Whats the story with Toucan Reporter 2007?

Since releasing Bambuco in November, I've been working on getting the next version of Toucan Reporter ready. We're getting pretty close I think. We've had a major rethink about how people use Toucan Reporter. Initially, I thought teams would have one or two 'reporting experts' on them who would design and (crucially) generate reports to be use by others both inside the team and outside of it. The design reflected that use.

Turns out, that isn't what people really do, or not all of them anyway. There are two camps of users - report designers and people who want to see the reports right now without needing anyone else. To accommodate these two groups, Toucan Reporter 2007 has two modes of working - Designer mode and 'Just gimme the report preview' mode where the designer is hidden. Of course, you can switch between these two modes dynamically.

The other big change is that the new version is a proper multi-document application. There's a proper menu with File|Open, and all reports share the same parent window and menu. We've also taken out some of the more obscure report settings, favoring ease of use over customizability.

There's some other new stuff coming - better rendering to text documents, much nicer PDF output, full-screen previews and a new report wizard which makes it a lot easier to create multi-table reports.

We are going to be a more generous with the free version. It will work 100% the same as the paid-for version except that it will only print if you've less than fifty records in your Groove Forms tool. You'll get all the same access to the wizard, all the same export formats and all the same report features while you're getting used to Toucan Reporter, and I hope you'll be able to make the decision to put it into production use much more easily as a result.

Right now, the plan is to go with a public beta in the second week of January, which will close at the end of the month. At that point, there will be a price increase to $100. Anyone who buys during the beta period pay the old price of $70. Existing customers will of course get the new version for free.

Toucan Navigate 3 - a sneak preview?

While we've been adding some new features to the next version of Toucan Navigate, the GIS world hasn't been standing still. The explosion of interest in GIS, engendered by WorldWind and Google Earth hasn't gone unnoticed, neither here nor at Microsoft.

While Toucan Navigate 2007 will maintain its high-speed two dimensional view of the world for most things, we're thinking of incorporating Microsofts new 'SpaceLand' 3D mapping engine for those that need it.

Here's a screenshot. It also gives you an idea where we're going with Toucan Navigate 2007. We've got some other surprises planned, so stay tuned!

Introducing Bambuco

We've been involved in a few larger Groove implementations now and one common theme has been how important it is to be able to integrate Groove with other systems. Sometimes this is just a one-off import from a database, but mostly it is making Groove Spaces work as a part of a larger, ongoing business process. For example:

• Importing customer and contract information from a corporate database into a forms tool that a field sales teams uses to guide their customers through a contract renewal process,
  
• Building new spaces when a natural disaster strikes
  
• Copying data out of Groove for searching and indexing.

After writing a few very job-specific tools for jobs like the above, we decided to take it one step further and build a tool that takes our understanding of the Groove platform and make it available to anyone who needs it, Bambuco combines our understanding of Groove, Microsofts .NET runtime and the Boo scripting language to create a simple, consistent and well documented approach to integrating Groove with other systems.

Here's an example of a Bambuco script.

class FilesToolDemo (GrooveScript):

def Main():

try:

space = Groove.GetSpace("Bambuco Samples")

filesTool = space.GetFilesTool("Files")

ListFolderContents (filesTool.Root, 0)

except e:

print "problem: ${e.Message}"

def ListFolderContents (folder, depth as int):

depth++;

// \t is the tab character. When you multiply a string by a number you end up

// with the string duplicated that many times. We use this to increase the

// depth of the printed tree of folders and files.

tabs = "\t" * depth

print "${tabs}[${folder.Name}]"

for file in folder.Files:

print "${tabs}${file.Name}"

for subFolder in folder.Folders:

ListFolderContents(subFolder, depth)

This script lists all the files in a given files tool.While the programming langage specifics might not be familiar to you, we've had a positive reception from people used to working with Excel or Access macros.

1. The first two lines define the script name and the main procedure for the script.
   
2. After that we get a Groove Space and get a files tool from it.
   
3. Then we jump to another procedure called ListFolderContents which follows the Main procedure
   
4. ListFolderContents prints out a message and then lists all the files in the folder.
   
5. After that it lists all the contents of the folders within this folder.

Easy :-)

Clearly this example isn't very userful - you're very unlikely to have a space called "Bambuco Samples" after all, but there's a great deal more power available and preliminary documentation in the Bambuco Developer Center. Let us know if you want a demo!

Toucan Reporter Activation Server problems?

We've been making some changes to our web site and to a new host, and our original hosting provider have also been making some changes to the internet addresses assigned to particualr machines. Make a long story short, you may not be able to access the license activation server for Toucan Reporter immediately after you receive your license keys from our e-commerce server. If you get an error message "site unreachable" or similar, do not despair - you can still activate your copy of Toucan Reporter (1.0 and 1.5), by following the steps below:

Open a web browser and go to http://216.128.15.73/ActivateLicense.aspx?Productcode=TR-PRO
A page will appear - the title bar will say "Activate license".
Enter the details required - name, email and license code, which you'll need to copy from the original email, and press the "Email me my activation key" button.
Check your email - you'll get a message from the activation system with a very short activation code.
Run TR and press the "Activate License" option. Enter your email, license key (the long one) and activation code (the short one), and press OK.
This is pretty much all that the automatic process did for you anyhow.

Toucan Navigate and Bambuco licenses are unaffected.

Connecting your GPS to Groove

We've developed a task-tray application to connect your GPS to Groove. It improves on the connection in Toucan Navigate 2.1 in a number of ways:

• Talks direct to Groove Forms rather than the Toucan Navigate app. This means it can work even when the Groove UI is closed.
  
• Transparently connects and re-connects to USB/Bluetooth GPS Units.
  
• Uses our 'Bambuco' scripting technology to make it easy to create flexible GPS apps.

It was used to good effect in the Strong Angel 3 exercises last week where we created a script to additionally generate SSE (Simple Sharing Extensions) data that was uploaded to a central server.

Existing Toucan Navigate customers can get a version now - contact Mark or Gabe.

Ten Long Term Lessons from Strong Angel 3

Here it is - ten long-term lessons learned during one of the most memorable experiences of my professional career. Strong Angel 3 is the second demonstration for us, but the first participating onsite.

1. Lead by example. As stated by the high ranking official from the Afghanistan government participating in the exercise, moral leadership is irreplaceable. Dr. Eric Rasmussen, with his amazing human qualities, accomplishments and real world experience in disasters worldwide was our leader this past week. He has earned the utmost admiration and respect not only from all the participants but from many people around the globe.
   
2. Listen to those who know. Once the Incident Command Post was established, Carla Boyce, (Information and Plans Chief at Florida Dept of Emergency Management), acted as Deputy Incident Commander and conducted daily operations and briefings. Carla received an outstanding ovation from the executive committee and all the participants for her accomplishments in this role at SA3. Her domain expertise was indispensable toward getting the job done and her requirements were translated into deliverables. In summary, subject-matter expertise continues to drive requirements.
   
3. Collaborate. The challenge of quickly assembling useful artifacts (otherwise known as STWs) to support any operation can only be accomplished by working together with others who complement one’s knowledge. Collaboration between teams who usually compete fiercely in the marketplace produced amazing results in very short timeframes.
   
4. Stop, Drop and Roll. We were guests to San Diego’s Fire Rescue Department, yet none of us seemed to remember that simple lesson we learned from fire fighters as children. Instinctively, everyone turned on their computer immediately and acted as we usually do under normal situations. Disasters are anything but normal and we quickly learned that it would take some time and plenty of effort from the communications experts to restore connectivity. We all had to stop (trying to connect to the internet), drop (our laptops) and roll out of our designated areas until communications were restored. This forced us to spend time discussing concepts that were later put to good use.
   
5. Leave something behind. Dr. Eric reiterated this to all at the daily briefings – “leave something behind” for the San Diego Fire Dept. This surely applies to everyday life and many circumstances.
   
6. Debrief, debrief, debrief. A cardinal rule for field teams during disasters, this means, let your superior know what you’ve done, call home to let others know you’re OK and in general, share what you’ve learned with others.
   
7. Think outside the box. Some boxes include our profession, our country, our language and our beliefs. Much was discussed about how our behavior can have a negative effect on populations we are trying to help. Much effort is required in order to understand the true needs of others.
   
8. Value and maintain relationships. The SA community has created significant bonds between many of its participants. I was very fortunate to spend some time with my friends Sanjana and Rob, to get reacquainted with many others with whom we’ve worked with and develop new ones - very rewarding.
   
9. Get involved. Many of the participants are amazing people who continue to actively engage in activities that make a difference in other people’s lives, in addition to their daily professional and personal responsibilities. Much to learn from many of the folks there.
   
10. Take a moment to thank others. A big thank you Dr. Rasmussen and all the participants and observers of Strong Angel 3.

GrooveForms.com now live

Many of the questions listed on the Groove support forums related to a common set of issues. I've created a small web site at http://www.grooveforms.com to hold answers to the most common questions. If you have a question about Groove Forms (or anything else Groove related), please ask - mark.smith@infopatterns.net