Hi Developers!

Here're the technology bonuses for the InterSystems Interoperability Contest 2021 that will give you extra points in the voting:

• Business Process BPL or Business Rule DTL Usage
• Custom Interoperability Adapter Usage
• Production EXtension(PEX) Java or .NET usage
• Workflow Engine usage
• Docker container usage
• ZPM Package deployment
• Online Demo
• Code Quality pass
• Article on Developer Community
• Video on YouTube

See the details below.

Hi folks!

Sometimes we need to import data into InterSystems IRIS from CSV. It can be done e.g. via csvgen tool that generates a class and imports all the data into it.

But what if you already have your own class and want to import data from CSV into your existing table?

There are numerous ways to do that but you can use csvgen (or csvgen-ui) again! I prepared and and example and happy to share. Here we go!

Hi Developers!

We had a set of technology bonuses for the InterSystems IRIS Analytics contest.

And here is how projects collected it:

Hi Developers!

Here're the technology bonuses for the InterSystems Analytics contest that will give you extra points in the voting.

Adaptive Analytics (AtScale) Cubes usage - 4 points
InterSystems Adaptive Analytics provides the option to create and use AtScale cubes for analytics solutions.

You can use the AtScale server we set up for the contest (URL and credentials can be collected in the Discord Channel) to use cubes or create a new one and connect to your IRIS server via JDBC.

The visualization layer for your Analytics solution with AtScale can be crafted with Tableau, PowerBI, Excel, or Logi.

Documentation, AtScale documentation

Training

Hi Community and InterSystems Partners!

We are glad to share great news for Intersystems Partner Directory Members:
here is a list of services you can use to become more visible within our InterSystems Community.

As a partner, you may order one of the services every six months free of charge:

$1,000 Google AdWords Campaign Voucher
We will set up and launch the campaign for you

Promotion within the Developer Ecosystem
We put a banner on the website with 50K+ monthly InterSystems related audience

Webinar supported by InterSystems
We will take care of all the organizational efforts.

Hi developers!

How to build an analytics solution with InterSystems IRIS?

To begin with, let's agree on the points of what is the analytics solution - and this could be a very wide topic. Let's limit the set of solutions to those you can present in the Analytics contest.

There are three kinds of analytics solutions that we will review here: monitoring, interactive analytics, and reporting. 

Monitoring

The typical monitoring solution consists of an online dashboard with KPIs that are being actively updated.

The key use case is of monitoring is to visually observe the KPI of fresh data every moment to react in case of an emergency.

Interactive Analytics

This solution supposes a set of interactive dashboards with filters and drill-downs.

The key use case is to explore the data with filters and drill-downs making business decisions upon graph and table data visualization.

Reporting

Reporting solution provides a set of static (usually) reports in a form of HTML or pdf documents that deliver the data in graph and text form in a predesigned form and could be sent via email.

The typical use case of a reporting system is to obtain reports on a given period that will illustrate the status of the product, process, service, sales, etc that is crucial for the business.

How InterSystems products could be used to build such solutions? Let's discuss this below!

Hi developers!

Do you know a CRM that is built with InterSystems IRIS or Caché or Ensemble on a backend?

Hi developers!

Just want to share an old but always relevant best practice on namespaces changing @Dmitry Maslennikov shared with me (again).

Consider method:

classmethod DoSomethingInSYS() as %Status

{

set sc=$$$OK

set ns=$namespace

zn "%SYS"

// try-catch in case there will be an error

try {

// do something, e.g. config change

}

catch {}

 zn ns    ; returning back to the namespace we came in the routine

return sc

}

And with new $namespace the method could be rewritten as:

classmethod DoSomethingInSYS() as %Status

{

set sc=$$$OK

new $namespace

set $namespace="%SYS"

// do something

return sc

}

So! The difference is that we don't need to change the namespace manually as it will be back automatically once we return the method.

and we don't need try-catch (at least for this purpose) too.

Hi folks!

Is there a way (function) to know the name of the database for data of the current namespace?

I take the case where we have one database for data and another database for code in a namespace.

Thanks!

Hi folks!

Want to share a lifehack with you on ObjectScript highlighiting withing VSCode for script files.

Script files are just files with lines of ObjectScript that we feed anywhere, e.g. into IRIS during Docker baking procedure.

Typical usecase - here is the Scriptfile

here is the Dockerfile where we feed it.

And here is how it looks like usually in VSCode:

Coudl be more beautiful, right?

Hi Developers!

InterSystems IRIS online documentation is temporarily available here.

UPD: https://docs.intersystems.com/ is available.

Hi Developers!

Currently, we are experiencing technical issues with DC sign-in - you may not be able to sign in and contribute to the Developer Community.

Our engineers are already working to solve the issue, so we are committed to restoring service quickly.

To stay in touch, let's continue our tech talks on InterSystems Developers Discord Server 👈

Thank you for your patience!

Hey Developers,

We are excited to announce the launch of the InterSystems Partner Directory!

This is the place to go to find commercial services and solutions built on InterSystems products.

Why InterSystems Partner Directory?

I need to turn off Journalling for a particular database programmatically.

How can I make it happen?

Sometimes you when create a pivot in Analyzer and see the result that shouldn't exist - don't run to create a WRC ticket, try to call the IRIS BI reset function first:

d $System.DeepSee.Reset(1)

And in many cases this will solve the problem.

And if it doesn't help, create a WRC ticket )

Hi Developers!

We had a set of technology bonuses for the InterSystems AI/ML contest.

And here is how projects collected it:

Hi folks!

How do you edit data in IRIS or Caché? What do you use?

Change globals directly via Management Portal?

Change data using SQL?

Use your favorite dev tool? Which one?

Crafted your own?

Share your experience, please?

Hi Developers!

Here're the technology bonuses for the InterSystems IRIS AI contest that will give you extra points in the voting.

IntegratedML usage - 4 points

Use InterSystems IntegratedML in you AI/ML solution. Here is the template that uses it.

Be sure that the IRIS version is not less than 2021. The latest ML images with ZPM are:

intersystemsdc/iris-ml-community:2021.1.0.215.0-zpm

intersystemsdc/irishealth-ml-community:2021.1.0.215.0-zpm

R Gateway and Python gateway usage - 4 points

InterSystems IRIS 2021 release contains two new features - R gateway and Python gateway. Here is the template on how to use the R gateway. Here is a short demo of how to use it.

Embedded Python usage - 4 points

Embedded Python is a very new feature of InterSystems IRIS that gives you the option to use python as a "first-class citizen" in backend business logic development with InterSystems classes. Short demo of Embedded Python.

Embedded python could be used in "on-demand" images that could be delivered via InterSystems Early Access Program (EAP) if you refer to python-interest@intersystems.com.

Here is the template package on how to use Embedded Python deployable with ZPM. Don't forget to change the image to the one you get from the Early Access program.

PMML usage - 4 points

PMML  - Predictive Modelling Markup Language - can be used to build AI/ML solutions with InterSystems IRIS. Check with documentation.

There is an example in Open Exchange on how to use PMML.

Hi folks!

Here is how I grant SQL access of user to a particular class/table:

GRANT SELECT, UPDATE ON Packacge_X.Table_Y TO UserZ

How can I grant SQL access of a certain user to a whole schema?

Hi colleagues!

Is there a way to export globals in XML if I have the access to Management Portal or any other web app?

Currently, it gives the option to export into gof format only.

Hi colleagues!

Often when we collaborate to someone's repo in GitHub we do the following cycle:

Fork-Clone-Change-Commit-Push-Pull-Request-Merge to the original repo.

This is all great and works fine!

And if we want to make a second collaboration right after the merge you need to perform "Fetch upstream" to your forked repo first to "ingest" your own Pull-request in the original repo.

Geeky git-professionals do it with ease but this was always a headache for me so I usually simply deleted the fork and created a new one.

And today I figured that Github added a new UI feature that I can easily fetch-upstream for my fork with the original one and make it up to date and capable for pull-requests.

Here is where the button is:

This is a relief! )

Wanted to share this relief and productivity tip with you!

Bring more collaborations to Github repos!

And speaking of PR - I just made a PR with docker to Google Cloud Run deployment for the FHIRaaS demo made by @Anton Umnikov for the current FHIR Contest! Looking for more of your contributions!

Hi Developers!

We had a set of technology bonuses for the InterSystems IRIS Developer Tools contest.

And here is how projects collected it:

Hi All!

Examining the page here I see we have one-to-many and parent-child relationships supported in the InterSystems Objects model.

Do we support one-to-one too?

Hi Developers!

Here're the technology bonuses for the InterSystems Developer Tools Contest that will give you extra points in the voting.

Docker container usage - 2 points

The application gets a 'Docker container' bonus if it uses InterSystems IRIS  running in a docker container. Here is the simplest template to start from.

ZPM Package deployment - 2 points

You can collect the bonus if you build and publish the ZPM(ObjectScript Package Manager) package for your Full-Stack application so it could be deployed with:

zpm "install your-multi-model-solution"

command on IRIS with ZPM client installed. 

ZPM client. Documentation.

Unit Testing - 2 points

Applications that have Unit Testing for the InterSystems IRIS code will collect the bonus.

Learn more about ObjectScript Unit Testing in Documentation and on Developer Community.

Online Demo of your project - 3 points
Collect 3 more bonus points if you provision your project to the cloud as an online demo. You can use this template or any other deployment option. Example. Learn more on deployment in Monday's Kick-Off webinar.

Code quality analysis with zero bugs - 2 points

Include the code quality Github action for code static control and make it show 0 bugs for ObjectScript. Learn more in Monday's Kick-Off webinar.

Article on Developer Community - 2 points

Post an article on Developer Community that describes features of your project. Collect 2 points for each article. Translations to different languages work too.

Video on YouTube - 3 points

Make the Youtube video that demonstrates your product in action and collect 3 bonus points per each. Example.

The list of bonuses is subject to change. Stay tuned!

E.g. I want to add a button on a widget that will rebuild the cube when clicked. 

How can I make it happen?

Hi Developers!

Recently we are getting a lot of requests on how to become an active and helpful member of the InterSystems Developer Community.

The terms are very simple:

Hi Developers!

Thank you for using ZPM Package Manager and contributing more and more useful packages to the public registry!

But as you already aware ZPM packages are always deployed with source code.

Do you think we need to add the option to deploy without source code - e.g. if you want to deploy a commercial package?

Will you develop commercial modules if there will be an option and deploy it with ZPM?

How do you deploy commercial applications today?

Hi Developers!

We had a set of technology bonuses for the InterSystems Grand Prix contest.

Hi folks!

Sometimes when we develop a mockup or PoC there is a need for a simple interface that will provide data in IRIS in JSON against SQL queries.

And recently I contributed a simple module that does exactly that:

accepts SQL string and returns the JSON.

How to install? Just call:

zpm "install sql-rest"

If you install it in a namespace X it will setup a /sql endpoint to your system that will accept POST requests with SQL string and will return the result for you for the data available in the namespace X.

Hi developers!

Recently we announced the preview of Embedded Python technology in InterSystems IRIS.

Check the Sneak Peak video by @Robert.Kuszewski.

Embedded python gives the option to load and run python code in the InterSystems IRIS server. You can either use library modules from Python pip, like numpy, pandas, etc, or you can write your own python modules in the form of standalone py files.

So once you are happy with the development phase of the IRIS Embedded Python solution there is another very important question of how the solution could be deployed.

One of the options you can consider is using the ZPM Package manager which is described in this article.