SPL makes your parameter pick lists from
static to dynamic and/or dynamic cascading pick lists.
All without modifying your existing reports. And now includes six web styles.

Features

Tech specs

Brochure

Pricing

Download

Buy

(read on for new features and enhancements coming in SPL 3)

Yes -- CR XI & BOE XI now finally, natively support Dynamic & Dynamic Cascading parameters. But they have many draw backs and limitations.

Why should you use SPL 2 or 2.5 today (see below for what's coming in SPL 3)?

1. SPL supports your CE 9 and CE 10 environments TODAY out-of-the-box for ePortfolio or you can use our SDK to integrate with your custom environments (the same SDK we used to build our ePortfolio integration).
    
2. SPL does not require you to open your reports and create new dynamic and/or cascading parameters and then save your report back -- which is exactly what you'll need to do with CR XI / BOE XI. SPL never modifies your report. Instead, you tell SPL which reports you want SPL to manage and configure for the parameters appropriate settings (and now with ALIASes you can configure it once for same / similar parameters -- see below in what's coming with SPL 3).
    
3. SPL has many powerful features for dynamic / dynamic with cascading parameters that CR XI / BOE XI do not. Features today like: Enabling * for parameters without modifying report, 6 different web styles to present the parameter selection screen, highly optimized browser to server communication -- reducing the data sent between them, ability to modify web control look and feel  (color, fonts, even force a list box to be check boxes) feel without ever touching a single line of the web frontend code, ability to use iFrames or Pop-ups depending on browser, and many more.
    
4. SPL continues to innovate at a much faster pace and we're always open to your ideas and suggestions (many of which are already coming in SPL 3).
    
5. SPL with support for XI is currently in development and will be FREE to customers on current maintenance.

SPL 3 is currently in beta testing and offers these great new features and enhancements:
(screen shots of features below will be posted here in a few days)
click here to request a FREE live web demo of SPL 3

• Unified & Object Oriented (OO) optimized CE 9 / CE 10 e-Portfolio integration code. Look & Feel will be native of either CE 9 or CE 10 automatically. Result = less code and improved web performance.
   
• MAJOR NEW FEATURE >>> ALIASes
  Imagine having 10 reports with 5 parameters each. And in each report you have the same parameter (can be named same or slightly different).
  
  i.e. each report contains a parameter called COUNTRY and you want to always use same settings for this parameter across the reports to retrieve the values.
  
  Now you can define an ALIAS called COUNTRY (or any meaningful name you decide to call the ALIAS) and then specify the table/view, field, SQL, etc. to use.
  
  Then apply this setting to multiple parameters. Any changes you make to the ALIAS will automatically be used by the parameter(s) using this ALIAS.
  
  But wait... There's more. We've taken it even further.
  
  You can turn the ALIAS feature on globally to match automatically by Name (and turn off specific one if you choose), apply the ALIAS to any parameter (irregardless of name), and even turn off specific ALIAS properties from inheriting on specific parameters.
  
  In other words -- the power of inheritance with override!
   
• MAJOR PERFORMANCE INCREASE
  We can now retrieve 100,000 values for a parameter in less than 30 seconds and will now display parts of the page in under 10 seconds while the parameters are loading.
  
  For smaller values, our internal benchmarks show that 1000 values are retrieved in less than 4 seconds and 6000 values in less than 10 seconds.
  
  Above benchmarks were conducted on a single CE with Pentium 4 2GHz CPU and 512MB RAM connecting to a single SQL Server 2000 with Pentium 4 2GHZ CPU and 512MB RAM.
   
• MAJOR NEW FEATURE >>> PRESET CURRENT VALUES
  Previously we honored the current values you set in CE via the CMC. While we still honor that, you can now present your users on the web with a your common / default values preloaded in the "CURRENT" values list in an easier and more consistent way from SPL.
  
  You can preset the parameter's CURRENT values right from the SPL MMC Admin Console and it will display it on the web. It will also honor any changes you make in the CMC.
  
  This is very useful when you have lots of values for the user to select per parameter, but have common ones that the user can work with. It also gives you a way to have a default value should your user not select one.
   
• MAJOR NEW FEATURE >>> DISPLAY X To User, SEND Y To Report / Database
  You can now add descriptions or un-abbreviate values to make it easier for your users to identify the values presented on the web. And still be able to send the actual result of the selection in the original or abbreviated version to the report / database.
  
  i.e. Display "New York" to web user, but send "NY" to report / database
  i.e. Display "Acme Corporation 8839853412" to web user, but send "8839853412" to report / database
   
• Compound statements now allow you to do all sorts of fancy multiple field display and concatenations -- and still be able to send to the report / database the original value
  
  i.e. Display "John Smith - Employee #444313 - Hired: 11-10-98", but send back to report / database "Smith"
   
• Description / Prompting Text retrieved from Report's parameter can now be modified / created in SPL MMC Admin Console and will display on web as Prompting Text.
   
• Description / Prompting Text can be toggled off to not display Prompting Text on web.
   
• Parameter Name can be toggled off to not display on web.
   
• New SPL API added to pass your own custom SQL to SPL from the custom frontend -- if you need.
   
• Cascading parameters now honor SQL constraints not of just the immediate previous parent
  
  i.e. cascade of Country|Region|City -- by the time you got to City, it was no longer honoring Country but just Region as part of the SQL that was built.
  
  now all previous parents will be taken in to consideration when building the SQL
  
  i.e. cascade of Country|Region|City - by the time you get to City, the SQL will be built with constraints for Country & Region
  
  And as with other areas in SPL -- we give you choice. So you can toggle this new behavior On/Off per top most parent of each cascade or each report
   
• MAJOR NEW FEATURE >>> TREE Web Control
  In addition to the standard web controls (edit box, list box, drop down box, etc.) that SPL displays on the web, we've now given you a powerful TREE Control to display on the web for your parameter value selection.
  
  Here's how it works:
  Select parameter you wish to enable this type of control and set the control type to "TREE Control", specify the number of levels the TREE Control will support. The minimum is 1 level and the maximum is 9 levels.
  
  Then you for each level, specify the table/view, field, etc. to retrieve the dynamic values from. You can even specify which of the levels are selectable (useful for limiting from which levels the user can add values to CURRENT values).
  
  Each level of tree honors the SQL constraints of all previous levels
   
• MAJOR NEW FEATURE >>> HIDDEN Web Control
  The issue:
  You want to add entitlement / authentication security for values being retrieved. This is typically done by passing information to report parameter's stored procedure.
  
  Your frontend usually has some custom code that hides this parameter from being dispalyed to the user and based on your logic will set the value of the parameter before it is passed to the report.
  
  The solution:
  Without having to create a fully custom frontend, or having to do lots of modification to the SPL out-of-the-box ePortfolio frontend -- you can toggle a parameter in the SPL MMC Admin Console to be hidden from the user. You will then be able to make a minor modification to the frontend code (since we don't know where and how you will handle the security) to pass to this hidden parameter your value(s).