What’s new in Toad Data Point Workbook 5.1.3?

In this release of Toad Data Point Workbook, the most noticeable enhancement will be the newly redesigned Workbook. Other updates include new features, security enhancements, and resolved issues. 

Specific features we'll explore in this blog are: 

• Toad Data Point sleek, new design
• Drag and drop workflow steps, you can also copy steps and clone entire workflows.  
• There are also a couple of small enhancements to pivot grids and dimensional views that will benefit Toad Data Point traditional and Toad Data Point Workbook users.

Other enhancements that deserve a mention: 

• Improved performance
• Run Workbook silently
• Dimentional view
• Improvement with ODBC
• Security and installation enhancements

What is Toad Data Point?

Toad® Data Point is a multi-platform database query tool built for anyone who needs to access data, understand data relationships, and quickly produce reports.

With Toad Data Point, you can:

• Connect to almost any database or ODBC data source (see the Release Notes for a list of tested ODBC connections)
• Write SQL queries and join data across all platforms
• Automate and schedule frequent and repetitive tasks
• Streamline data collection
• Collaborate with team members
• Export data in a variety of file formats

Toad Data Point is a cross-platform tool that provides a full-featured Database Explorer, Query Builder, and Editor for the following databases:

• Oracle®
• SQL Server® and SQL Azure
• IBM® DB2® (LUW and z/OS)
• SAP® ASE, IQ, SQL Anywhere, and HANA
• Teradata®
• MySQL

Toad Data Point also provides querying and reporting functionality via the following provider types:

• ODBC
• Business Intelligence and NoSQL data sources
• Microsoft® Excel®
• Microsoft Access® 

ODBC connections

The purpose of the ODBC provider is to offer basic connection and querying capabilities to any database that supports an ODBC 3.0 or later driver. For a list of databases tested with the ODBC provider, see the System Requirements in the Release Notes. This form of connectivity allows connections to databases such as Netezza, IBM iSeries, Ingres, and Vertica™. Because this form of connectivity is generic, it is not full-featured and may not be as robust as the fully-exploited providers for the other databases.

Business intelligence and NoSQL data sources

Toad Data Point provides users with the ability to connect to non-traditional data sources, such as Business Intelligence and NoSQL sources. You can connect to these data sources and explore data and objects, query data, report results, and automate tasks.

The following data sources are supported:

New features

Toad Workbook gets a new sleek design.

Just click the arrows to display actions available for each of the steps.

Toad now supports drag and drop in Workbook

Simply left-click to drag and drop any workflow exactly where you want it.

Right-click any workflow step such as Pivot Grid or Transformation and Cleanse and select Copy step and then right-click the place where you want to insert a copy of your step and select Paste step.

You cannot copy and paste Query Builder or Editor query steps but you can clone them into a new workflow. Right-click a workflow query step and select Clone to a new workflow and a new workflow that begins with the duplicated query step will be created.

Improved performance

We optimized performance of Workbook especially when working with large workflows that contain many steps.

Run Workbook silently

Use the following parameter to run Workbook silently from a command line:

–batch=true "Filepath"

e.g. "C:\Program Files\Quest Software\Toad Data Point 5.1\toad.exe" –batch=true "C:\Workbook\MyWorkbook.twf"

Pivot Grid

We added new options for Group By functions. Right-click a column header and Select from the available Group By options according to your data.

Dimensional View

We improved selection of aggregate values of columns. By default, there is no aggregate value set anymore. You can display all available aggregate values when you expand the selection in the field list.

Improvements with ODBC

You can set a custom character if you use modified ODBC drivers for connection to your database,

Set it in Tools | Options | Database | ODBC.

Security and installation enhancements

For this release of Toad Data Point we have provided internal security adjustments. We have revised a list of third party components in use according to their known and potential vulnerabilities. Toad uses only reliable and safe components by third party vendors. See the list of third party components in Toad Data Point help file, section About Us | Third Party Components.

Our Toad installers are now based on the Wix Toolset , which improves user experience and performance of the installation process.

Questions?

I hope this blog is useful to you. If you have any questions, please post questions to the Toad Data Point forum on Toad World.

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