Zoho DB and Reports - FAQ
Note: If
you have any questions not covered above that you wish to get answered,
please send them to support@zohodb.com
- Create business and personal Web-based databases to store and
manage data, combined with powerful reporting
- Spreadsheet like interface for simple data manipulation and
navigation
- Supports data import/export from variety of spreadsheet formats
including .xls, .csv and .tsv files
- Supports relating data with each other through lookup columns (as
you have in relational databases)
- Drag
& Drop based reporting & visual analysis of data, with support
for creating Charts, Pivot Tables, Summary Views and Table Views
- Full-fledged SQL (Structured Query Language) based querying of
your database for creating powerful and flexible reports.
- Understands
SQL Queries written in multiple databases dialects - Oracle, SQL
Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Informix and ANSI SQL
- Real-time collaboration by sharing databases, tables & views
in read-only or read-write modes with your friends
- Embed Tables, Views, Charts etc., within your blogs and websites
- Secure database with access from anywhere, anytime over the Web.
- Spreadsheet Users:
- Easy to migrate existing Spreadsheets
- Powerful reporting and analytical (slice & dice)
capabilities
- Easy to Adopt
- Highly Secure
- Offers Collaboration features
- Easy to Maintain (backup, conflict resolution etc., )
- Always accessible Online from anywhere on the Web
- Easy adoption through a Spreadsheet-like interface for
database and reporting creation
- Easy to import your existing tabular data in .XLS, .CSV, .TSV
and other file formats into Zoho DB
- Powerful
drag & drop based reporting features for quick report creation and
to do in-depth analysis of your data. Zoho DB supports charts, pivot
tables, summary and tabular reports
- You can Share & Collaborate your data and reports easily
over the Web
- Highly Secure through user logins
- No Maintenance required
- Available Online-on-the-Web, anytime and anywhere!
- Reporting & Analytics users:
- Web based report creation and publishing
- Powerful & easy to use reporting
- Slice & Dice analytical capabilities
- Powerful Querying capabilities
- Easy Collaboration features
- Accessible online anytime and anywhere
on the Web
- Complete Web based database to store your data
- Powerful drag & drop based reporting features for quick
report creation and publishing.
- Visual Analysis capability for in-depth analysis and to slice
& dice your data.
- Supports charts, pivot tables, summary and tabular reports
- SQL
(Structured Query Language) driven querying of powerful report
creation. You could provide your SQL queries written in any of the
familiar database dialects, including Oracle, SQL Server, IBM DB2,
MySQL, PostgreSQL, Informix and ANSI SQL.
- You can Share & Collaborate your reports, with your friends
easily over the Web
- Highly secure through user logins
- No Maintenance required
- Available Online-on-the-Web anytime and anywhere!
- MS Access, File Maker and Other Database Users:
- Web based database and not a desktop/server database
- Easy to Use
- Powerful SQL based Querying
- Collaboration features
- Secure database
- Less Maintenance (backup, administration, tuning etc., )
- Always accessible from anywhere on the Web
- Complete Web based database with a easy to use interface
- Powerful drag & drop based reporting features for quick
report creation and to do in-depth analysis of your data.
- Zoho DB supports Web-based charts, pivot tables, summary and
tabular reports
- SQL
(Structured Query Language) driven querying of the database. You could
provide your SQL queries written in any of the familiar database
dialects, including Oracle, SQL Server, IBM DB2, MySQL, PostgreSQL,
Informix and ANSI SQL.
- You can Share & Collaborate your data and reports, with
your friends easily over the Web
- Highly secure through user logins
- High Performance database
- No Maintenance required
- Available Online-on-the-Web anytime and anywhere!
The
key difference between Zoho Creator and Zoho DB is programmability via
scripting vs custom in-depth reporting. Zoho DB & Reports offers
in-depth & sophisticated reporting which is not captured in
Creator. In the same sense forms and scripting (macros) available in
Creator is not available in Zoho DB & Reports.
Zoho
DB & Reports supports Web based APIs that would
enable it to act as a convenient back-end for applications, exactly the
way a “web database” should work - no more, no less (similar to
back-end databases like Access, MySQL, etc.,). Here the crucial
difference is that Zoho Creator offers a hosted programming environment
(with a DB backing), while Zoho DB offers the DB layer directly, and
you-bring-your-language (ie forms, scripting etc.,).
Zoho
DB would also support full-fledged relational modeling (similar to
relational databases) very soon. It currently supports minimal
relational modeling functionalities through Lookup columns. With lookup
columns you could relate one table with another. It also offers
cascade-on-delete functionality whereby when a row in the parent table
is deleted it will automatically delete all the related rows in the
child table(s).
The
other key difference is that Zoho DB embraces SQL, and supports all
major dialects of it. We will flesh out this functionality even further
in future updates. For further details on the difference between
Creator and Zoho DB refer to the following blog post:
Please read the FAQ #3
before you read further. If you require a quick application development
environment, with forms, scripting and basic reporting opt for Zoho
Creator If you require a full-fledged Web-based database, with powerful
reporting opt for Zoho DB. Zoho DB supports Web based APIs
using which you could also build your own forms and
push/update/pull data in your database from any of your application.
We
will be integrating Zoho Creator and DB in a future update, making it
easy to create reports on the data your application generates in
Creator. Initially the integration will focus on the data level, so
that your Creator application data is automatically available in Zoho
DB as another database. Eventually GUI level integration will also be
provided, so that your applications can embed a Reports tab drawn from
Zoho DB. Once such an integration happens, it would be possible for you
to have forms embedded in your website (coming from Creator) whose data
is available for analysis in DB.
In
the futurue we plan to offer more advanced reporting functionality for
Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects via Zoho DB & Reports. We also have
plans to get in some of the features of Zoho DB & Reports into Zoho
Sheet. The first integration being worked on is Creator as mentioned in
FAQ #5.
You
could import tabular data from CSV (Comma Separated Values) & TSV
(Tab Separated Values) files. You could also copy paste data from these
files as well as from Spreadsheet (Excel , OpenOffice, StarOffice)
files.
Currently
Zoho DB allows you to import files with maximum 25,000 rows or a file
size limit of 1 MB. It will restrict based on whichever condition is
met first. We will incrementally increase this limit through constant
observation and tweaking of Zoho DB service usage and performance.
- Charts: Allows you to create any type of chart/graph
- Pivot
Tables: Allows you to create a powerful view with data summarized in a
grid both in horizontal and vertical columns (also known as Matrix
Views)
- Tabular Views: Allows you to create simple table views with
column grouping and sub-totals (aggregation)
- Summary View: Allows you to create a view with summarized values
and grouping
Yes,
Zoho DB & Reports supports full-fledged SQL based querying of your
database. It understands SQL Queries written in any of the well-known
database dialects including Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL,
PostgreSQL, Informix and ANSI SQL.
Zoho
DB supports SQL written in a wide variety of popular database dialects.
It currently supports Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Sybase, MySQL,
PostgreSQL, Informix and ANSI SQL database dialects.
Zoho
DB supports a comprehensive HTTP based Web APIs using which
developers
could add, update and query/fetch data in the database created in
Zoho
DB&Reports. Using these APIs users could push or pull data
from
Zoho DB from within their own forms, application etc., This would
effectively enable Zoho DB to be a convenient database and reporting
framework for applications.
View api docs @ http://zohoreportsapi.wiki.zoho.com/
- You can create tables which has lookup columns between them. This
helps you to create parent-child relationships
- We
automatically do cascade-on-delete when you delete the row of a parent
table. This will automatically delete the corresponding rows of the
child tables
- You can join tables using SQL Query table feature
No,
Zoho DB does not support building Web forms for data addition or
modification or deletion in databases. It also does not support the use
of Zoho Creator forms for data addition or modification or deletion
into Zoho DB & Reports. Also read question #3 to #5 to know about Zoho Creator
integration and also question #12.
Yes,
you could share your database, tables and reports created in Zoho DB
& Reports with other users. Use the Share option within Zoho DB
& Reports to share your table or view or database to others users.
You need to provide the user email ids ( who have a Zoho DB account)
and set the necessary permission (Read or Read-write) to the objects
being shared. You could also make a database public for anyone to
access it in Read-only mode (no permission for editing). You can do
this by setting the Access option (provided against each database
listed under your My Databases tab in the home page) of the
corresponding database to Public. Note: While making a database public
please choose whether to list the database under "Zoho Public
Databases" list. If this is done anyone can view your database. Hence
exercise caution.
- Select the Table whose data that you would like other users to
edit (add, modify & delete data)
- Select the Share -> Share this View toolbar option
- Provide
the list of user email ids to whom you want to provide read-write
permission to this table. (Note: Users should have a Zoho DB account
with this email id)
- Select the Permission as Read Write
- Provide the necessary email message for notification
- Click on Share to share your table to the users for editing (add,
modify & delete)
- Select the table or report that you would like to embed into your
Website or Blog
- Select the Publish -> Embed in Website/Blog.. option
- By
default when you embed the view into your website or blog, it would
prompt for users to login with Zoho DB login id to view the embedded
view. Also users to whom you have shared the view (Using the Share
option) would only be able to access the view embedded on login.
- If
you would like the embedded view to be accessible by anyone without
login, then click on the link "To access this view/table without login
Click here..."
- Copy paste the code snippet provided in the text area below into
your webpage or blog html content to embed this view
- Internet Explorer 6 and 7
- Firefox 2.0 and above
- Windows XP and Windows Vista
- Mac OS
- Red Hat and Mandrake Linux OS
Zoho DB is best viewed in 1024 *
768 screen resolution and above.
No.
Currently Zoho DB has not been tested in handheld devices like IPhone,
Blackberry etc., We will be supporting this in the future.
Note:
If you have any questions not covered above that you wish to get
answered, please send them to support@zohodb.com
