"Open architecture" is the catch phrase for business application software and databases these days. Companies that in the past may have put up with discrete applications running stand-alone, and performed software "gymnastics" to obtain integrated reporting from their tools, are now demanding that these products work together. To facilitate this process, an industry standard known as open database connectivity (ODBC) was developed. Visual Integrator has been designed to facilitate seamless integration between Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 data and other business applications. Visual Integrator can import from (or export to) any ODBC-compliant source, without the need for an intermediary data file such as ASCII delimited or Microsoft Excel. If you regularly perform imports from a custom or vertical software package, you’ll find you can use Visual Integrator to make the integration virtually seamless.

Importing and exporting data from Visual Integrator is a simple process. The power of Visual Integrator, however, lies in the additional integration commands that are available. For example, Visual Integrator jobs can be scheduled to run at prescribed intervals of any length. If you need to keep your Sage MAS 90 or Sage MAS 200 customer masterfile synchronized with a prospect database, you can set the import to run automatically every day, every hour or even every minute. Imports can be chained together so that an invoice import automatically follows a customer import. You can even instruct the program to run a script file automatically upon successful completion of an import.

If you use Sage MAS 90 or Sage MAS 200, Visual Integrator is what you need to tie all your business software into one seamless application.

Scheduling

There are multiple methods of scheduling Visual Integrator jobs. You can place a job on the Integrator job menu for easy access, and then run the job manually. Jobs can also be run by using the Windows® 98 or Windows NT® scheduler or an external Windows program or script file. You can also set a schedule or cycle within Visual Integrator to run once a day, once an hour, or once a minute, for example.

Automatically Perform Sub-routines

Run additional commands, scripts, or other functions based on three events: before job start, on job success, or on job failure. Subroutines can also be added before and after each record write, before and after assigning data fields.

ODBC Connectivity

Link multiple ODBC tables together, and point and click to select fields for importing. Visual Integrator will then automatically generate the SQL statement for import or export, and Visual Integrator permits editing of the SQL statement for advanced users. A test button provides an instant visual check of data to be imported.

Validation Logic

Validation logic is built into Visual Integrator to assure that the data being imported conforms to Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 rules. Validations performed by Visual Integrator are automatically listed, and may be removed if not required for the import. New validations may also be created for specialized requirements (e.g., do not permit import of future-dated invoices).

User Defined fields

If you have created user-defined fields in Sage MAS 90 or Sage MAS 200, these fields will appear automatically for selection when Visual Integrator operates on the entity to which they are attached (e.g. customers).

Passwords

Each import or export job can be assigned a password, which is then required before the job can be run.

Chaining of Jobs

Jobs can be set to run in sequence (e.g., import invoices immediately following a customer import).

Run-time Assignment of Values

Selection and Skip Record Criteria

Jobs can easily be prepared for transporting to another computer at a remote location.

Data from any Sage MAS 90 or Sage MAS 200 file may be exported to ODBC databases or ASCII delimited files, using all the same logic and selection criteria available for import jobs.

The Test button permits easy viewing of sample data. You can also sample an entire file and print or display import log statistics (number of records imported, etc.).

• SQL Databases

• Any ODBC 3.5 Compliant Data Source

• ASCII files

• Delimited (CSV) Files

• Lotus .wks and .wk4

• Excel Version 4 .xls

• dBASE III Plus