Anthony's Blog

Re: Webfinancial site

Sat, 09 Dec 2006 12:07:51 -0500

Webfinancial site (Vershon's Blog) Hey Tony, can you let me know what the new address for the interface is so I can put it in to the entry page.

Vershon, use the following address for the interface;

http://people.emich.edu/ataylo15/webfinancial.html

It currently doesn't exist but will shortly. Since the table visibility wasn't created by this past Monday; I created a polymorphic function that dynamically creates a table and displays information based on what arguments are passed to it. It's pretty sweet!

I don't know what's up with the menu bar; if something isn't posted or emailed by tonight I'll do that too.

XBRL, what is it?

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 20:28:25 -0500

Davidia, I've provided a couple links that graphically depict what you describe in your blog.

XBRL (Davida's Blog) XBRL consists of an instance document, containing primarily the business facts being reported

Financial Statement

XBRL (Davida's Blog) Taxonomies are a collection of XML schema documents and XML documents called linkbases by virtue of their use of XLink.

Taxonomy Components

It's kind of interesting after having worked with instance documents for a little while. I think that the way that XBRL is formatted is kind of silly in some regards. Referring to different parts of a single document is messy. Loading into and processing in a web interface is difficult because of this. An attribute for each tag that describes the context is equally beneficial-- AND you wouldn't have to refer to different sections of one document at the same time.

I haven't come across any documentation that explains why context ids and references are set up like they are. Most likely, it's beyond the scope of this project.

Thats awesome-- one more thing

Wed, 06 Dec 2006 20:10:54 -0500

Context parsing (Ryan's Blog) Ok I've tried to implement how you had the sample xml into the engine. Hopefully this will make things a little easier for parsing.

Ryan, that's terrific! I was wondering if you could do one more thing. Will it be possible to open the flood gates and let ALL of the data flow through; in this format? I have all of the required tags coded in JavaScript so I can still compute the different ratios.

I guess it depends on how your pulling the tags. If your pulling the data based on the tag names, we might have a problem letting everything flow through. If you're pulling based on context ids and references, it should be okay, right?

I really want to get all of the tags for additional information display.

What you have done is absolutely terrific! I really appreciate everything that you have done!

Re: Re: Ah yes; now I see what you mean

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 22:11:47 -0500

Re: Ah yes; now I see what you mean (Ryan's Blog) Also I don't know if I want to make large changes to the xml structure this late because then we also have to make changes to the javascript to load it. Maybe if you could write some xml in the format you want and I could understand it better and see what you mean.

I agree: large changes to the xml structure this late is not a good idea. I'm also providing a sample based on 3M's XBRL document so you can see what I meant.

I don't know how much effort it would take to accomplish this. If it's in your best judgment to not change the structure; I trust you.

The most important thing is to group together the data by date. The start date and end date nodes separate needed elements. In this example, all of the child nodes under date 09/30/2006 and date 07/01/2006 in fact belong to the same period, 07/01/2006 - 09/30/2006. There isn't a reference provided so I am unable to display these elements to the interface.

I could try using JavaScript to relate the two. Afterall, the server script does return the url for each company's instance document...

Also, please don't rename any of the tags... The different (yet similar) tags that are identified are coded into JavaScript.

Thank you for considering.

Ah yes; now I see what you mean

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 18:08:50 -0500

Re: Webfinancial data (Ryan's Blog) I believe what is happening is that I used the start date for the filing date which is the one in July there. If we need that to change to the end date, or forward both dates through or something that can be done.

I see what you mean... For that particular company and particular form; the examples provided had a context reference of something like "ThreeMonthsEnded_30Sep2006". The server script separates the data into two nodes, the start node and the end node.

Is there a way to put these two 'filing' nodes together?

And if I could give it one more shot... : ) If there was some way to output the results by context-- we would have every tagged item for every company available to work with. This would be awesome because (of both of our headaches) some companies use different tags for the same thing.

i.e. cashcashequivalents vs. cashcashequivalentsshortterminvestments.

Maybe different (technically) but the same when computing cash ratio (unless they use the tag marketablesecurities).

The different tag names makes it time consuming to search for every possible variation of tags through the monstrous documentation for the nearly 2 dozen namespaces. Not to mention, XBRL (a.k.a. XML) is extendable and some companies create THEIR OWN namespaces. Headaches turning into migraines quickly.

Is there anyway to make it easier???

Updates to javascript code

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 03:19:30 -0500

I'm providing an updated link to show what I've done with the javascript code for the project. I made sure to provide lots of comments so you can see what's going on.

Webfinancial data

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 03:13:37 -0500

Update (Ryan's Blog) As always, let me know if you need anything else forwarded through.

Well, actually I was wondering if it would be possible to change the way that we grab data from the instance documents. I was reconciling our interface output, the php output, and xbrl instance doc and found some discrepancies between them. In these examples, the php output doesn't provide net income for Sept 30, 2006 even though it's provided in the instance doc. Instead it places the net income (894000000) under filing date 07/01/2006.

Would it be possible to grab the data based on context?

Examples
Bristol Myers Squibb context id and context reference
Altria Group context id and context reference

In both examples, the respective company uses their own context id but always references the context with the data. If it were possible to output (using php) by context, providing the start date, end date, and all tags referencing the context id; it would be a lot easier to do what we are trying to do.

You have done a lot with the server script and I would understand if it was too much work given the date of iteration 3. But I feel that it would probably be easier to solve our data issue this way.

That's cool, but I don't think we need it

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 02:51:48 -0500

PHP & JSON (Ryan's Blog) If anyone wanted to look into some server magic with JSON instead of XML.

Using XML is fine; I wrote a constructor function that defines what company data is passed back from your php script. I then load the 'company' objects in an array. I'm going to use the array to compare company names and populate the drop-down lists (unique company name, formtype, and filing dates). It works fine in both FF and IE.

I'm going to clean up the JavaScript code and post my progress later.

Thanks for updating the server script, looks great!!!

updated slides

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:21:25 -0500

http://people.emich.edu/ataylo15/is449/project/powerpoint-11.27.06.ppt

Screenshot

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 00:00:41 -0500

eventmaps groupproject prototype2 review (Kokila's Blog) Great to hear that calendar control works in firefox 2.0...

ScreenShot

I wonder why it doesn't work in v1.5???

Team, classmates, and entire universe

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:42:23 -0500

I will not make it to class tonight, I have an early interview that I want to be thoroughly prepared for. I haven't missed any classes to date, so I hope my transgressions are forgivable.

User review::Concerquest

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:07:08 -0500

Iteration 2 (Todd's Blog) Jason posted the site here:

I like the table over the list box to display the events. I think that the table provides a means of organization as well as control of the interface. With the list box, the user was able to type text into the box.

The ability to enter any zip code is fabulous; good job.

When selecting the 100 mile distance, I've noticed that the anomaly plot only happens when an entire address isn't supplied. I entered 48109 for the zip (with a 100 mile radius) and an event in Canada was plotted in Arkansas. The street address was missing. An event in Auburn Hills MI ALSO had a missing street address-- BUT THAT EVENT WAS PLOTTED CORRECTLY. The Auburn Hills event had a zip code while the Canada event did not.

I wonder if a missing zip code is the cause of the anomaly plot...

User review::Kayakers

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 20:37:33 -0500

Kayakers Iteration Two (Lori's Blog) Here is our website and powerpoint presentation slides for our Iteration Two

I want to start out by saying good job; you guys have made a lot of progress. The look and feel of your interface has improved tremendously over your first iteration.

The entry page to your interface is very helpful. The instructions clearly state what to expect. Also, the loading status box is a very nice insert; very helpful in letting the user know what's going on.

The horizontal rule, little kayaker in the corner and the map are all nice additions. I like how you've formatted the interface.

One thing that I want to mention is that when rolling the mouse pointer over the list of hotels (blue box adjacent to the map), I've noticed some funky happenins going on. The description boxes that appear for each hotel appears all over the interface. For example, if I roll over a hotel that isn't visible on the map; the corresponding description box 'pops up' in misc spots on the interface.

Despite the latter comment; GREAT JOB KAYAKERS!!!

User review::EventMaps

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:35:58 -0500

EventMaps: Prototype2 (Usha's Blog) Thank you all for taking the time to review our site, looking forward to your feedback...

EventMaps, you really have done a great job. The changes in the way that it looks make your interface really nice to use. Very professional : ) You've also added some really cool features; I like how event images from evdb show up in the interface. I also like the size of your map; for a half hour I looked for a satellite image of every place I could think of. That includes my parents house, comerica park, the ren cen, etc. All showed up in great detail thanks to the size of your map!

One event had a register button located inside the information box. I thought that having that kind of capability embedded within the interface was especially neat! I also have to disagree with your slideshow: I was able to pull up the calendar control in FireFox. I'm using version 2.0, so that may have to do with the version that your testing with.

If I had to suggest something, it would be to move the scroll box (I don't know what to call it) to the corner of the interface. When I say scroll box, I mean the box that lists each event.

Other than that; you guys have done a terrific job!!!!!

User review::EducationChuser

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 18:52:22 -0500

Education ChUser: Prototype2 Slides and Site (Rajyalakshmi's Blog) Our Education ChUser team greatly appreciate your reviews.

Wow, EducationChuser your interface is awesome! Packed with features and the attention to detail is absolutely outstanding!

I really like how you've incorporated the directions (to and from) each university. Adding the ability to input user reviews, displaying each school's logo, and the cnn news feed demonstrates a tremendous effort. Great job! From reading your ppt, I see that you've added quite a few more features.

The number of features are substantial. The appearance of your interface is very professional. I really dig your progress!

I will concur; it does not work (fully functional) in FireFox. However I was able to get the schools mapped only to have the browser wigg out after selecting a school. I get multiple alert boxes telling me an address "not found".

Again, great job. I love it!