Symtrax Unhooks Web Reporting Tool from Excel

December 6, 2011 Alex Woodie

Symtrax last week unveiled StarQuery Web, a new addition to its StarQuery suite that enables users to create and access reports through a Web browser, without the need for Excel. The software replaces StarQuery for the Web, which required a copy of Excel to be on hand.

With StarQuery Web, Symtrax has put a complete report-authoring tool online for the first time. Users no longer need to work within the constraints of Excel or other spreadsheet software, as was the case with the company’s previous Web interface for its StarQuery suite, called StarQuery for the Web.

Working with StarQuery Web is easy, Symtrax says. The software enables users to drag and drop database fields directly to their report, eliminating the need to understand SQL or database schemas. From there, the report user can drill down to get more details, or even drill sideways, Symtrax says.

StarQuery Web is the latest addition to the StarQuery version 4 suite, which the company unveiled in September. StarQuery 4 added in-memory processing and support for multidimensional database analysis, which should greatly expand the types of business intelligence workloads that StarQuery has been asked to run.

Symtrax officials told IT Jungle about their StarQuery Web plans earlier this year. The plan was to eliminate the hooks to Excel, while simultaneously modernizing the product’s code base in Microsoft C# and ASP.net.

StarQuery is often used in IBM i environments, and Symtrax is well versed in the intricacies of DB2/400, as well as other databases and ERP environments, such as SAP and JD Edwards. Other components of the StarQuery suite include the Windows-based MapDesigner, StaryQuery for Excel, and StarQuery Scheduler. For more information, see www.symtrax.com.