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VOLUME LVIII 11/03/2020
AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER
American Electric Power (AEP on NYSE) has over 18,000 employees who serve more than 5.4 million customers across a service territory of 200,000 square miles. They operate the largest electric power grid in North America and when they implemented a brand new hiring and staffing model, they turned to Ninox and Nioxus to create the Human Resource ERP system they would need to enable a seamless transition from old to new.
Called RSMS™ and pronounced “Rasmus”, The Rapid Staffing Management System™ keeps track of all hiring managers, open positions, candidates, interviews, offers, and onboarding processes. Part HR Management, part Checklist and Project Management, and part Business Intelligence Dashboard, this Ninox system was created in less than a year and resulted in a 600% reduction in the amount of time it took to find, hire and onboard new employees resulting in millions of dollars in savings.
And by taking advantage of the ease with which Ninox solutions integrate with other applications, the entire RSMS application interfaced with all of AEP’s legacy accounting, human resource and immigration management systems starting on the first day.
With the Ninox RSMS solution in place, hiring managers, recruiters, and the AEP Human Resource personnel were all in sync in terms of job requirements, interview dates, start dates and on-boarding processes. In addition to the Human Resource functions built into RSMS, Nioxus also created a Checklist Tracking and Progress module that standardized the New Employee Onboarding Process so when the new hires were delivered to their new departments, there was no waiting around for computers, network passwords or office equipment to be delivered.
This meant that new hires were able to get to work immediately on day one because, thanks to Ninox and RSMS, everything they needed to do their job was waiting for them when they arrived. This resulted in additional savings of over $725,000 per year by eliminating the cost of having to pay new employees who couldn’t perform their tasks because they didn’t have the proper resources.
Because of Ninox, one of the largest power suppliers in the world was up and running with a brand new Human Resource ERP system ahead of schedule and under budget. And the savings in year one alone provided a significant return on investment that continues to pay off three years later. Ninox and Nioxus meant that American Electric Power was able to quickly pivot to a more efficient hiring process without having to worry about or wait for the technology tools that would support the entire operation. AEP prides itself on “finding new ways to deliver”. Ninox works every day to do the same thing and that’s why Ninox has been such a huge success at American Electric Power.
Reports Plus replaces the standard reporting and data visualization engines built into the Ninox database platform. Now – you can combine the power and ease-of-use of Ninox with the flexibility and robust feature set of a world-class data analytics, business intelligence and charting engine.
Sign up for our next Learning Lab to learn more about ReportsPLUS, Nioxus’ newest reporting solution.
This week’s tech tip is as valuable as it is simple. As your formulas become more and more complex and the number of lines in your programs increases, you will find it useful to embed comments inside the code itself. This will enable you to better understand your syntax and automated processes when it’s time to return to your code for enhancement, testing and debugging.
To embed comments and annotations inside of your code, simply enclose the entire text string in double quotation marks (example: “Date of Last Code Update: Jan 21, 2017”).
Recommended uses of this code documenting technique include describing the use of variables, explaining the purpose of loops and decision structures and indicating where a specific section of code begins and ends. An example of the annotated code is displayed below in red:
The comments in lines 2, 10, 19 and 26 above describe the code blocks in the lines that follow while the first and last lines (1 and 34 respectively) describe the purpose of the entire code block when it was last updated.
The embedded carriage returns at lines 8, 17, 24, and 32 are there to make it easier to see where one sub-process ends and the next begins. Annotating your code as you write it will make it easier to leverage, test and share your code across large databases and with other members of your Ninox team.
Can you believe it is November?!?
Things are really heating up (and getting colder) for us here at Nioxus – with the beta for Ninox ReportsPLUS moving closer to reality for Ninox users worldwide. The possibilities are so exciting for everyone who needs to share real time information with vendors, partners and team members to empower the right decisions. We have heard that what stands out with Ninox ReportsPLUS is the ability to share reports with others (without a Ninox license) and on the schedule you decide.
We will continue to help organizations and individuals get the most out of their data through tools – connecting an elegant calendaring app (CalendarPLUS), a strong document solution (DocumentsPLUS) with the visualizations and business intelligence of ReportsPLUS. Join us on this journey to bring a new level of information magic to the low-code database world. We are proving that better decisions really do start here!
Find out more at Nioxus.com and let us know if you have questions, or stop by on Thursday to see what’s happening at the Ninox University Learning Lab at noon EST; who knows, there may just be an exciting announcement…
Since the last one was such a success, we’ll be doing another open Q&A session for this upcoming Learning Lab Tune in this Thursday, 11/5/20, at 12:00pm EDT! Sign up below!
Did you know that Nioxus has built over 120 templates which are available to all Nioxus customers – Standard, Deluxe and Premier?
Nioxus t-shirts? I got my 
s from Nioxus mugs? Now is the time, as we will be getting our swag orders out soon – to be available in December! It’s coming sooner than you think!– Jim (a.k.a. The Starmaster)
Do As Server- Chapter 3
By David Gyenes, Senior Consultant
First we have talked about the “do as server” function how to use it in synchronous and asynchronous way. Then we talked about the “today()” function issue processed through the server. We have not mentioned other functions not working and why they don’t work if we process them through the server.
What are these functions?
“alert()”
“dialog()”
In fact they actually get executed but the reason is very simple why we don’t see them. Since we send the command to the server to execute it shows up on the server side not on our local computer. So we would need to execute these on our computer instead of the server. We can use synchronous programming, so this part of our code would be included in the “do as server … end” lines.
Why is it that I don’t use “do as server” and they still don’t work? If we write code into the “Table” or a “Field” “trigger after update” section then the code automatically will be executed on the server. Why? The answer is simple. This trigger could be a local trigger, from our computer, or an outside trigger. Since multiple computers, in different time zones, could be connected to the same account we don’t know what computer should execute the code. Or also could happen that non of the computers are on line so the code would not be executed. Because of these reasons the “trigger after update” codes always are executed on the server.
How I Learned to Like It
By Jennifer Neighbors, Senior Consultant
When I first started coding in Ninox, which is not very long ago, I didn’t know much about the concept of “like”. I stuck to the standard constructs I had learned when first starting out and that worked well for me for a time. Then I discovered “like”. Now that I have a more experience, I use “like” quite often and that lets me do things I couldn’t do before. Let me explain. A very common code phrase is:
‘if a = b then …. Do this, else do that or the other thing’
Good. Now, what if b does not equal a, yet has some a in it? That is when b is “like” a, and you can write code around that! Here’s an example:
‘select “FRUIT” where Type like “berries”’
returns all the records in table Fruit where the field Type has a value that includes the word “berries”. Type might include other values, too, like bananas and mangos. It might be a text field or a multiple choice field. Doesn’t matter. As long as the text string “berries” is stored somewhere in that field named Type, the record will be included. You’d get all the strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries. You can also use this in reverse. For example, you might find yourself needing this bit of code:
‘if ‘First Name’ like “Tim” = “No“ then do this, else do that’
If you have a multiple choice field where more than one value is possible, and you want to display another field based on whether a particular selection has been made, you will absolutely have to use this method. Let’s say Type is a multiple choice field. Try placing this phrase in the “display field only if” function of another field:
‘text(Type) like “apples”’
Now select a few values in Type – but don’t select “apples”. Your field will disappear. Now select “apples”. Your field will appear, even if other items are also selected.
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