Welcome to Robelle's corner of the Web dedicated to
users of SPECTRUM, the industry-leading application
solution for credit unions from Summit Information Systems.
In fall 2002, Summit became a Robelle partner, integrating Suprtool/UX
with Eloquence DB support
into their HP-UX migration product. And, providing
Qedit and Qedit for Windows to ease their
text editing tasks on HP-UX. Summit users will
be learning more about the software that Summit has acquired for them when
they sign up for migration.
Even before this agreement with Summit,
several Summit sites were using our
Suprtool for MPE product to
provide database extracts, conversions, links, exports,
and ad-hoc reports. See below for some reports of their experiences.
Recently, we received a number of questions related to column operations in Qedit.
Some Summit sites used Quad (a contributed library editor) on the HP
3000 and were transitioning to an HP
9000. They found themselves without their favorite editor, as Quad is
not available on HP-UX. They turned to Qedit, but quickly discovered
that Qedit missed some Quad features. We quickly added
the most urgent of these:
Colcopy and Colmove:
More specifically, they were looking for an easy way to copy or move
columns on a single line, so we just implemented the commands form Quad!
The Merge-justified (MergeJ) command merges the content of a
file with the current workfile horizontally, based on the line numbers by
appending text of the external file to the corresponding line
in the workfile.
Click the link above to read how City and County Credit Union
describes their successful migration from MPE to HP-UX.
The Summit application uses the Eloquence database and
our Suprtool/Qedit products on HP-UX.
Suprtool at Suncoast
Suncoast Schools Credit Union is the 9th largest credit union in the USA and
has been using the Summit application for almost 3 years.
They acquired Suprtool in June 2001, based on a recommendation from another credit union
that uses the product. They purchased it in hopes of speeding up some of their
jobstreams on end of month.
"We're still new to the Suprtool World. Thus we are still in the discover
stage. However, that being said, we are excited by:
the speed in which it performs searches into the database,
the ease of retrieving information from various data bases/sets and
"linking" them together."
"We have converted several jobs to utilize Suprtool to search and select
items that are used as input into other programs. We are beginning to "turn"
to Suprtool when we have tasks that need to be completed that can't be
accomplished via query, pextract or query calc."
Robellian Hans Hendriks visited Suncoast in July 2001 to deliver 3 days of Suprtool training.
Two applications converted in the class showed 7-10 times improvement in run time.
See the job conversions below for some technical tips
and guidelines.
What Do Others Say About Suprtool?
Read what users of other important HP e3000 applications
say about Suprtool:
Suprtool operates on the databases that contain your Spectrum application data.
This allows it to know the names of your datasets and fields, the field data types
and size. But it does not allow Suprtool to know everything that would be useful.
For example, the database contains birth-date, name-chg-date, last-stmt-date, etc.,
but Suprtool doesn't know that these are dates, nor how the date is formatted. When Suprtool has that information,
it can do things like this:
>if birth-date >= $date(1980/06/20)
You tell Suprtool that a field contains a date of a certain format using
the Item command.
As on can see, it is easy to configure Suprtool to operate intelligently with
your Spectrum data.
User Testimonials: Suprtool
Here is what 3000 users have to say about Suprtool:
"We were recently asked by our Controller 'What is the best piece of software
you use?'. Undeniably, it was Robelle's Suprtool and Qedit!"
Anthony Ballo
Sr. Business Systems Analyst
Musician's Friend
"Recently I took a Quiz reporting task that was done completely in Quiz and
rewrote it to incorporate Suprtool as a front-end. The job was previously
taking 2-3 hours and now, with Suprtool, it runs in six minutes!"
James M. Dunn
Manager of Software Support
Hammacher Schlemmer
"At many shops, I have used Suprtool to do very fast extracts. The Suprtool
extracts are about as fast as possible, and often much faster (3 to 10
times!) than other solutions.
"I have also used Suprtool to produce extract files for downloading to Excel,
Access, Crystal Reports, etc. Users then find the latest data in a shared
LAN directory when they come in each day, or run on-demand queries as
required. Then they can sort, select, total or whatever on their own PC.
Often a single extract will fill several different user requirements as they
can just ignore data they don't need."
Chris Goodey
System Manager
Egghead.com
Qedit for Windows
Many 3000 users find that Qedit for Windows
improves their productivity impressively when editing source code,
scripts, and data files on their servers. Just look at some of the
user testimonials:
From: Chris Koch, Tiger Direct
We bought Qedit for Windows and already I feel like I can't
live without it. It really helps because I have never had much luck
with Edit/3000. I definitely prefer the Windows GUI cut and paste world.
Qedit for Windows is the easiest, fastest solution for windows-enabling your
HP e3000. It brings unprecedented ease-of-use to HP e3000 editing and
script development. Unlike competitive alternatives, Robelle's Windows-enabling
software has been carefully developed in keeping with our corporate philosophy of
providing "solutions that don't get in your way". For ease of integration,
we have designed this solution specifically to accommodate multi-platform flexibility,
allowing Summit/Spectrum users to work with ease in the HP environment.
Handles all HP e3000 file types including job streams, Suprtool scripts and
data files - common tasks that save Ecometry customers valuable time.
Real-time editing of HP host files - no download/upload cycle.
Fast access to multiple files on multiple HP and Windows platforms at the same time.
Integrated development environment: execute HP host commands such as Listf, Showjob,
run Suprtool, and compile, directly from the Qedit client.
Flexible cut and paste between files, even if they live on different HP or
Windows servers.
Powerful data file editing: Qedit supports very large files and full-fledged
column editing.
Enables fast access to PC and HP files over the Internet.
Set shortcuts for all directories that need to be accessed: no need to enter
long pathnames.
Visual interface with split screen, ruler bars, vertical guide lines,
auto-indent, vertical and horizontal scrolling, etc.
Testimonials: Qedit For Windows
What do 3000 users have to say about Qedit for Windows:
"Qedit for Windows it wonderful. I now use Qedit for writing my Suprtools,
Quizes and any
file editing. There is no comparison between the 3000's editor and all of
the tools available in Qedit for Windows. It has saved me hours of work."
Steve Weber
MIS Coordinator
Stumps Printing Co.
"I find that I am much more productive using the Windows version of Qedit. I
refuse to go back to line editors or visual mode. Qedit for Windows is just
the easiest, most convenient tool for working on the HP 3000"
Ty Franck
Director of Operations
McGlen Micro
"I just ordered Qedit for Windows. Wow, realtime editing of files on the HP -
I'm impressed! I really like to edit job stream files on the HP with Qedit
and, of course, Suprtool is a must for us. Between the two I can do most any
chore involving custom streams or reports. Qedit eliminates the need to FTP
out of the HP, work over in Notepad, then FTP back to the HP. And I write
enough long Suprtool jobs for it to save me the old edit blues of
open-edit-keep-exit-stream-open-edit-keep-exit-retry."
EJ Kaluza
MACS/Database Administrator
Carlton Industries, Inc.
"Qedit for Windows is great for creating and editing Suprtool streams.
I really like the find/replace option...it has made my life a lot
easier! I am accustomed to using Qedit/3000 directly on the HP, but
I find Qedit for Windows much easier with its Windows GUI format.
No commands to remember plus I can scroll through the whole file
at once.
"I also used Qedit for Windows to edit a 150,000 line flat
file. I needed to delete it down to about 70,000 records. With
Qedit for Windows, I was able to do the deletions in chunks of
records - a task that I wouldn't have been able to do any other
way than with the Windows version of Qedit.
Chuck Salerno
System Administrator
Design Toscano
"I love Qedit for Windows. I use Qedit to search through large
spoolfiles such as our analyzer and system management reports...
actually all kinds of reports. That way you don't have to download
them first and open them with a word processor - what a hassle that
is! I also use Qedit to write job streams which is made easy by
Qedit's multiple file and cut & paste functionality.
I can look at two or more files at the same time and easily
copy and paste between them - even if the files live in different
accounts. For instance, when creating new Suprtool jobs, I just
open a template and copy portions of it to the new job stream. Or
open a file from the test account and do a 'Save As' to
the production account, then just change the job card and you're
ready to go.
"Now I can hear the old-timer saying 'nothing you can't do in Edit/3000
or at the : prompt!' Yes, but it sure as heck isn't as easy - especially
for us young'ns!"
Michael Hone
Business Systems Analyst
Wine Country Gift Baskets
Direct Robelle Support
As an Ecometry customer who is migrating, you receive copies of all the
Robelle products: Qedit, Suprtool and Qedit for Windows. But your technical
support is through Summit.
To benefit fully from the Robelle products, you may want to deal directly with
Robelle technical support.
We welcome such inquiries
and would be glad to answer all your questions.
We have experience with many Summit sites who have exploited our software's
power to get more out of their Summit system.
Tell me about direct Robelle support!
Convert Spectrum Jobs to Use Suprtool
For example, aurdvcu1 is a job
stream that calculate monthend dividends for regular
share accounts.
In August 2001 we converted it from using HP's free QUERY program to using Suprtool.
Here is the original Query section of the job:
!RUN QUERY.PUB.SYS
B=MEMBRS
LOOKUP
5
S=SHARE-FILE
ASSIGN LOCKOPTION=OFF
OUTPUT=LP
F ACCOUNT LT 999999000 AND REST-FLAG-11 LT 80 AND &
REST-FLAG-12 LT 80 AND &
DESC-ABRV="RSV","SSV","CSP","EST","GRD","REP","TST","UTM", &
"NSV","IRA","IRO","IED","SEP","DCP","MTC"
REPORT
NOPAGE
D1,"DIVD",4
D1,ACCOUNT,13
D1,SUFFIX,15
S,SUFFIX
S,ACCOUNT
END
EXIT
!endif
Below is the equivalent Suprtool task, which executes much
more quickly. The Define commands describe the format of the output file, which is
with all fields in DISPLAY format (i.e., ASCII).
The Extract commands move the field values from the database record to
the new output file record. In this case there are no adjustments or
changes to the data, just a simple extract. But with Suprtool there
could be. Notice that we inserted a literal "DIVD" at the start of
each output record.
The Sort commands sort the records by the SUFFIX and ACCOUNT fields.
!run suprtool.pub.robelle
base membrs,5,LOOKUP
get share-file
if ACCOUNT < 999999000 and REST-FLAG-11 < 80 and &
REST-FLAG-12 < 80 and &
DESC-ABRV="RSV","SSV","CSP","EST","GRD","REP","TST","UTM", &
"NSV","IRA","IRO","IED","SEP","DCP","MTC"
sort suffix
sort account
define fld1,1,9,display
define fld2,1,2,display
sort suffix
sort account
extract "DIVD"
extract fld1 = account
extract fld2 = suffix
output qslist
exit
Another Spectrum Example
The amdrfeec a job stream
was
converted in August 2001 from using the PFASTTAG.PGMS.SPECTRUM program to using Suprtool.
The Define commands describe the format of the output file, which is
with all fields in DISPLAY format (i.e., ASCII).
The Extract commands move the field values from the database record to
the new output file record. In this case there are no adjustments or
changes to the data, just a simple extract. But with Suprtool there
could be.
The Sort command sorts the records by the ACC field.
Note: Qedit and Suprtool are trademarks of Robelle Solutions Technology Inc.
Spectrum is a trademark of Summit Informations Systems Inc.
