Intellishare was a lightweight browser based application. It provided searching and basic visualisations across data held in an i2 data repository; in this case i2 iBase.

I can remember when Intellishare was first released. It was the brainchild of some very clever people in the i2 consultancy team. ‘IBase Web’ as it was called then was trialled in Hertfordshire Police here in the UK, before being made available as the product known as Intellishare.

Intellishare became incredibly popular with the i2 community, with its easy to use web-based interface and straightforward deployment model. Its find and explore module gave access to valuable data sitting within an iBase database. While its data entry module, meant that real time information could be captured by front line staff.

Software Withdrawal

In September 2019 Intellishare was withdrawn and support was discontinued for Intellishare. While this was understandable, as a lot of the supporting frameworks were now themselves out of date, this left Intellishare users with some limited options.

Introducing VA Insight Portal

The VA Insight Portal ™ is a modern, 3-tier architecture, browser-based solution allowing users to streamline data collection and to view tactical visualisations while on the go. It offers a simple, cost-effective deployment model that compliments an existing i2 environment.

S-branch have had the opportunity to thoroughly test the latest release of the VA Insight Portal and to share our user experience directly with the Insight development team. Our client base has felt the hole left by Intellishare being discontinued. We feel that VA Insight fills that hole nicely!

We deployed the VA Insight Portal™ on a range of our test SQL source databases. In this blog, we will share our user experience with the platform:

Dashboards

The team at S-branch were very excited to see dashboards in VA Insight. It’s too often that product demos of i2 start with a single entity, a target person or phone for example. The real problem is often identifying that target, which then gives a start point to begin an investigation.

The dashboards are basic, don’t expect a full business intelligence suite like PowerBI or Cognos. However, for getting a “lie of the land” it works well.

Entities and Links

Entities and links can be searched, either by a basic or advanced search. The record view shows a basic visualisation and all the record details in one easy to read screen. One feature that we loved was the export functionality. It allowed a pdf of the record to be created with a visualisation attached; a really nice touch.

As of today, there is no expand function (that you would find in iBase). It is possible to drill down into an entity by clicking on it, this will open up that entity and show its visualisation. We think this is fine for the use cases that VA Insight is targeted at. Hardcore analyst’s will be still using the back office i2 suite, while front line staff will be accessing the data through the easier to use VA Insight.

Queries

We were impressed that VA Insight came with its own visual query builder. We were even more impressed that it supports parameterised queries, such as @#NOWDATE. While this is actually an improvement to the functionality within Intellishare, it should be noted that queries can be made diretly within the source SQL  database and then made available to VA Insight.

Data Entry

VA Insight supports data entry through its entities and links, its visualisation screen and through custom forms. We like the flexibility this brings, and we found the data entry to be intuitive.

Summary

In summary we found the VA Insight Portal™ to be an excellent alternative for IBM i2 Intellishare users. While not a direct replacement, it offers intuitive workflows, increased functionality and it is complimentary to most clients existing infrastructure.

There are other options available to address the hole that was left behind by Intellishare. However, we feel that this is the most appropriate in regard to technology used, the deployment time and importantly the price.

If you’re looking for an Intellishare replacement, looking into i2 or you’re looking into data analysis tools in general; please feel free to contact us.

Introduction

In April last year, S-branch embarked on a project to assist TRAFFIC in building an open-access online portal of illegal wildlife trade data. TRAFFIC is a leading non-governmental organisation working globally on trade in wild animals and plants in the context of both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

The development of the portal took place thanks to the generous support of Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin, via the ReTTA project (Reducing Trade Threats to Africa’s wild species and ecosystems). The ReTTA project works to identify trends in illegal or unsustainable trade by processing wildlife trade data, sharing information and implementing systems to reduce threats to wildlife and ecosystems in Africa.

  “Information is power, and at ReTTA’s core is the drive to identify, understand and anticipate wildlife trade trends that could push African species over the edge”. Julian Rademeyer, ReTTA Project Leader in 2019

The Challenge

The illegal killing and trafficking of threatened wildlife species is one of the most urgent conservation issues of our time. Demand for illegal wildlife products and involvement from international criminal syndicates is impacting many charismatic African wild species. 

TRAFFIC wanted to enable external users to search their database of wildlife trade incidents to encourage information sharing and increase international collaboration. Law enforcement agencies, policy makers and researchers did not have access to TRAFFIC data and would regularly approach TRAFFIC to request information. An open-access Portal was required to increase ease of sharing of TRAFFIC’s wildlife trade data. In addition, users could filter the results or export them for further analysis and upload their own relevant data to supplement the information in the Portal.

The TRAFFIC team involved in the project were already proficient users of IBM i2 software, using Analyst’s Notebook and iBase to track illegal wildlife trade incidents, so it made sense to use iBase as the backbone of the solution. S-branch presented a well-thought-out and comprehensive tender application based on their i2 expertise and experience and were, therefore, a natural fit to scope, develop, test and deploy the Portal.

The Solution

S-branch met with Antony Bagott – Database Manager – and other members of his team in a series of workshops to determine the project requirements. TRAFFIC already had a wealth of data in their i2 iBase database that they wanted to share with other organisations, and allow those organisations to add to the data store. The alternative: establishing sharing agreements takes time and had proven to be a barrier to collaboration. It was decided that the Portal would allow users to query the database quickly and easily to find relevant data. The user interface needed to be intuitive and easy to navigate with no need for prior training. Finally, the portal needed to be accessible by researchers, conservationists, NGOs and law enforcement in multiple countries across the globe.

Over the following weeks, the S-branch team designed and developed the portal, touching base regularly with the team at TRAFFIC and giving access to a small group of users for user acceptance testing through each phase of development. Most of the work was completed remotely but, remarkably, the S-branch team always seemed to find some excuse to be on-site at the TRAFFIC office on “Tea and Cake Wednesdays”.

 “It has been an absolute pleasure developing this portal for TRAFFIC. This is down to the continued momentum and effort that TRAFFIC has given from the initial workshops all the way to the final deployment. The work TRAFFIC does in combatting illegal wildlife trade and ensuring the sustainability of entire species is nothing short of heroic. The chance to assist them with this task in some way really resonated with the team at S-branch and we are honoured to have been asked. The completed portal is something that both TRAFFIC and S-branch are and should be proud of, we hope it will give many years of service to TRAFFIC and their worthy cause.” Keith Musson – Managing Director

The Outcome

The portal, designed and developed by S-branch, supports more efficient workflows and reduces duplication of work by providing data in a centralised, easily-accessible location. This allows stakeholders to build an understanding of trends in illegal wildlife trade, using clear visuals, automated dashboards and simple analytics. Giving access in this way to incident information supports the drive to identify, understand, anticipate and disrupt illegal wildlife trade trends. 

TRAFFIC expects that this collaborative approach of sharing data will provide core insights into illegal trade, finding previously undetected patterns in the data. Increased inter-organisational data sharing not only contributes to a solid body of evidence to guide conservation strategy effectively but also helps to reduce the silo effect caused by a lack of communication and support between organisations. Using the portal to stay one step ahead of the poachers, traffickers and highly-organised criminal syndicates, TRAFFIC and their partners will continue to work to ensure that illegal wildlife trade is identified, prevented, and prosecuted at every opportunity. 

 “S-branch have worked tirelessly to design and implement an online portal that distributes and showcases our wildlife trade data to conservationists, researchers, NGOs and law enforcement. The portal, fed directly from our existing IBM i2 iBase database, is everything we asked for and more. Keith and Ollie were a veritable powerhouse of talent, creativity and professionalism throughout the project, and have been a constant source of expertise in developing our current systems. It has been an absolute pleasure working with such reliable and trustworthy people – we look forward to calling upon their skills again in future.” Antony Bagott – Database Manager 

To access the portal, please go to www.wildlifetradeportal.org and register an account.

For more information on TRAFFIC visit their website or contact S-branch. If you’d like to find out more about visual analysis software, bespoke portals, i2 or i2 based portals then feel free to call.

The ability to quickly and easily import data into IBM i2 iBase is why it remains popular today. Our clients like that you can import from databases, flat files or Microsoft Excel.

A few of our clients have reported that they were no longer able to import from Microsoft Excel. This usually coincided with the installation of 64bit Office.

When trying to import from an Excel Spreadsheet the user is presented with the following error:

The answer for a lot of our clients has been to save the excel file as a csv. This can create problems with automation and adds time to a process that used to be straightforward.

iBase Release Notes

The release notes state:

“Microsoft Office 64-bit compatibility issues

If you are using Microsoft Office, Microsoft recommends that you use 32-bit Office on 64-bit machines for compatibility with other products. If you install 64-bit Microsoft Office, the following actions are prohibited:

• Import from Microsoft Excel workbooks or Microsoft Access databases
• Report to Microsoft Access databases

However, the following actions are possible:

• Export to Microsoft Excel workbooks
• Report to Microsoft Word documents

On a 64-bit machine without Microsoft Office installed, you can install the 32-bit Microsoft Access Database engine. Installing the 32-bit Microsoft Access Database engine can help you import from Microsoft Excel workbooks and import/report with Microsoft Access databases. You might find the functionality useful for importing on servers.

Note: You cannot install the 32-bit engine if 64-bit Microsoft Office is installed.”

Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable

Some of the drivers iBase uses when importing, including Microsoft Jet and even OLEDDB, are a little old now. Microsoft’s appetite to support these hasn’t been huge. However, the following driver is available for the following operating systems: Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2003 R2 (32-Bit x86), Windows Server 2003 R2 x64 editions, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Vista Service Pack 1, Windows XP Service Pack 3.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=13255

Installation details are on the link and are pretty easy. Once installed we were able to import from Excel Spreadsheets again as normal.

S-branch

We’ve been part of the i2 journey since 2006, either as trainers, technical consultants or marketers. Through these roles, we’ve worked with several police forces both in the UK and abroad, charities, insurance firms, law firms, government agencies, and commercial clients.

If you’re an i2 user and require technical expertise, please feel free to contact us