23 May 2017
As some of us know, managers love a good spreadsheet. And G Suite Sheets is a very capable offering in this space. With a lot of organisations going down the Google path, we thought it might be fun to have little play with G Suite and LDC Via working in tandem.
G Suite makes use of Apps Script to provide the equivalent of MS Office macros. You can add code to Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides and more. Whilst the code can make use of optional “triggers”, when it comes to Google Sheets, you can actually reference functions written in apps script directly within your spreadsheet formula.
For example, if I write a function called someFunctionOrOther() in the script editor, I can make use of this function in my spreadsheet simply by referencing it in a standard cell formula: =someFunctionOrOther. Easy eh? So let’s use it with LDC Via. Via provides a comprehensive REST API, and you can consume such APIs in apps script. We have an activity API in Via which provides simple stats (number of audit log items) for each database that the current user account has access to. Let’s pull this data into a spreadsheet, and then we can analyse it further.
Here’s some sample apps script to consume the activity API:
function getViaDbActivity() {
// Set this to your key
var apikey = "<API KEY>";
// Via API endpoint for database activity
var url = "https://eu.ldcvia.com/1.0/activity";
// Request options: note the headers object
var options = {
'method' : 'get',
'contentType' : 'application/json',
'headers' : { 'apikey': apikey }
};
// Perform the request
var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, options);
var data = JSON.parse(response.getContentText());
// Iterate response JSON and pass data back
var array = [];
Object.keys(data).forEach(function(db, index) {
var numberOfLogs = data[db];
array.push([db, numberOfLogs]);
});
return array;
}
The function returns an array which is automatically parsed into rows and columns when a single cell references the function.
Note how we’ve then fired up the G Suite “Explore” function which lets us start to make sense of our data.
Nifty eh? And oh so simple!
16 May 2017
Now that the dust has settled after Engage, it’s back to work, and time to address a few things that often come up when we exhibit at conferences.
When we embarked upon the LDC Via platform, we made a conscious design decision about application logic, and more specifically, application code (agents, script libraries, form events and so forth). We do not attempt to convert any of these constructs when we migrate content from a Domino database to our platform.
Why?
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I don’t write JavaScript like I write LotusScript. Do you?
Languages have moved on (capabilities, syntax, patterns): what works for VB6-style Lotusscript looks odd in 21st century Java or JavaScript.
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How can you take advantage of the good new stuff if you convert your old business logic the old-fashioned way? What about modern language constructs like lambdas and promises?
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There is no magic bullet: can you really convert code and logic from Domino without intervening?
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Do you want to translate this code? It may well be redundant, or you may want to take advantage of moving your app to have a bit of a tidy-up. For example, why not shift all those form events to one central location? Get rid of those pesky myriad button clicks and bind them to a page in one fell swoop… Who wants cruft in their shiny new app?
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Code might be locked to the platform and no longer really apply. For example, custom dialogue boxes and UI classes in the Notes client.
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Auto-translated code could be prone to errors.
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Good LotusScript is strongly-typed, JavaScript is not.
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Do you actually understand the business logic behind the legacy codebase? It’s entirely possible that no one does. Do you want to migrate an application “lock, stock and barrel” without knowing how it actually works?
All well and good, but what is the best approach for migrating your Domino databases? Given that you’re already migrating all of your data, now would be a good time to re-validate the business logic behind your application.
Have the best of both worlds: improve your application’s workflow sure, but now is the time to improve the quality of your code, beef up your test coverage, and so on.
Needless to say, we can help you every step of the way: we’ve got plenty of experience in this space.
10 May 2017
Theo does such an amazing job organising this event every year that it gets difficult to work out what to praise most. As ever, the venue was magnificent, as were the sessions, speakers, sponsors, number of attendees. It’s nice to be able to go to an event that is so reliably well run.
For LDC Via, this was our third year as a sponsor, and our best yet. We had some really great conversations with people. Speed sponsoring, especially, was a highlight. Normally there’s a gradual drop off in the number of people doing each iteration of the presentation, but a remarkable number stayed until the end. Poor old Ben deserved the beers that were constantly in hand while he did the presentation 23 times!
Another great thing was the number of new attendees for the event. We had a similarly large number of new faces come and visit the stand. So remember, if you have any questions about LDC Via, please do contact us.
Otherwise, we’re already looking forward to the 2018 version of Engage, wherever it may be.
11 Apr 2017
In just four weeks LDC Via will be heading to this year’s Engage event. Over the years, Theo and his team have set themselves a high bar in terms of the quality of sessions and the amazing venues he finds. 2017 promises to be just as good as we have come to expect.
From an LDC Via point of view, we’re very happy to be sponsoring the event for the third year. We’d love for you to come and visit our stand to talk all things app dev, including application migration and modernisation. You’ll also have the chance to win one of our giveaways; we’re doing something a little different this year.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a User Group event without one of us speaking. This year, the honours fall to our resident Champion Mark Myers. He’ll be presenting a new session: “Choose your own adventure: Update/Convert/Replace” at 13:30 on Tuesday in Room C (Gorilla 3).
23 Feb 2017
Many thanks to everyone who turned up to our wee soirée on Tuesday night, IBM Connect goes to the pub.
We all had a jolly time in The Castle, Farringdon watching the IBM Connect OGS whilst drinking beer and munching on chips and the like. We even had pretzel cookies courtesy of our very own Matt!
o2 wifi was not the best, but three and Vodafone tethering did the trick, and we were able to stream pretty much all of both sessions from San Francisco. Good fun!
