Introduction

Using the Comments Management page


IBM Alphablox can be used to manage user comments that can be attached to data cells in multidimensional grids or displayed within a web page. The following help sections describe how to use the Comments Management page, available under the IBM Alphablox Administration tab to configure a comments collection for use with a particular data source.

DB2 for z/OS users: For comments collections that will be stored in DB2 for z/OS, you must use the "IBM DB2 JDBC Type 4 Driver for z/OS" data adapter.

Microsoft SQL Server users: Comments collections requires additional configuration steps to work with Microsoft's JDBC Driver for SQL Server, which is an option included on WebSphere. Contact IBM Customer Support for assistance.

Accessing the Comments Management page

To access the Comments Management page, which opens in a new window, follow these steps:

  1. Open the IBM Alphablox home page.
  2. Click the Administration tab.
  3. Under Runtime Management in the navigation menu on the left, click the Comments link.
  4. The Comments Management dialog should appear in a new browser window.

Note: To use the Comments Management Dialog, you need to have rights for creating and dropping relational tables. For using the CommentsBlox API in developing custom commentary applications, you may need rights for selecting, inserting, updating, deleting, creating, and dropping tables.

Defining and accessing data sources

To define a data source to be available for storing your comments collections, follow these steps:

  1. Under the Datasource heading, click on the Name selection list and select the defined IBM Alphablox data source where you want your comments collections to be stored. [Note: To learn more about defining data sources in IBM Alphablox, see Understanding Data Source Definitions and Default Values.]
  2. In the Username and Password entry fields, enter a login and password for a user authorized to create tables in the data source. [Note: If these fields are blank, the default datasource username and password, if defined in the IBM Alphablox data source definition, will automatically be submitted upon connecting.]
  3. Press the Connect button. If the defined data source and user information are valid, a connection to your data source should occur and the Collection section on the Comments Management dialog will become enabled.

Defining comments collections

Before users can begin adding comments to data cells in a grid, you must first create a comments collection to store related comments.

Note: Dimensions in your comments collection may be added or removed, as long as no comments exist in the collection.

To create a new comments collection, follow these steps:

  1. Click the Create button below the Collection list box.
  2. On the right side of the browser window, three new sections will appear.
  3. In the Name section, enter the name of your comments collection. [Note: Names must not include spaces and must conform to any naming requirements for tables in the database being used to store comments.]
  4. In the Fields section, you can add or delete fields in your comment collection. By default, three required fields are included: the Author, Timestamp, and CommentText fields. You can add additional fields, defining their names, and if desired, descriptions for each field you define. An optional CellValue field can also be added. The CellValue field will result in the current cell value for the selected cell to be automatically added to the comment associated with that cell.
  5. In the Dimensions section, you must select a multidimensional data source from the list of defined Alphablox data sources. A list of dimensions available in the selected cube should appear in the text box below the listed data source.
  6. Select which dimensions you want users to be able to add comments to. To select more than one dimension, you must press the Control key and click on each additional dimension.

Important: For comments collections databases created using IBM DB2 servers, limit the number of dimensions selected to 10 or less.

Dimensions selected affect the scope of the added comments by your users, as shown in the following two examples:

Example 1: If you have a cube with three dimensions (Year, Product, and Region), and select only two of the dimensions (Product and Year) in the Dimensions list, then comments added to any member of the Region dimension (unselected in the Dimensions list) will be displayed in all other Region members.

Example 2: If you have a cube with three dimensions (Year, Product, and Region), and select all three dimensions in the Dimensions list, then comments will appear only in the cell to which the comments were added.

  1. Press the Save button. At this point, the name of the newly defined collection should appear in the Collection listing.

Displaying comments collection definitions

To display the definition of an existing collection, follow these steps:

  1. When you are connected to a defined data source, a list of predefined comments collections appears in the Collection text box and the Create, Display, and Delete buttons are enabled. If you are not connected, first follow the steps above under Defining and Accessing a Data Source to connect to a data source.
  2. Click on one of the comments collections listed in the Collection text box, then press the Display button. The collection definition should appear in the right half of the window.

Deleting comments collections

To remove a defined comments collection, follow these steps:

  1. Connect to a defined data source (see Defining and Accessing Data Sources above).
  2. In the Collection text box, click on the name of the comments collection you want to remove.
  3. Press the Delete button. The collection name should be removed from the listing.

Adding and displaying comments

After a comments collection has been defined, users can add comments to the data cells of grids that have been enabled for comments. When a user right-clicks on a data cell that is comment enabled, a menu appears. In the Comments submenu, users can choose to either Add Comments or Display Comments.

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