Trying out the Data Diff. Viewer by comparing Excel Tables. The compare seems to work well but was curious if there is any way to save/ export the Data Diff. Viewer results??
The Diff Viewers do not have a save function. However, in the TDA 2.0 Beta we are currently adding a full Data Compare and Sync utility that saves the comparison summary as a project as well as syncronizes the changes. This is still a work in progress in the Beta but you may find it helpful and your input would be appreciated.
Here is link to the Beta: http://www.toadworld.com/DevTeam/ToadforDataAnalysis/tabid/186/Default.aspx
Now I am working with TDA v2.0 Beta, I know I left that out before, I worked with TDA v1.1 for just a short time before joining v2 Beta testing so I’m still getting familiar with some functions. I typically work with Toad for Oracle but wanted to test out TDA for it’s integration into cross platform, more user friendly task scheduler, and it’s reporting.
I am hoping to smooth out the performance and functionality of TDA to justify for the rest of the company to make the switch from Toad for Oracle which runs brilliant.
Is there anymore documentation (User Manual) for some of the functions? Or at the very least if you can give a brief “which button menu/ icon” to save the compare report it would be much appreciated. I have the ‘Getting Started…’ manual which is really an ‘Installation Guide’.
Thnx in advance
The Data Compare and Sync saves the project information as a *.dcp file (data compare project). Use File Save from main menu when you have finsihed a Data Compare.
Using Data Compare and Sync can be used cross platform as well as with Excel. There is some pretty decent documenation in the help file. In the index search for Data Compare. The "create data comparison", "view results", "synchronize data" are the most helpful.
Since Excel comparison is new for this release there is no data in the help file. Here are a few pointers.
- Start Data Compare and Sync from Tools menu. It brings up a wizard.
- You will have needed to connected to the Excel files you want to use in comparison. They con't have to be currently connected but do need to be defined. Use the Excel connection type and just point to the file.
- To do data comparison we are treating the two excel files like two tables that don't have indexes. First you have to define the tables by tell the wizard which worksheet and cell range you want considered as a table. The default is to use sheet1 starting at cell A1. The first wizard page is used for the first table and the second page for the second table.
- The Select Object page is trying to figure out on its own what columns to use as an index. For me this page is slow so wait until it displays the sheets.
- Click on the "column/keys" and bring up a mapping dialog. Here you need to check off the columns you want compare (Left most column) and the columns to be used as an index (right most column). In my Excel files I am comparing two adress lists so I am using all colimns to index.
- On the Select Type page I leave them all checked.
- The last page of the wizard gives you a summary. See first attached screenshot.
- The project viewer allows you to view the data differences, save as project, export summary, or bring up Sycronization Wizard. See second attached screenshot.
- The sychronization Wizard is supports to sync up the source to the target or target to the source. When using a real database it brings up insert statemetns. Here is isn't doing anything just yet. Looks like the team hasn't finished that part just yet. But even the exported comparison is quite valuable. See third attachement. (Woops it wouldn't let me attach the third attachment. I'll see if I can attached to a second posting
Hope this helps.
The Data Compare and Sync saves the project information as a *.dcp file (data compare project). Use File Save from main menu when you have finsihed a Data Compare.
Using Data Compare and Sync can be used cross platform as well as with Excel. There is some pretty decent documenation in the help file. In the index search for Data Compare. The “create data comparison”, “view results”, “synchronize data” are the most helpful.
Since Excel comparison is new for this release there is no data in the help file. Here are a few pointers.
- Start Data Compare and Sync from Tools menu. It brings up a wizard.
- You will have needed to connected to the Excel files you want to use in comparison. They con’t have to be currently connected but do need to be defined. Use the Excel connection type and just point to the file.
- To do data comparison we are treating the two excel files like two tables that don’t have indexes. First you have to define the tables by tell the wizard which worksheet and cell range you want considered as a table. The default is to use sheet1 starting at cell A1. The first wizard page is used for the first table and the second page for the second table.
- The Select Object page is trying to figure out on its own what columns to use as an index. For me this page is slow so wait until it displays the sheets.
- Click on the “column/keys” and bring up a mapping dialog. Here you need to check off the columns you want compare (Left most column) and the columns to be used as an index (right most column). In my Excel files I am comparing two adress lists so I am using all colimns to index.
- On the Select Type page I leave them all checked.
- The last page of the wizard gives you a summary. See first attached screenshot.
- The project viewer allows you to view the data differences, save as project, export summary, or bring up Sycronization Wizard. See second attached screenshot.
- The sychronization Wizard is supports to sync up the source to the target or target to the source. When using a real database it brings up insert statemetns. Here is isn’t doing anything just yet. Looks like the team hasn’t finished that part just yet. But even the exported comparison is quite valuable. See third attachement. (Woops it wouldn’t let me attach the third attachment. I’ll see if I can attached to a second posting
Hope this helps.
Here is the exported Excel Data Compare results from my example.
U1542473_Compare.xls (6.03 KB)
Thank you for the reply! You clearly answered my question with your detailed response.
I look forward to further testing the possibilities of comparing and synchronizing data between different database cross platform. Love the idea and hope to be able to output some usable reports.
Cheers!
Message was edited by: SESEng
Guess what? I found something very cool that is newly added that actaully answers your very first question about saving and comparing using the Data Diff Viewer. In version 2.0 there now is a way to save a result set for future comparison!
There is a new sub menu “Compare To” that has two sub menus. This is available by right clicking from any data grid.
The history items are sorted with the most recent items at the top.
The first sub menu “History” is always available. There are two fixed items in it. Save current will save the contents of the current grid to disk so you can compare it with something at a later date. When you click it you are prompted with a dialog asking for a label (The default label will be the first 40 characters of the query used to populate the grid). See attached. The items between this first item and the last one are the actually saved grid contents. If you select any of these you will immediately get a data diff viewer with the current grid on the left and the selected historical result on the right.
The last item in this menu is the “Clear All” item which removes all saved historical data. Historical data is stored using the current encryption settings (By default just obfuscated, but could be encrypted). The second sub menu from the “Compare To” menu is “Other Results”. This item will list the other tabs of a script result in an editor. Selecting any item in this item will also immediately bring up the data diff viewer with the current grid on the left and the data in the other tab on the right. Finally, when you have more than one editor (see second screenshot) you can get extra sub menus in this tab. So you can compare the results from one editor to what you have in a completely different editor. The tooltip of the items are the SQL used to generate it.
Is that cool or what?
P.S. Special thanks to /Mauritz who is happlily skiing in the Alps at this very moment
Guess what? I found something very cool that is newly added that actaully answers your very first question about saving and comparing using the Data Diff Viewer. In version 2.0 there now is a way to save a result set for future comparison!
There is a new sub menu “Compare To” that has two sub menus. This is available by right clicking from any data grid.
The history items are sorted with the most recent items at the top.
The first sub menu “History” is always available. There are two fixed items in it. Save current will save the contents of the current grid to disk so you can compare it with something at a later date. When you click it you are prompted with a dialog asking for a label (The default label will be the first 40 characters of the query used to populate the grid). See attached. The items between this first item and the last one are the actually saved grid contents. If you select any of these you will immediately get a data diff viewer with the current grid on the left and the selected historical result on the right.
The last item in this menu is the “Clear All” item which removes all saved historical data. Historical data is stored using the current encryption settings (By default just obfuscated, but could be encrypted). The second sub menu from the “Compare To” menu is “Other Results”. This item will list the other tabs of a script result in an editor. Selecting any item in this item will also immediately bring up the data diff viewer with the current grid on the left and the data in the other tab on the right. Finally, when you have more than one editor (see second screenshot) you can get extra sub menus in this tab. So you can compare the results from one editor to what you have in a completely different editor. The tooltip of the items are the SQL used to generate it.
Is that cool or what?
P.S. Special thanks to /Mauritz who is happlily skiing in the Alps at this very moment