What have you been working on?
Our focus has mostly been on ApexSQL Generate. We’ve been fixing bugs, incorporating new features and improving usability in order to make ApexSQL Generate the best tool on the market for test data generation.
What is the ETA to production?
We are planning to release ApexSQL Generate R4 in the second half of July.
What have been some design and technical challenges you have encountered, overcome?
The biggest design challenge was encountered during incorporating the Table mapping feature, but we believe we came up with the solution which is both intuitive and easy to use. When a table is selected from the tree view, the Table mapping button is presented in the right panel which opens a child window from where the mapping can be set by choosing the SQL or CSV tab as the source data.
Once the data source is selected, the preview is being loaded where the users can review and customize the results.
In order for this feature to be intuitive and to reduce the user’s need to additionally setup the results, we have used an algorithm based on the mixture of column’s type and name which maps the source column to the target column.
What are some features planned in the next release(s) and what are their ETAs?
While we are constantly working on improving the usability and enhancing the intuitive design of our applications, we are also striving to provide our users with the new useful features. Here is the list of the new features which will be introduced in ApexSQL Generate R4:
- Importing and mapping data for the whole table using SQL database or .CSV file as the source
- Intuitive Predefined generator for emulating real-world data
- Action plan preview before generation
- CLI support for executing project files
ApexSQL Generate R4 is planned to be released in the second half of July, but we are already thinking ahead, so ApexSQL Generate R5, which will be out in early September, will introduce even more useful features:
- Data generation by execution time
- Creating, saving and customizing user-defined generators
- Calculating number of rows as percentage of other table’s row count
- Full CLI support
- Choosing additional scripts for executing before and after generation
- Preview of the SQL object creation script
To see the whole list of planned features and releases please check out our Roadmap.
What are other tools you support and what are your plans for them?
Besides ApexSQL Generate, we are also working on ApexSQL Script and ApexSQL Build.
We’ve been working on fixing bugs and improving usability for ApexSQL Build and we have also added the CLI support for executing project files. This release is planned to be out in the second half of July and we are planning to add the full CLI support in Q4.
The next release of ApexSQL Script is planned for August and besides usability improvements it will also include the additional support for Source Control systems – Mercurial and Perforce.
July 16, 2015
