PH conventions

Karen Barrett kayandjade at aol.com
Fri Mar 6 09:38:49 CST 2015


There is in fact a convention being held in CA soon by the new owner of PH, Unicom Global.  http://unicomsi.com/files/3014/2427/4609/UNICOM_Global_CAB_and_UGMs_at_PickFair.2015.03.27.pdf 


Karen Barrett





-----Original Message-----
From: powerh-l-request <powerh-l-request at lists.sowder.com>


Today's Topics:

   1. RE:Hierarchical vs. Parallel linkage
(Matt
Ohmes)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message:
1
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2015 08:52:06 -0600
From: Matt Ohmes
<mohmes at us.ibm.com>
Subject: RE: Hierarchical vs. Parallel linkage
To:
"Richard Witkopp" <RWitkopp at phxa.com>
Cc: PowerHouse listserver
<powerh-l at lists.sowder.com>
Message-ID:
	<OF23FDD4C1.837CAD0A-ON86257E00.00503F68-86257E00.0051AE2C at us.ibm.com>
Content-Type:
text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Hey Richard!
You are probably one of the last
people who remember my old MattO (Oh, not 
zero) tag. :-)

I don't know if
there are still PH conventions, but I doubt it.  Oddly 
enough I gave a more
complete version of this many, many years ago at a 
Cognos convention and it
was my biggest ego boost moment.  The room not 
only filled completely, but
there were people sitting on the floor at my 
feet so they could see it! 

I
wish I still had that original paper, as it seems to be a pretty 
confusing
topic still.  (Anyone have one in their archives?)

Also, If you have a QTP
with all those files, you might also be interested 
in another paper I wrote
(years ago) called the "Care and Feeding of QTP". 
I have a PDF of it still I
can send you if you'd like (I can't post it to 
the list, if I recall). 
However, that has more to do with output timing 
than hierarchical vs. parallel
linkage.

My main advice for debugging Access statements has always been, take
the 
Access and put it in Quiz and write a VERY basic Report statement that

dumps something from every files.  Then go look at the  files individually

and make sure they match what you see.  If that works, they your problem 
is
elsewhere.  And honestly, with QTP, it is usually the "elsewhere" that 
is the
problem. :-)

This has been fun!
Cheers,
Matt



From:   "Richard
Witkopp" <RWitkopp at phxa.com>
To:     "PowerHouse listserver"
<powerh-l at lists.sowder.com>
Date:   03/05/2015 06:29 PM
Subject:        RE:
Hierarchical vs. Parallel linkage
Sent by:       
powerh-l-bounces+mohmes=us.ibm.com at lists.sowder.com



Nice, not-a-zero!


Are there still Powerhoose conventions? This would make a good

presentation.
 
I need to re-read this thing about 4 times. I?ve got a qtp
with about 5 
parallel legs and 3 hierarchical files down each leg and it
doesn?t do 
what it looks like it should do.
 
From:
powerh-l-bounces+rwitkopp=phxa.com at lists.sowder.com
[
mailto:powerh-l-bounces+rwitkopp=phxa.com at lists.sowder.com] On Behalf Of

Matt Ohmes
Sent: Thursday, March 05, 2015 3:57 PM
To: PowerHouse
listserver
Subject: Hierarchical vs. Parallel linkage
 
Hi all, 
I promised
I would write up something on the differences between 
Hierarchical and
Parallel linkage in Quiz (and QTP), so here we go. (And 
for those of you who
know all this already, please forgive my trip down 
memory lane.) 

Oh, and
I'm assuming no bugs in the product regarding syntax. :-) 

Differences
between Hierarchical and Parallel linkage in Quiz (and QTP) 

In all examples
below, we will use 3 files. Assume all are indexed files, 
keyed on Emp_No

File Employees: 5 records; 
Emp_No  Emp_Name 
1       Bob 
2       Mary 
3
Pat 
4       Kim 
5       Sean 

File Paychecks: 5 records 
Emp_No 
Pay_Date    Amt 
1       2015-01-01  100     (Bob) 
1       2015-01-15  200   
(Bob) 
2       2015-01-01  300     (Mary) 
2       2015-01-15  400     (Mary)

3       2015-01-15  600     (Pat) 
Note: 4 Kim and 5 Sean just started and
have not been paid yet) 

File Dependents: 4 records; 
Emp_No  Dep_Name 
1  
Bob Jr              (Bob's 1st dependent) 
1       Bobbie              (Bob's
2nd dependent) 
2       Marie               (Mary's dependent) 
5       Shawn 
(Sean's dependent) 
Note: 3 Pat and 4 Kim do not have any dependents 

This
will be my Report statement for ALL examples: 
Report & 
    Emp_No of
Employees & 
    Emp_Name of Employees & 
    Pay_Date of Paychecks & 
   
Amt of Paychecks & 
    Dep_Name of Dependents 
 
First Hierarchical linkage:

Access Employees & 
    Link Emp_No of Employees to Emp_No of Paychecks & 
 
Link Emp_No of Employees to Emp_No of Dependents 

Emp_No  Emp_Name   
Pay_Date    Amt     Dep_Name 
1       Bob         2015-01-01  100     Bob Jr

1       Bob         2015-01-01  100     Bobbie 
1       Bob        
2015-01-15  200     Bob Jr 
1       Bob         2015-01-15  200     Bobbie 
2 
Mary        2015-01-01  300     Marie 
2       Mary        2015-01-15  400    
Marie 

Obvious problems. Pat, Kim, and Sean are not showing up at all because
no 
files are optional. I'm assuming the use of Optional in hierarchical

linkage is well understood so I won't go into that discussion here. This

post is about parallel linkage. :-) 

A bigger problem with the report is
that paycheck and dependent records 
are being duplicated. Hierarchical linkage
is simply wrong for this data; 
the results make no sense. 
  
Using
hierarchical linkage for this data is essentially saying, for each 
paycheck an
employee has received, read down the list of all their 
dependents. That makes
no sense. Just as it would make no sense to say, 
for each dependent an
employee has, show me every time they have been 
paid.  The number of paychecks
I receive is based on how long I have 
worked for my employeer, not how many
dependents I have.  Similarly, the 
number of dependents I have is not based on
how long I have worked for my 
employer.   
  
Paychecks and Dependents are
both, obviously related to Employees, but 
they are NOT RELATED TO ONE ANOTHER.


Instead of one of these files "driving" the other, they should be read in

parallel; i.e. at the same time.  THIS is why we have parallel linkage.

Parallel linkage is saying, for each employee, show me each of their

paychecks AND each of their dependents. 

Let's try parallel linkage in the
Access statement and what that does to 
our report results. 

Access
Employees & 
    Link Emp_No of Employees to Emp_No of Paychecks & 
    AND
Emp_No of Employees to Emp_No of Dependents 
 
Emp_No  Emp_Name    Pay_Date   
Amt     Dep_Name 
1       Bob         2015-01-01  100     Bob Jr 
1       Bob 
2015-01-15  200     Bobbie 
2       Mary        2015-01-01  300     Marie 
2  
Mary        2015-01-15  400 
3       Pat         2015-01-15  600 
5       Sean
Shawn 

This makes more sense for this data.  Each paycheck is reported once
and 
each dependent is reported once.   
Notice, as long as there is at least
one record FROM ANY of the parallel 
files you get a record complex returned.
Parallel files are, more or less, 
"semi-optional". 

However, also notice
employee 4 Kim was not reported.  This was because 
Kim did not have any
paychecks (yet) or dependents. If you want to see Kim 
on the report as well,
make ANY of the parallel files optional; it doesn't 
make any difference which
one because of the "semi-optional" nature of 
parallel files. 

Access
Employees & 
    Link Emp_No of Employees to Emp_No of Paychecks & 
    AND
Emp_No of Employees to Emp_No of Dependents Optional 
 
Emp_No  Emp_Name   
Pay_Date    Amt     Dep_Name 
1       Bob         2015-01-01  100     Bob Jr

1       Bob         2015-01-15  200     Bobbie 
2       Mary       
2015-01-01  300     Marie 
2       Mary        2015-01-15  400 
3       Pat   
2015-01-15  600 
4       Kim 
5       Sean                            Shawn


To be honest, parallel linkage is not that common. It is fair to ask, "If

two files aren't related to one another, why are you writing a report with

both of them on it?"  But it does have its uses from time to time. 
  
I
hope that explanation helps. (It was fun writing about good old Quiz 
again
after all these years.) 
Cheers, 
Matt
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