LOGIN | REGISTER NOW | SUBSCRIBE
 
print Printable version 
Most Read Latest News Blog Resources
Does Windows cost Microsoft opportunities?
Microsoft's decision to focus .NET on Windows is stifling innovation due to the specter of...

Mono brings .NET to Android
At Microsoft MIX, Mono will unveil the ability to port .NET applications to the Android op...

OSBC focus turns to best practices for open-source adoption
Businesses are no longer asking why they should adopt, but how do they use open source leg...

Digg!  Digg
Reddit  Reddit
Slashdot  Slashdot
Share on facebook  Facebook
Share on Twitter  Twitter

XBRL support arrives in Altova's MissionKit 2009


By David Worthington
February 6, 2009 — 
Altova delivered this week MissionKit 2009, a suite of database, UML and XML tools. In addition to that, Altova has added Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) support across its products.

MissionKit is comprised of new versions of Altova's DatabaseSpy query and design tool, DiffDog merge utility, MapForce data mapping tool, StyleVision graphical stylesheet design utility, UModel Unified Modeling Language tool, and XMLSpy XML editor.

Out of those products, MapForce, StyleVision and XMLSpy offer support for viewing, editing, validating, mapping and publishing XBRL data.

XBRL is an emerging XML-based standard to define and exchange business and financial performance information, and XBRL International, a not-for-profit consortium, governs it. Governments, including the United States, have mandated its use for corporate filings.

Altova's objective is to provide developers and database administrators with tools to work with XBRL data from various angles, said Alexander Falk, president and CEO of Altova. XMLSpy has a visual taxonomy editor for creating XBRL-based filings, and MapForce derives XBRL from accounting data to produce reports.

Taxonomies in XBRL provide a set of tags that represent Generally Accepted Accounting Principles for financial reporting.

"Our approach [with MapForce] is a little different than standard XBRL tools," which tag financial reports as an afterthought, Falk said. "That is fundamentally the wrong approach.

"Organizations have all their accounting data stored … Why not take that and directly derive XBRL from it, and then generate the report?" he posited. "Inherently, the tagging of existing files as an afterthought is labor intensive, even if tools automate part of it."

Altova also adjusted how StyleVision designs tables for the presentation of XBRL data, he said. It can output the reports into HTML, PDF, RTF and Word 2007 (Office Open XML) formats.

All of Altova's products now support the XLink and XPointer languages for creating hyperlinks in XML documents as a consequence of supporting XBRL, Falk noted.

Other improvements in the suite include functionality for working with the Health Level 7 (HL7) standard in MapForce, new database differencing capabilities in DatabaseSpy and DiffDog, and sequence diagram generation in UModel.

MapForce supports HL7 in anticipation of the new U.S. Presidential Administration's "huge push" to automate healthcare records, said Falk. It implements HL7 version 3.0 and its previous Electronic Database Interchange-based versions.

DatabaseSpy and DiffDog are now capable of comparing and merging database content; individual tables or multiple database tables within a schema can be compared regardless of the database type. Differences can be merged implicitly, said Falk, who added that comparing database content can be a good way to uncover why an application may work in a staging environment but not a production environment.

Lastly, the sequence diagramming feature in UModel permits developers reverse engineer source code that is written in C#, Java or Visual Basic.


Related Search Term(s): Altova, XBRL


Share this link: http://www.sdtimes.com/link/33253
 

Add comment


Name*
Email*  
Country     


  • Comment
  • Preview
Loading



 
 
 
 
News on Monday
more>>
SharePoint Tech Report
more>>


   

 
 
Download Current Issue
ISSUE 3/15/2010 PDF

Need Back Issues?
DOWNLOAD HERE

Receive the print Edition?


 
blogs tab
Google Code turns 5
Google Code Turns 5, and adds a Paxos Algorithm to make the system more stable and reliable.
03/17/2010 11:16 AM EST

Test your Visual Studio 2010 know-how
Microsoft is offering free beta certification exams for Visual Studio 2010.
03/17/2010 11:08 AM EST

Microsoft lifts the hood on IE9
Microsoft is previewing IE9.
03/16/2010 01:10 PM EST

 

Events calendar tab
EclipseCon
3/22/2010 to 3/25/2010
Santa Clara, Calif.
The Eclipse Foundation

DevConnections
4/12/2010 to 4/14/2010
Las Vegas
Penton Media

MySQL Conf. and Expo
4/12/2010 to 4/15/2010
Santa Clara, Calif.
O'Reilly Media

High Performance Computing Linux Financial Markets
4/19/2010
New York City
Flagg Management

Informix User Conf.
4/25/2010 to 4/28/2010
Overland Park, Kans.
IIUG