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RadarCube Desktop for Windows Forms: overview

RadarCube for Windows Forms is a unique Desktop OLAP component written in C# 2.0 combines unsurpassed power of the RadarCube OLAP core with easy NET Framework programming.

 

Data

RadarCube supports the data warehouse structure by using all its tables. RadarCube dimensions and measures structure allows the data warehouse structure to be reflected in the final OLAP-report to the full extent. Unlike the competing products, RadarCube supports such DWH structures as "star" and "snowflake", several fact tables and "parent-child" relations in the dimension tables.

In the OLAP-schema the data is organized in multilevel (for the "snowflake" schema) and the "parent-child" hierarchies. In Visual Studio you only need to create a standard DataSet and describe all tables relations and then you can use it as a data source for RadarCube. More than that, in comparison with the only table or view available in the competing products, this one allows you to save memory and reduce the time for loading data.

 

Performance

Despite the fact that RadarCube is 100% managed, it doesn't yield in its performance to its VCL analogues: HierCube and RadarCube for VCL. The unique technology of calculating OLAP-slices "on the fly" first implemented in HierCube and updated in RadarCube, allows calculating only the data currently displayed in the Grid, not more. Such technology saves memory and remarkably reduces an OLAP-slice calculation time. Thus, RadarCube easily operates with data warehouses containing up to several million records in the fact table, and keeps the response time within a few seconds. You can see the RadarCube benchmarks here.

Using DataSet as a data source, RadarCube is able to fetch data directly from a database using the IDbReader interfaces operating in the "Forward only" mode. In this case, the OLAP-application using RadarCube takes up approximately as much memory as it would have taken with fully filled DataSet without any OLAP-component.

 

The Additional OLAP Features

The power of the RadarCube core shows up not only in the unique performance and most compound OLAP structures support, but also in OLAP reports individual settings. This includes the automatic transformation of dates into flat and multilevel hierarchies, possibility to create calculated dimensions and hierarchy members, calculated measures and calculated hierarchies. For example, for the "Year" dimension you can create calculated members that show the year-to-year dynamics. For the "Account" measure, you can create calculated members to show the sub-totals by the sum of some of the expense or income items. The values of these calculated members will be adjusted to the active OLAP-slice. More than that, you can show or hide member values for particular contexts.

 

The OLAP Data Display Features

Even a brief overview of RadarCube features will be incomplete without mentioning the abilities of the Grid to display OLAP-slices. It allows the user to replace the content of any Grid cell, to place a picture of any size into any Grid cell, to automatically position pictures and text within a cell, to adjust the cell size to its contents, to change order of the members by simply drag-n-dropping them with the mouse, context dependent filters, members' grouping, any method of sorting including alphabetical, value dependent, or custom.

The unique features of the Grid settings include approximately 50 diverse parameters of cell appearance: background color, fonts, gradient, cell borders, rounded corners, pictures according to the cell type, standard skins, and much more. In short, you'll be able to alter all the standard drawing methods. And finally, you'll be able to customize cell context menus and use the built-in data editing.

 

Conditional Formatting

Like its predecessor, HierCube, RadarCube supports formatting of the cell content in accordance with its value. Context formatting can be applied to a selected area or to the whole Grid. There are different variants of formatting: you can change the background color, draw bar charts within cells, or make other amends.

 

RadarCube API

The RadarCube core has a detailed and well documented API which allows you to perform any OLAP-slice modifications from within your application, obtain information about any Cube or Grid cell no matter if it is actually displayed in the current Grid report. You can create your own aggregation functions with event handlers; define your own functions for calculating dimension members, define your own sorting and context filtering methods. We can surely describe RadarCube as a perfect tool to create OLAP-reports of any complexity.

 

Our Policy for Developers

RadarCube is royalty free (of course, if you don't use it to create your components for resale and are stuck to the License Agreement). By purchasing RadarCube you get the right to download new versions within a year from the purchase date, get free tech support, and a discount for purchasing our products. If for some reason you're not satisfied with the quality of the product, you can get your money back within 30 days from the purchase date.

 

Key Features: Cube Definition
  • One or several tables/views /stored procedures described in a DataSet object can be used as a data sourse. Data fetching can be sped up by using the components implementing the IDbCommand and IDataReader interfaces.
  • A standard aggregation functions set (including Sum, Count, Distinct Count, Min, Max, Biased or Unbiased Variance, Median, etc.) is avaliable. Custom aggregation functions are possible to make.
  • Numbers, strings or dates can be used as measure values.
  • Grouping of measures is supported.
  • Three types of hierarchies:
    • Parent-child hierarchies (both balanced and unbalanced);
    • Multilevel hierarchies (both regular and ragged);
    • Mixed from all previous types.
  • Building calculated measures, dimensions, hierarchies and hierarchy levels from the fact table rows as well as from the rows of any related dimension table.
  • Creation of additional calculated measures using the values of other cube cells.
  • Calculated members of hierarchies.
  • Hierarchy attributes which store additional information about hierarchy members.
  • Auto conversion of the DateTime fields into multilevel hierarchies. Custom conversion algorithms can be used.

Key features: Data Visualization
  • Unicode support.
  • Simultaneous display of several different measures in the Grid.
  • Simultaneous drilling down based on different parameters: up to the nearest child, up to the next level, up to the next hierarchy.
  • Saving and restoring the current OLAP-slice.
  • Hierarchy members grouping (including multilevel and parent-child hierarchies).
  • Separate sorting on different hierarchy levels. Possibility to override any sorting method.
  • Ascending or descending sorting based on the cell values in any column of the Grid.
  • Filtering of hierarchy members with or without applying these filters to the OLAP calculations.
  • Auto filtering of the hierarchy members depending on their values in the Grid. Major/minor members selection, either based on their rank or on the Pareto principle.
  • Display in the Grid not only the values of the measures but also value percentage in totals, subtotals, or grand totals. A possibility to create your own context-sensitive rules for measure displaying.
  • Placing pictures into Grid cells, and automatic positioning of pictures and texts within cells, depending on the parameters defined by a programmer.
  • The full control over any Grid cells contents, ability of custom drawing within cells.
  • Adjustable context menus in the Grid.
  • Replacing hierarchy members by drag-n-dropping them within the Grid.
  • Auto sizing of cells depending on their contents.
  • Editing OLAP data directly in the Grid.
  • The IListSource interface implementation. A feature which allows OLAP Grid to be used as a data source for other NET components working with data (for example, Chart or export components).
  • Flexible export to MS Excel, HTML, GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP, CSV, TXT, PDF formats.
  • Easy localization, even of the evaluation version.
Related links

Download the evaluation version


Download the demo application


RadarCube library benchmarks


Versions history


RadarCube WinForms for MS Analysis


License agreement


OLAP Grid Users Guide


Screenshots
RadarCube Windows Forms OLAP control in action: Office 2003 style

RadarCube Windows Forms OLAP control in action: Office 2003 style
 

Cube editor of the RadarCube control

Cube editor of the RadarCube control: supports schemas "Star", "Snowflake", Parent-Child relations, the DateTime fields auto transformation to multilevel hierarchies and much more
 

Conditional formatting

Conditional formatting
 

OLAP Grid editor of the RadarCube control

The OLAP Grid visual properties editor: approximately 10 nested skins, as well as more than 50 tuning parameters of the Grid cells interface are able to give to a component any "look and feel"
 

Pictires within OLAP Grid cells

OLAP Grid allows displaying in cells whatever you need. At that, the Grid cells sizes are automatically slaved to the contents size
 

Complex OLAP report

Unique features of RadarCube allow building the OLAP-reports of the exceptional level of complexity. On a given picture, in the row area, hierarchies of two types are placed: Parent-Child and multilevel. The Parent-child hierarchy is opened in a tree-like mode
 

Old style of pivot panels

OLAP Grid supports two ways of pivot-panels placing: standard (as shown on a given picture) and economical (see previous picture)
 

RadarCube context menus

The RadarCube context menus system: convenient key to its features. Context menu appears on any RadarCube cell displaying only those items which may be useful in this case. There is a feature of programming editing of the context menu contents
 

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