Advanced ETL Processor FAQ

1) What is Advanced ETL Processor?

Advanced ETL Processor is designed to automate extracting data from ANY database, transform, validate it and load into ANY database . Typical usage of it would be extract data from Excel File,Validate Date Formats, Sort data, deduplicate it and load it into Oracle database, run stored procedure or Sql script, once loading is completed. Unlike Oracle SQL loader, BCP,  DTS or SSIS Advanced ETL Processor can also add new and update old records based on primary key.

2) What does ETL stands for?

Think of it as housecleaning for your data. ETL stands for extract, transform, and load. ETL is software that enables businesses to consolidate their disparate data while moving it from place to place, and it doesn't really matter that that data is in different forms or formats. The data can come from any source. ETL is powerful enough to handle such data disparities.

For example, a financial institution might have information on a customer in several departments and each department might have that customer's information listed in a different way. The membership department might list the customer by name, whereas the accounting department might list the customer by number. ETL can bundle all this data and consolidate it into a uniform presentation, such as for storing in a database or data warehouse.

3) What are the requirements for Advanced ETL Processor installation?
 

 Note:
   Depending on the Requirements you may or may not need to have all components installed

4) Which Data sources are supported?

Advanced ETL Processor works directly with following data sources

Multiple Delimited or Fixed width Text files
Multiple Excel files + Multiple Excel Spreadsheets (3.0-2007)
Multiple MS Access Databases (95-2007)
Multiple DBF/FoxPro Files
Any ODBC source
Multiple Tables

5) Which target databases are supported?

Advanced ETL Processor works directly with following data targets

Delimited or Fixed width Text file
MS Access Database (95-2007)
Microsoft Excel File (3.0-2007)
DBF File
ODBC source (Using ODBC API)
Oracle 7-10G database (using OCI API)
SQL server 7- 2008 (using BCP API)
ODBC source (Using ODBC API)

Oracle
 
There are two ways of loading available:

Oracle direct path loading
Conventional path

SQL server

This software uses the same API as Microsoft DTS service.

6) What about data validation?

Latest version of Advanced ETL Processor has 190 Validation Functions including String Validation, Number Validation, Date Validation, Time Validation, Validation Against list of values, Regular Expressions: Post codes, Phone Numbers, VAT Numbers ETC.
In fact you can create your own validation rules using regular expressions

7) What kind of data transformations is supported?

There are currently 36 Transformation Functions such as String Transformation, Number Transformation, Date Transformation.
It is also possible write your own transformations

8) Is it possible to sort and group data?

Ans. Yes, Advanced ETL Processor supports Sorting, Grouping, Deduplication,
Translating coded values (e.g., if the source system stores 1 for male and 2 for female, but the warehouse stores M for male and F for female)
Deriving a new calculated value (e.g., sale amount = qty * unit price)
Joining together data from multiple fields
Summarizing multiple rows of data (e.g., total sales for each store, and for each region)
Generating surrogate key values
Transposing or pivoting (turning multiple columns into multiple rows or vice versa)
Splitting a column into multiple columns (e.g., putting a comma-separated list specified as a string in one column as individual values in different columns)

9) Is it possible to load data from one file into two different tables?

Ans. Yes, it is possible.

10) What is the quickest way to learn how to use Advanced ETL Processor.

The best way to do it is watch flash demo

11) Can I use Advanced ETL Processor to transfer data from one Oracle Version to Another Oracle Version?

 Ans. Yes, you can use Advanced ETL Processor to load data from one Oracle version to another Oracle Version.

 12) Is there any limit on number of rows, which Advanced ETL Processor can process?

 Ans. No, Advanced ETL Processor can be used to load millions of rows.  There are also no limitations in The Trail version

 13) Is there any way for filtering source records?

 Ans. Yes, you can filter rows while loading from MySQL, Oracle, MS-Access, MS-SQL Server, Foxpro Database source to any other Target Database or Text file.

You can write where clause or you can use Advanced ETL Processor validation rules.  

 14) I have several Files with same structure is it possible to load them in one go?

 Ans. Yes Advanced ETL Processor can load data from multiple text files, tables, MS Access Databases and Excel Files 

 15) I am planning to load data from table with several millions of rows. I tried several tools and noticed that they will use all the memory and eventually fail. Is there such problem with Advanced ETL Processor?

 Ans. No, Amount of memory used by Advanced ETL Processor does not depend on number of records processed.

 16) Is it possible to truncate table before loading data into it?

 Ans. Yes you can run a sql script before and after loading data.

 17) Is it possible to add data into existing text file?

Ans. Yes you can specify weather you want to add data to the existing file or overwrite it.

18) Is there any way to run Advanced ETL Processor script from the command line?

 Ans. Yes,  it is possible, just run AdvancedETL.exe yourscriptname

 19) What kind of Date Formats are supported?

 Ans. Date Formats in Advanced ETL Processor are user definable, for more information please consult user manual.

 20) Is it possible to run customised data transformation in Advanced ETL Processor?

 Ans. Date Formats in Visual Importer are user definable, for more information please see the list of date formats supported.

 21) How do I resolve data quality issues in Advanced ETL Processor?

 Ans. Advanced ETL Processor generates sophisticated transformation log and rejected records file.

 22) Is it possible to update data using Advanced ETL Processor?

 Ans. Yes, Advanced ETL Processor can update, delete and insert data based on update key, for more information please consult user manual.

 23) Is it possible to load data from pivot tables using Advanced ETL Processor?

 Ans. Yes, Advanced ETL Processor can load data from pivot tables, for more information please consult user manual.

 24) Does Advanced ETL Processor work on Windows Vista?

 Ans. Yes, It does.

 25) What is the difference between standard license and site license?

 Standard license = one user.
 Site license = unlimited number of users within one or group of buildings within one city

 If you have any other questions or problems please contact us and we will be glad to help you.

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