User manual BUSINESS OBJECTS FIRSTPREP QUICK TOUR REV 1

[. . . ] FirstPrep Quick Tour Edition 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Navigating through FirstPrep. . . . . . . . . . . 3 Using sample files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Running FirstPrep from the command line. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [. . . ] You can override this setting and select Value to show the data alphabetically or numerically. The Count window with several fields selected to be counted. 6 FirstPrep Quick Tour Sort Sorting data files can improve the performance time when processing with other Firstlogic applications, if you sort on the zip codes. Sorting will group the information in that field, and decrease the processing time. By default, sorting is in ascending order alphabetically or numerically. The fields are sorted by the field that is listed at the top. The Sort window with two fields selected for sorting. Navigating through FirstPrep 7 Convert You can convert your input file type to a different file type. Your input file is never changed with FirstPrep. For example, you may have an EBCDIC file, and you want to convert it to an ASCII file. Your original EBCDIC file still exists, and an ASCII file and format file are created for the output. You can also merge multiple input files of varying types into one output file. The Convert window shows two files in the Selected box that are ready to be converted to one ASCII file called 2together. dat. 8 FirstPrep Quick Tour Data Selection With Data Selection, you can select a smaller portion of your data based on the criteria you choose, and output that smaller portion of the data. You can also count the records that contain the data that your business needs. Data Selection is an additional cost option. Use the Data Selection windows to join fields, create and combine filters, and link the filters to output files. If you're not familiar with making filters, we have a Set Data Selection window that helps you. If you're a pro at creating filters, you can just type a filter in the Define Data Selection window. In the Define Data Selection window, you create filters to place specific records into an output file. Use filters to create an output file that contains only the information that you want. The example in the Define Data Selection window above pulls records from the 01035 zip code in Massachusetts. Filters can target very specific information based on the contents of your input file. For example, if you have an input file with salary, birth date, and address information, you can create a filter that looks for all individuals that are 55 or older earning $100, 000 or more while living in Miami, Florida. Or you can create a more general filter that pulls records for individuals living in Seattle, Oregon and Montana. When you've set up all the filters that you need, link them to an output file to hold the records that pass the filter (meet the criteria you specified when you created the filter). You can also use the count option to find out the number of records in each filter. If you want an output file that contains all of the records that do not pass the filter, click Remainder. If you want to see the types of records that are placed into each output file, click View. Navigating through FirstPrep 9 Link Data Selections tab on the Data Selection window. This shows the filter and the linked output file that the filtered information will be in. There are many, many more options available in FirstPrep. [. . . ] It removes binary fields from the input file. If you do not list the output format file, then it will have the same prefix as the input file format. When creating a dBase3 output file, there will not be a format specified. However the layout will match the input file. [. . . ]