HUGE update to Jet Data Manger

The new update to Jet Data Manager is finally here and Harry L., the lead KB article writer over at Jet Reports, www.jetreports.com, has been super prolific in documenting the updates!  Side bar: the Change Log hasn't been updated yet, but I'll post about it as soon as it does.

If you're on an older build of JDM (anything less than 17.5) today is the day to update because the features and performance improvements are HUGE.

There are a grip of new KB articles but I'll just share the ones I think most relevant to me and my Jet Enterprise clients:

• Improvements in Conditional Lookups (the red fields).  Side bar:  they FINALLY removed the manual index generation option.  (not sure why that ever existed in the first place!)   Moving forward indexes will auto-generate to support conditional lookup performance.  That said, it never hurts to use tools like the Database Engine Tuning Advisor to see if there are other indexes you can create to optimize custom views and transformations.
• Better Handling of Null-value Type II Fields.  Slowly Changing Dimensions in JDM got a much needed overhaul to improve usability and legibility.  If you don't know what SCDs are, read the following articles straight from the grand-daddy's of dimensional modeling Ralph Kimball and Margy Ross.  (SCD 1,  SCD 2 and 3, and SCD 0, 4, 5, 6
  
• More Options for Delete Handling (related to SCDs)
• Type 0 Fields on History Enabled Tables (related to SCDs)
• Using SQL Azure.  As more organizations are moving their infrastructure into the cloud, JDM being limited to on prem databases was a challenge, BUT NO MORE!

If most of these articles are greek to you, that's fine, give me a holler at Jae@OnyxReporting.com, or open a chat window and I'd be more than happy to give a free assessment as to whether the upgrade to JDM 17.5 is appropriate for you!