Forest & Trees is a data analysis software created by Platinum Technology back in 1995, it was one of the most powerful reporting and dashboard software in the market then. Unfortunately, the company was purchased by Computer Associates (CA) in 1999 and the software was renamed to CleverPath Forest & Trees, and like most of the S/W purchased by CA, either they died very quick or just slowly fading away! The current version of the F&T is V7.1, and the basic functions are pretty much the same as the V5.0 which was released in 1999! that means CA didn't even bother to improve it after take-over.
If F&T didn't sell itself to CA in 1999, maybe it would have become a nice size BI software company and IBM might has purchased it instead of Cognos!
F&T is still my favor reporting/dashboard s/w, I use it for most of my data analysis projects involved with Oracle, Excel, ODBC and Lotus Notes.
Following are my wish lists for future F&T functions, I hope CA can offer them and make this S/W more competitive!
- front-end formula and query language supports global dynamic variables (current version's variables need to specified at certain section)
- supports a basic back-end script language (like the SQL stored procedure language)
- supports the database update functions (current version only supports READ)
Ha, just found this blog post when I was searching for some things for a portfolio.
ReplyDeleteI was the technical author who wrote all the user manuals for Forest and Trees back in the 1990s before CA bought them out. That software was pretty incredible and documenting all the features took me an absolute lifetime to do with very short deadlines to do it in as well. I remember them being very picky, rightly so, about the technical content and very pleased with what I'd produced. I got a ton of other work as a result of it.
What a great trip down memory lane.
I used F&T for 5 years when I was a Data Analyst for a telecommunications company 20 years ago. The documentation was massive and well written. Loved working with it!
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