I'm looking at leveraging an existing Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Service (SSAS) instance for a reporting project. The goal is to have the data compiled in SSAS, then a web front-end that allows the user change time-periods, while building graphics (using D3 or the like).
Google has not been my friend in finding a solution for this...
Is there a gem or other way to connect SSAS to a Rails front-end?
Thanks
JSON, no, not that I know of. However if you are willing to use XML, then yes. XMLA (documented here) is the client API language for SSAS.
One approach would be to build a web service with .NET, and then have your Rails front-end call the web service.
I suppose you could use XMLA directly, but it's painful.
Related
I've just begun to read the QB Developer documentation and have come to the conclusion that to write a web-enabled application that will sync/remote backup QB files between two machines over the Internet, that the QBWC is the 'approved' way to accomplish this task. The .NET application samples in the QB SDK (V12) are not using WCF but WSDL and SOAP.
But before I commit to going that route, I am asking if anyone has a better approach. I'd prefer to use WCF and MS Sync Framework, but I don't want to head down that road if it will mean using a cannon to kill a mosquito.
Thanks
You really hinted at two separate goals here, so I'll address each specifically:
... remote backup QB files between two machines ...
If your goal is BACKUP then the Web Connector is certainly not the answer. The purpose of the Web Connector is to enable integration between QuickBooks and web applications, via the QuickBooks API/SDK. Since not all data stored within QuickBooks is accessible via the API, the Web Connector is not appropriate for backup. It is impossible to get a complete, accurate backup of the entire QuickBooks data set via the Web Connector.
On the other hand...
... web-enabled application that will sync ...
If your goal is to allow integration/sync of data between your web app and QuickBooks, the Web Connector is a decent solution. Yes, it uses SOAP (with a grand total of only about 5 very simple methods). No, you can't use WCF/anything else without writing your own version of the Web Connector.
If you add more details about specifically what you're looking to do with specifically what data, you'll probably get some better answers and suggestions about approach.
Is it possible to write soap based web services using ruby on rails framework. If yes, can someone please point to a learning resource
Yes, you can write SOAP web services using Rails, However Rails is moving in favour of a REST web service approach. So my personal opinion is if you are starting a brand new Rails app with SOAP web services, consider some other programming language like JAVA, because that has more tools to easily create SOAP web services.
But nowadays all the webservices going towards REST, because of the simplicity it has. Almost all major sites has a REST API.
Furthermore if you are still planning to go ahead with Rails, savon is an interesting gem that you should probably look at.
Perhaps like some of you, I am inundated by the number of JavaScript MV* out there. When I thought I was going KO, I found Backbone, then Ember.
I recently saw some demos on Meteor and I am extremely impressed. But I know nothing of Mongo and I "think" Meteor requires it. (http://www.meteor.com/screencast)
I am too heavily invested in Entity Framework & ASP.net MVC to move away from them but Meteor looks like a terrific client side MV*.
Does anyone know if Meteor can work with a Microsoft back end (ie EF and ASP.net MVC)?
Thanks.
UPDATE:
Yes I see the NuGet package for MongoDb, but truth be told I am only interested in Meteor. Is it a both or nothing situation? Meteor looks like bleeding edge and I really would appreciate any links to documentation on its use with a MS backend.
For anyone still reading this in 2013 or later - it's now possible to run Node.js on Windows under IIS (just install the support with the Web Platform Installer).
There's also versions of Meteor and MongoDB for Windows and Meteor supports deploying a bundle that will run under "pure" node.js
As far as I know, You can't. it runs over Node.js, additionally there is a client implementation of a MongoDB like API that would be a pain to implement with a EF backend I think
Yes, sort of. Meteor runs server-side code using node.js, but also provides some very useful services on the client side like templates, routes, collections, session variables, and reactivity.
The way to use it with a .net back-end (or any other language) is to create an api that can be accessed with Meteor. You can create Meteor collections in the client code, which don't need a mongodb instance. Simply access the api to load the collections with the correct data, and then you can use Meteor as you would normally.
However, for most apps it would be much simpler to implement everything in Meteor.
I am building a new applications architecture and I need your advice. We have a central MSSQL server database hosted as SQL Azure. This database needs to be accessed from many different applications, most of them are web applications hosted in windows azure and couple of them are winforms apps.
Accessing database for web application is straight forward with ADO.Net. For winforms applications, the wcf data services technology seems impressive along with client authentication services for security.
I need to know whether this mixed mode of database access will work? In other words, will database integrity will be maintained if it is being hit by applications using a mix of ADO.Net and Entity framework.
Thanks in advance.
If you query the database using EntityFramework it will cache the data until you call SaveChanges(). If the database is modified (e.g. using plain old ADO.NET) in the meantime there is a risk of the data from the database being overriden by the application that is using Entity Framework. To prevent from this you need to use Concurrency Token. You can find some details here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/3866.aspx
Note that when you start using concurrency tokens you need to be aware of possible concurrency exceptions which you need to handle. You can take a look at this blog post http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rickandy/archive/2011/02/17/handling-optimistic-concurrency-exception-with-ef-and-mvc-3.aspx for some ideas. WCF Data Services uses ETags for concurrency (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/astoriateam/archive/2008/04/22/optimistic-concurrency-data-services.aspx) but you may not need to do anything here if you setup concurrency in the EF model for the database that is exposed via WCF Data Services.
We are going with WCF RIA services. They seem to work well with multiple client types providing out of the box data access layer.
Is it possible to integrate MS Outlook/Exchange tasks with Rails? I know how to send emails with Rails, but that isn't using anything "special" about exchange, just pointing it at the server.
What is "special" about an Outlook Task and how I can I create/read/update/delete them from Rails. (Even a subset of CRUD would be great.)
PS. I am on a linux based rails system, so solutions that rely on a windows-only function won't work for me.
If you are running Exchange 2007 you should also look at Exchange web services to manipulate things.
I am in the process of building a MS Exchange client access library in Ruby that uses MS Exchange Web services. The code is GPL'd so have at it. Please let me know what kind of issues you have and what other features you'd like to see. It's pretty heavy in development at this point.
http://github.com/zenchild/Viewpoint
Cheers,
Dan Wanek
WebDAV might be the way to go, if you'd like to do it in Ruby. There is a ruby gem call rexchange that can do the trick. However, MSFT is phasing out WebDAV and replacing it with the Exchange Web Services, which is Zoredache suggested. Unfortunately, MSFT only provides API in C# (technically, it's SOAP stuff that is language-agnostic, some Java developers seem to sucessfully build some stuff using EWS, but I have yet known anyone has done this in Ruby.)
Assuming that the tasks are stored in Exchange, you should be able to access the tasks through WebDAV.