By Larry Teren
If you feel at home using Microsoft Excel and want your business accounting software to integrate with it, consider the Enterprise Manager your friend. Basis’ Enterprise Manager has been a welcome utility for Open Systems Accounting Software (OSAS) users since its inception a few years ago. The Enterprise Manager is included for free ever since the bbj version (java enhanced business basic) was adopted for OSAS.
The Enterprise Manager serves several purposes. They are:
1. Monitor active bbj user sessions on the system and the files they have open.
2. Close out bbj user sessions that have locked up.
3. Review Data Dictionary definitions and make changes to existing tables (files)
or add new ones.
4. Establish location and company id linkage to bbj formatted files for use with ODBC.
5. Test and/or perform an sql query on table data and paste to Microsoft Excel.
Regarding items 4 and 5-
For Microsoft Excel or Access, or a program such as Crystal Report to get direct access to Open Systems Accounting Software data, it is necessary to set up an ODBC connection. Half of this is establishing a data dictionary set in the Enterprise Manager. The other half is creating an ODBC definition connection through your local workstation’s Control Panel.
Once the ODBC connection is defined, you can either use the preset Microsoft Excel pivot tables that come with the purchase of OSAS or create your own using the Microsoft Query add-on that is embedded in Excel. It doesn’t matter whether you are using Microsoft Windows 7 or XP.
(Do not confuse Microsoft Query with an sql query. Microsoft Query is a proprietary tool that establishes the sort method and selection criteria for the data elements chosen. Sql query is a generic representation of instructions to pull data from an sql database. There are a few popular sql database systems. One is the fee-based Microsoft SQL and another is the open source MySql)
The results of an sql query that is generated within the Enterprise Manager utility can also be posted to Microsoft Excel.
Also read:
a) how to use the sql query feature in Enterprise Manager
b) how to set up OSAS ODBC connection in Control Panel
c) how to access OSAS Data while in Excel.
For more information, call (773) 502-5771 .
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