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20 <!DOCTYPE document PUBLIC "-//APACHE//DTD Documentation V1.3//EN" "./dtd/document-v13.dtd">
22 <document>
23 <header>
24 <title>Apache POI - Case Studies</title>
25 <authors>
26 <person id="AO" name="Andrew C. Oliver" email="acoliver@apache.org"/>
27 <person id="CR" name="Cameron Riley" email="crileyNO@SPAMekmail.com"/>
28 </authors>
29 </header>
31 <body>
32 <section>
33 <title>Introduction</title>
34 <p>
35 A number of people are using POI for a variety of purposes. As with
36 any new API or technology, the first question people generally ask
37 is not "how can I" but rather "Who else is doing what I'm about to
38 do?" This is understandable with the abysmal success rate in the
39 software business. These case statements are meant to help create
40 confidence and understanding.
41 </p>
42 </section>
43 <section>
44 <title>Submitting a Case Study</title>
45 <p>
46 We are actively seeking case studies for this page (after all it
47 just started). Andrew C. Oliver (acoliver at apache dot org) has
48 agreed to have a few T-Shirts printed with the POI logo (once its
49 chosen) for the first
50 few best submissions. To submit a case study, either
51 <link href="getinvolved/index.html">
52 submit a patch for this page</link> or email it to the
53 <link href="mailinglists.html">mailing list
54 </link> (with [PATCH] prefixed subject, please).
55 </p>
56 </section>
57 <section>
58 <title>Case Studies</title>
59 <section><title>QuestionPro</title>
60 <p>
61 <link href="http://www.questionpro.com">QuestionPro</link> is an online service allowing businesses and individuals to create, deploy and do in-depth analysis of Online Surveys. The technology is build on open-source frameworks like Struts, Velocity, POI, Lucene ... the List goes on. The application deployment is on a Linux Application Cluster farm with a Mysql database.
62 </p>
63 <p>
64 There are quite a few competitors delivering similar solutions using Microsoft Technologies like asp and .net. One of the distinct advantages our competitors had over us was the ability to generate Excel Spreadsheets, Access Databases (MDB) etc. on the fly using the Component Object Model (COM) - since their servers were running IIS and they had access to the COM registry and such.
65 </p>
66 <p>
67 QuestionPro's initial solution was to generate CSV files. This was easy however it was a cumbersome process for our clients to download the CSV files and then import them into Excel. Moreover, formatting information could not be preserved or captured using the CSV format. This is where POI came to our rescue. With a POI based solution, we could generate a full report with multiple sheets and all the analytical reports. To keep the solution scalable, we had a dedicated cluster for generating out the reports.
68 </p>
69 <p>
71 The Apache-POI project has helped QuestionPro compete with the other players in the marketplace with proprietary technology. It leveled the playing field with respect to reporting and data analysis solutions. It helped in opening doors into closed solutions like Microsoft's CDF. Today about 100 excel reports are generated daily, each with about 10-30 sheets in them.
72 </p>
74 <p>
75 Vivek Bhaskaran
76 </p>
77 <p>
78 <link href="http://www.questionpro.com">QuestionPro, Inc</link>
79 </p>
81 <p>
82 POI In Action - <link href="http://www.questionpro.com/marketing/SurveyReport-289.xls">http://www.questionpro.com/marketing/SurveyReport-289.xls</link>
83 </p>
85 </section>
87 <section><title>Sunshine Systems</title>
88 <p>
89 <link href="http://www.sunshinesys.com/">Sunshine Systems</link> deveveloped a
90 POI based reporting solution for a price optimization software package which
91 is used by major retail chains.
92 </p>
93 <p>The solution allowed the retailer's merchandise planners and managers to request a
94 markdown decision support reports and price change reports using a standard browser
95 The users could specify report type, report options, as well as company,
96 division,
97 and department filter criteria. Report generation took place in the
98 multi-threaded
99 application server and was capable of supporting many simultaneous report requests.
100 </p>
101 <p>The reporting application collected business information from the price
102 optimization
103 application's Oracle database. The data was aggregated and summarized
104 based upon the
105 specific report type and filter criteria requested by the user. The
106 final report was
107 rendered as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet using the POI HSSF API and
108 was stored on
109 the report database server for that specific user as a BLOB. Reports
110 could be
111 seamlessly and easily viewed using the same browser.
112 </p>
113 <p>The retailers liked the solution because they had instantaneous access
114 to critical
115 business data through an extremely easy to use browser interface. They
116 did not need
117 to train the broader user community on all the complexities of the optimization
118 application. Furthermore, the reports were generated in an Excel spreadsheet
119 format,
120 which everyone was familiar with and which also allowed further data
121 analysis using
122 standard Excel features.
123 </p>
124 <p>Rob Stevenson (rstevenson at sunshinesys dot com)
125 </p>
126 </section>
127 <section>
128 <title>Bank of Lithuania</title>
129 <p>
130 The
131 <link href="http://www.lbank.lt/">Bank of Lithuania</link>
132 reports financial statistical data to Excel format using the
133 <link href="http://poi.apache.org/">Apache POI</link>
134 project's
135 <link href="hssf/">
136 HSSF</link> API. The system is based on Oracle JServer and
137 utilizes a Java stored procedure that outputs to XLS format
138 using the HSSF API. - Arian Lashkov (alaskov at lbank.lt)
139 </p>
140 </section>
141 <!-- <section>-->
142 <!-- <title>Bit Tracker by Tracker Inc., and ThinkVirtual</title>-->
143 <!-- <p>-->
144 <!-- Bit Tracker (http://www.bittracker.com/) is the world's first and only web-based drill bit tracking system to manage your company's critical bit information and use that data to its full potential. It manages all bit related data, including their usage, locations, how they were used, and results such as rate of penetration and dull grade after use. This data needs to be available in Excel format for backwards compatibility and other uses in the industry. After using CSV and HTML formats, we needed something better for creating the spreadsheets and POI is the answer. It works great and was easy to implement. Kudos to the POI team.-->
145 <!-- </p>-->
146 <!-- <p>-->
147 <!-- Travis Reeder (travis at thinkvirtual dot com)-->
148 <!-- </p>-->
149 <!-- </section>-->
150 <section>
151 <title>Edwards And Kelcey Technology</title>
152 <p>
153 Edwards and Kelcey Technology (http://www.ekcorp.com/) developed a
154 Facility
155 Managament and Maintenance System for the Telecommunications industry
156 based
157 on Turbine and Velocity. Originally the invoicing was done with a simple
158 CSV
159 sheet which was then marked up by accounts and customized for each client.
160 As growth has been consistent with the application, the requirement for
161 invoices that need not be touched by hand increased. POI provided the
162 solution to this issue, integrating easily and transparently into the
163 system. POI HSSF was used to create the invoices directly from the server
164 in
165 Excel 97 format and now services over 150 unique invoices per month.
166 </p>
167 <p>
168 Cameron Riley (crileyNO@ SPAMekmail.com)
169 </p>
170 </section>
171 <section>
172 <title>ClickFind</title>
173 <p>
174 <link href="http://www.clickfind.com/">ClickFind Inc.</link> used the POI
175 projects HSSF API to provide their medical
176 research clients with an Excel export from their electronic data
177 collection web service Data Collector 3.0. The POI team's assistance
178 allowed ClickFind to give their clients a data format that requires less
179 technical expertise than the XML format used by the Data Collector
180 application. This was important to ClickFind as many of their current
181 and potential clients are already using Excel in their day-to-day
182 operations and in established procedures for handling their generated
183 clinical data. - Jared Walker (jared.walker at clickfind.com)
184 </p>
185 </section>
186 <section>
187 <title>IKAN Software NV</title>
188 <p>In addition to Change Management and Database Modelling, IKAN Software NV
189 (http://www.ikan.be/) develops and supports its own ETL
190 (Extract/Transform/Load) tools.</p>
192 <p>IKAN's latest product is this domain is called ETL4ALL
193 (http://www.ikan.be/etl4all/). ETL4ALL is an open source tool
194 allowing data transfer from and to virtually any data source. Users can
195 combine and examine data stored in relational databases, XML databases, PDF
196 files, EDI, CSV files, etc.
197 </p>
199 <p>It is obvious that Microsoft Excel files are also supported.
200 POI has been used to successfully implement this support in ETL4ALL.</p>
201 </section>
203 </section>
204 </body>
205 <footer>
206 <legal>
207 Copyright (c) @year@ The Apache Software Foundation All rights reserved.
208 $Revision$ $Date$
209 </legal>
210 </footer>
211 </document>