Let me start with the exciting stuff – here is an image of a key feature in the next version:

We are building a query tool that will be incorporated into our ExtractionEngine. If you have seen some of our past posts – we have loaded some metadata databases to the cloud. We built the databases initially as temporary containers to hold metadata until we fully settled on the specific data we wanted to add to the filings. Some users asked for access to some of the data and because it is complicated to fully incorporate the data into the filings directly we thought a reasonable intermediate step was to make these databases available for you to download.

The problem is that of course you have to be download the database, find and install a viewer and learn how to work with a viewer . . .

Further, I have been wondering about making more of our data available in a more direct fashion. We also have a secret project to dump another very useful data set into our system that we have made really decent progress with. So I wondered if we could create our own data query/view feature – the image above is a first view of this feature.

Generally, when you select the query tool from the menu the application will check our repository to determine what databases are available (because we are going to add lots of data) and load the available databases into the application. You will select a database and the application will dynamically identify the fields and their characteristics (TYPE) and then offer you a panel to build a query. Once the query has run you will have the option of saving the results to a CSV file.

Most of the other features we will be adding to 5.0 are more incremental. For example, if you want to access new document indexes you have to run the File/Options/Index Library/Generate Library utility. With our cloud deployment these is unnecessary so we are making the application dynamically respond to the available index collection when it starts. Once we implement this you will not receive any more emails from me announcing that a new index has been added, the application will just know what indexes are available.

I don’t have a precise date yet for this new release. We are in the midst of proxy season. This means that a lot of our focus is on making sure the executive and director compensation tables included in filings that day are available to you by the close of business. Our system is really good but there are always new challenges that take some attention and focus. I am not sure if we will be able to finish all of the development work before the end of proxy season or not. If not it should be soon thereafter.