coverage of Exception Reporting applet, especially failures during documentation compilation (Thanks PK).
Numerous other performance improvements (Thanks TB).

Version 1.6 of BI Documenter is code-complete and is currently under testing.

This new version will be released to the web site on Monday October 9th and is a recommended (and free) upgrade for any owner of BI Documenter Enterprise.

Diagramming in BI Documenter

jgunning — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 01:34:36 GMT

We released a major version of BI Documenter this month after a coding slog-fest through most of August.

One of the major new features in version 1.5 is Drag and Drop Diagramming.

Our approach to this is that every object in the solution is diagrammable, and not just the ERM style table relationships that you are probably used to.

So while you can do this:

You can also do this:

By moving beyond traditional ERM diagrams to diagrams that incorporate non-traditional components (such as SSIS ETL components) our hope is that we can help our users further bridge the gap between technical, business and operational users.

Or as Dave Winer put it:

Users and developers partying together.

The diagramming component is fairly autonomous as well, so if you need a quick diagram to pop into a specification document you can do that without having to regenerate a new set of documentation.

Happy diagramming!

BI Documenter Version 1.5 Released - Press Release

rbrookes — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 02:47:00 GMT

Sydney, Australia – 7 September 2006 – Mienasoft today announced a new version of BI Documenter that includes the ability to document Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Integration Services, data-driven diagramming and customizable documentation templates.

BI Documenter version 1.5 is a Microsoft Windows based documentation tool for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 that includes documentation modules for SQL Server relational databases, Analysis Services databases, Integration Services packages as well as diagramming and template capabilities.

John Gunning, a product manager for Mienasoft describes the latest release:

“When we first planned for the initial release of BI Documenter our primary aim was to provide a very stable architectural foundation on which to build. We really nailed this objective with the first version of BI Documenter and now with this latest release we are pushing the envelope to include documentation support for more services from the Microsoft Business Intelligence stack, customizable documentation templates, as well as an integrated diagramming tool.”

BI Documenter Database Edition delivers automated documentation of SQL Server 2000 and 2005 relational databases, while BI Documenter Enterprise Edition adds support for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services and Integration Services.

BI Documenter is priced at $USD 195 for a single user Database Edition license and $USD 395 for a single user Enterprise Edition license. Volume discounts also apply.

A free edition of BI Documenter is also available. The free edition supports documentation of SQL Server 2000 or 2005 relational databases only without diagramming or templates.

BI Documenter uses the Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework and is available as 2 megabyte download from http://www.bidocumenter.com/Public/Download.aspx

Mienasoft is a leader in Business Intelligence tools for the Microsoft platform and focuses on tools that aid metadata discovery and manageability, as well as Business Intelligence requirements discovery and definition.

What's next for BI Documenter?

jgunning — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:16:00 GMT

When we first planned for the initial release of BI Documenter our primary aim was a very stable architectural foundation on which to build on.

We really nailed this objective with the first version of BI Documenter. We have an excellent performing application with an extremely low defect rate that documents SQL Server and Analysis Services with unerring accuracy - plus it's pretty fast too!

So now the obvious question is - what's next?

The two major things that we are hearing from our partners and customers are:

"We want to extend the documentation beyond the SQL Server database and Analysis Services documentation to include all the components of the Microsoft BI stack!”
This means providing an integrated way to document traditonal SQL databases, Analysis Services databases, Integration Services, Reporting Services and Business Scorecard Manager all under the one umbrella. Integration Services is our first targeted component in this broadening of BI Documenter's scope.

Eventually we would like to offer a solution for the entire Microsoft BI stack.

"Provide a way for us to visualize our data structures!"
A great way for our users to convey the concepts to their own clients and users (internal or external) is by visualizing the underlying entities, whether a traditional ERM diagram of a SQL database or a star or snowflake schema used by a data warehouse - a picture as they say tells a thousand words.

As a result of this type of feedback and encouragement, we are working on expanding the scope of what BI Documenter can document as well as providing visualization features in what will be the first major update to BI Documenter.

We also have another major announcement that will accompany the next major release that I am sure will be extremely welcome news for those who only wish to use BI Documenter for simple database documentation - without all the bells and whistles.

As ever, keep watching this space!

BI Documenter Released

rbrookes — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 10:30:00 GMT

After much hard work we are pleased to announce that the first public release of BI Documenter is available for download from our product site http://www.bidocumenter.com/Public/Download.aspx

We would like to thank all those who gave us their time to test and for their highly valued comments. BI Documenter is a richer product for it.

Our development team has already got their heads down working on new features; extending the value of BI Documenter.

We will soon post more detailed information about these features, your comments and opinion about the future direction as always would be greatly appeciated.

The BI Documenter Team