There has been lots of debate over the years regarding XOG and the different XOG tools available. With all this debate comes content surrounding what XOG is and all of the benefits it provides to CA PPM users and developers like us. This post is a listing of some great resources and XOG tools to help build a knowledge base of everything XOG. So dig in and become a XOG expert. Please feel free to leave a comment with suggestions that we can include in the list.
XOG Knowledge Base Listing
1) What is XOG (XML Open Gateway)?
XOG is the XML based webservice offered by CA PPM that provides you functionality to send XML to retrieve or update data in CA Clarity PPM. This is based on webservices integration standards that utilizes Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to facilitate the orderly transfer of data between CA Clarity PPM and external systems such as SAP, servicenow, and oracle to name a few.
Rego Consulting has an excellent blog that dives a little deeper into what XOG is all about with training vidoes.
Winmill Software has a great PDF called “Introduction to XOG” with benefits and limitations.
2) XOG the Basics
CA Communities is a great resource. You can get lost in the wealth of information available. Here is the thread XOG the Basics. And here is another article at CA’s documentation site: XML Open Gateway (XOG) Development.
3) Free XOG Tool and Best Practices
Rego Consulting did a great job and published some content around XOG best practices and our free XOG tool. Here is a fun quote by Federico Pena – “XOG is like poker, five minutes to learn but a life time to master”. Note that I will get into the 3 takeaways of our free XOG tool later on in this list.
4) How to Execute XOG
In this XOG training video, Dave Matzdorf, CA PPM Chief Architect at Rego Consulting, shows how to execute a XOG read step by step from your CA PPM environment.
5) Learn how to become a XOG Expert Webinar
This powerful presentation taught advanced XOG operations on how the combination of the Data Extraction tool, with the new Data Loader tool, and with the XOG interface could double as a CA PPM migration tool.
6) How to use Microsoft Excel to Map Data into XOG Files, then Update Directly to CA PPM
This is a popular blog we posted on the power of Microsoft Excel when working with XOG conversions for CA PPM. The blog features a tutorial video with 10 steps on how to generate and build your XML files to be able to XOG them directly into CA PPM.
7) CA Clarity PPM Action Items XOG API – Download
During our XOG best practices webinar, the following question was asked:
XOG Best Practices Questions and Answers Transcript:
Q – Can we get API to XOG action items?
A – Ask our Expert Support Team, and they will send you the API call for updating Action Items.
Since that time, we have been receiving numerous requests for this directly to Federico himself, so without further ado… > go get the download.
8) Great new XOG tool – check it out!
Here is a link to CA Communities reviewing our XOG & Query client that’s free for everyone. Federico posted some great examples of how to perform XML transformation.
9) XOG & Query Bridge Video Tutorials and User Guide
IT-ROI’s knowledge base site includes complete documentation and tutorial videos for all our products and solutions. For XOG & Query Bridge the tutorial video topics include:
- How to register a free user account in XOG & Query Bridge (web and desktop versions).
- How to execute a SQL query in the web version of XOG & Query Bridge.
- How to execute a single XOG request in the web version of XOG & Query Bridge.
- How to activate the XOG & Query Bridge desktop version.
- How to execute a SQL query in the XOG & Query Bridge desktop version
- How to execute a single XOG request in the XOG & Query Bridge desktop version.
- How to execute a bulk XOG request in the XOG & Query Bridge desktop version.
- How to use the XML transformation tool in the XOG & Query Bridge desktop version.
> See all the Tutorial videos here.
10) 3 takeaways of XOG & Query Bridge
XOG & Query Bridge (XQ) is a 3 in 1 toolset that allow clients to manipulate CA PPM data in mass without the need of any programming. Users are able to perform single or bulk XOG data operations and run standard SQL queries against the environment database that are subject to the user’s account permissions.
The 3 takeways in mention are a brief description on the 3 productivity tools built into the XQ toolset.
- The first tool allows end users to perform mass inserts using the data loader tool. This tool provides an easy to use GUI that enables end users to map fields from a file to fields in CA PPM.
- The second tool (Query Bridge) allows clients to extract data from CA PPM without limitations using the Query API. This enables users to not only extract data to a file but avoids the export to Excel limitation that currently exists within CA PPM.
- The third tool is the XOG Bridge. This tool enables clients to perform XOG calls via a GUI with the ability to perform these requests in bulk, meaning they can batch XML files into folders and run complete folders of XML files consecutively without any human interaction.
XQ not only facilitates the amount of effort required to perform these tasks, it contains a full audit log of all the transactions that it performs allowing admins and users to ensure data quality.
Start using XOG & Query Bridge:
http://xogbridge.itroisolutions.com/xogbridge
11) XOG Support
XQ is fully supported and is free to use. Send us your comments and feedback or ask on of our experts for some help and advice on anything XOG and PPM related, we are here to help, so take advantage of us.
If you have anything that you think would be a great addition to this post thats XOG related, please leave a comment below, and I’ll add it to the list.