Control-D/WebAccess Server Transformations

Transformations change reports from one viewing format to another. You can define a transformation for each type of input format, which determines how the report appears, such as the layout and font, when you transform a XEROX report to PDF. Transformation attributes define the rules to modify and convert the input data.

Control-D/WebAccess Server automatically creates transformation modules in the installation process, as described in Predefined Transformation Modules and includes the following inputs:

  • Report data: Reports retrieved from the Control-D Mainframe repository.

  • Resources: Required resources to transform a report, such as fonts and images, saved in the in the \transformer\res folder, as described in Control-D/WebAccess Server Resource Management.

  • Transformation definition: Determines the output criteria, such as output resolution, orientation, and color, as described in Control-D/WebAccess Server Report Cliques.

  • Transformer configuration: Determines the folder paths where the resources and report cliques are saved.

You can also transform reports with a third-party application, as described in Running Control-D/WebAccess Shell Transformations

Control-D/WebAccess Server Web Application retrieves a weekly sales report from a retail company with multiple stores, in CSV format. The Financial Manager needs to transform the report into .XLS format to analyze the report and organize the report according to different regions, and hide confidential information.

The transformation module uses the Txt_P_2_Xlsx_D predefined transformation module, which runs the bmc-ctd-excelconverter.dll program to transform the report. The Txt_P_2_Xlsx_D module also retrieves the resources and transformation definitions, from the file paths defined transformer configuration folder to complete the transformation.

The transformation process is configured in the Control-D/WebAccess Server Desktop and runs in the background when you transform reports in the Control-D/WebAccess Server Web Application.

The user applies a transformation to view the report in an Excel document, and the output report appears. The report now uses a larger font, separates the figures into clear columns for each region, and hides confidential information.

Configuring Control-D/WebAccess Server Transformations

This procedure describes how to configure or add a Transformation in the Control-D/WebAccess Server Desktop, which are related to the specific report transformation process. You can determine the report types and default appearance format for each transformation.

Begin

  1. From the Root directory, navigate to the following location:

    Configurations > WebAccess Server> WebAccess > WebAccess > Transformers

  2. To configure an existing Transformation, do the following:

    1. From the Transformers folder, select an item, right-click, and then click Open.

      The Transformers window appears.

    2. For each field, define the required parameters, as described in Transformation Attribute Parameters.

  3. To add a Transformation, do the following:

    1. From the Transformers folder, select an item, right-click, and then click Add.

      The New Item window appears.

    2. For each field, define the required parameters, as described in Transformation Attribute Parameters.

Transformation Attribute Parameters

The following table describes the Transformation Attribute Parameters.

Attribute

Description

Default

Determines whether this transformer is the default transformer for reports with the specified From Extension to use in the transformation process.

You can only define one transformer as the default for each From extension.

Valid values:

  • Yes

  • No

Default: No

Reports do not automatically transform when you do not define a default transformer for reports with a certain extension.

Display Name

Determines which products appear in the View As drop-down list in Control-D/WebAccess Server Web Application.

From Extension

Determines one of the following input report filename extensions to transform.

Valid values:

  • Valid extensions for bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll are AFP, XRX, PS (PostScript), PCL, and TXT.

  • Valid extension for bmc-ctd-excelconverter.dll is TXT.

  • Valid extensions for bmc-ctd-si-shell-transformer.dll depend on the transformation program.

Program

Determines one of the following names of the .dll programs that transforms reports:

  • bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

  • bmc-ctd-excelconverter.dll

  • bmc-ctd-si-shell-transformer.dll

To Extension

Determines one of the following output report filename extensions to transform.

Valid values:

  • bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll:

    • HTML

    • PCL

    • PDF

    • TXT

  • bmc-ctd-excelconverter.dll:

    • XLSX

    • XLS

    • CSV

  • bmc-ctd-si-shell-transformer.dll: Depends on transformation program.

Input Mode

Determines one of the following access modes of the reports where the transformer applies.

Valid values:

  • Page: Stores each report page separately.

  • Doc: Retrieves reports as a binary stream from the beginning to the end as a single report.

Default: Doc

The document transforms and now appears as a single report with all pages.

Reports decollated with the following CDAM parameters are in document mode:

  • AFP reports with one of the following parameters:

    • APA: YES.

    • ASSOC: AFP.

    • ACIF: YES.

  • XEROX LCDS or metacode reports with ASSOC=XRX.

  • PostScript reports with ASSOC=PS.

You must configure ON TRNDSN or TRNCLASS on the Control-D Mainframe when you transform a document that uses page mode.

Output Mode

Determines the access mode of report after transformation.

Valid values:

  • Page: Retrieves each report page separately.

  • Doc: Retrieves reports as a binary stream from the beginning to the end as a single report.

Default: Doc.

The document transforms and now appears as a single report with all the pages.

Transformation to HTML runs in page mode. The document transformation occurs page by page, which enables you to view, print, and send reports.

Only reports with input mode set to Page transform to the Page Output mode.

For bmc-ctd-si-shell-transformer.dll only Doc mode is valid.

Param

(Optional) Determines the following transformation parameters.

The bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll file does not require parameters.

The bmc-ctd-excelconverter.dll file requires the following parameters:

  • PIS (Pages in Sheet): Determines the number of report pages to include in each Excel worksheet.

    Valid values: 0−65536

    Default: 1

    Maximum lines per sheet is 65536. Excess lines appear on a new sheet.

  • LBP (Lines Between Pages): Determines the number of graphical lines that separate each report page in the Excel worksheet.

  • FONT (Font style): Defines the name of the font family, such as MS Sans Serif.

    Default: Arial

  • CT (Conversion Table): Defines the name of the ASCII-to-Unicode (ATU) conversion file.

    Type the full path of the file, or a path relative to the Control-D/WebAccess Server installation_folder\bin folder. The file must be 512 bytes long, where every two bytes represent the appropriate mapping from an ASCII character to a Unicode character.

  • CP (Code Page): Defines the name of the Code Page conversion file for non-latin1 characters.

    Type a filename, located in the <installation Path>/transformer/res folder.

    The Hebrew CP=iso8859-8

  • SF (Spreadsheet Format): Determines one of the following formats of the transformed worksheet:

    Valid values:

    • CSV

    • XLS

    • XLSX

    Default: XLSX

  • BIDI (Bi-Directional): Determines whether to convert Hebrew and Arabic strings into a format readable by Microsoft Windows.

    Valid values:

    • 0: Do not convert.

    • 1: Convert

    Default: 0

  • NPB (No Page Breaks): Determines whether to add a page break between multiple report pages appears in a single worksheet.

    Valid Values:

    • 0: Insert page breaks.

    • 1: Do not insert page breaks.

    Default: 0

  • SNP (Sheet Name Prefix): Defines the prefix for worksheet names.

    Default: Sheetn

  • Date and Time Formats: Determines one of the following date and time formats.

    Valid values:

    • DLF: Date Long Format.

    • DSF: Date Short Format.

    • TLF: Time Long Format.

    • TSF: Time Short Format.

  • PEH (Parsing Error Handling): Determines one of the following actions what might occur when the Excel transformer fails to parse a string from the report as a number, date, or time.

Valid values:

  • Fail: Fails the entire transformation and issues an error to the log.

  • Default: Fills the default value of the field, such as 0 for numeric field.

  • Default_with_log: Fills the default value of the field, such as 0 for numeric field, and adds an entry in the log.

  • Empty: Leaves the cell empty.

  • Empty_with_log: Leaves the cell empty and adds an entry in the log.

  • String: Enters the value as a string.

  • String_with_log: Enters the value as a string and adds an entry in the log.

Default: string_with_log

The following Excel parameters enable you to transform part of a text report:

  • SP (Starting Page): Determines which page of the report to start the transformation.

  • MNP (Maximum Number of Pages): Determines the number of report pages to transform.

Predefined Transformation Modules

The standard installation provides the following transformation modules, which appear with their attribute values in following table.

Transformer Name

From extension

Input mode

To extension

Output mode

Library module

Afp_D_2_HTML_D

AFP

Doc

HTML

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Afp_D_2_Pdf_D

AFP

Doc

PDF

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Afp_P_2_HTML_P

AFP

Page

HTML

Page

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Afp_P_2_Pdf_D

AFP

Page

PDF

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Pcl_D_2_HTML_D

PCL

Doc

HTML

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Pcl_D_2_Pdf_D

PCL

Doc

PDF

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Pcl_P_2_HTML_P

PCL

Page

HTML

Page

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Pcl_P_2_Pdf_D

PCL

Page

PDF

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Ps_D_2_HTML_D

PS

 Doc

HTML

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Ps_D_2_Pdf_D

 PS Doc

PDF

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Ps_P_2_HTML_P

 PS Page

HTML

Page

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Ps_P_2_Pdf_D

 PS Page PDF

Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Tif_D_2_Pdf_D

TIF

Doc

 PDF

Doc

bmc-ctd-si-shell-transformer.dll

Txt_P_2_Pdf_D

 TXT Page

PDF

 Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Txt_P_2_Xlsx_D

 TXT Page

XLSX

Doc

bmc-ctd-excelconverter.dll

Xml_D_2_HTML_D

XML

Doc

 HTML Doc

bmc-ctd-si-shell-transformer.dll

Xrx_D_2_HTML_D

 XRX Doc HTML Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Xrx_D_2_Pdf_D

 XRX Doc

PDF

 Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Xrx_P_2_HTML_P

XRX

Page

HTML

 Page

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll

Xrx_P_2_Pdf_D

 XRX

Doc

PDF

 Doc

bmc-ctd-dal-transformer-engine.dll