We must welcome the future, remembering that soon it will be the past; and we must respect the past, knowing that once it was all that was humanly possible.~George Santayana
If you’re relatively new to Datawatch’s Monarch software then you really are fortunate, but it might not be for the reasons immediately spring to mind.
Having begun as a product for MSDOS in 1991 (18 years and still going strong!), Monarch is currently published as version 10. This must put it in a pretty select group of lasting software products, and would make for an interesting list. After a brief search I couldn’t find such a thing anywhere. Excel began its life as a Mac product – surprising really – in 1985.
All of this is fascinating, I’m sure, but by now you must be wondering what on Earth this has to do with the 30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeller series currently underway…
For day 6 of the series, we’re going to take advantage of all those that came before us. They won’t mind, I’m sure. But despite its history, and ignoring the growing ExcelWithMonarch.com, online Monarch resources are still somewhat sparse. Let’s review what’s available to us.
The Monarch Library
In the first section of Datawatch’s own 10 page Monarch FAQ mention is made of what is possibly the vastest resource, the online forum managed by Datawatch. As of this writing, there are over 3,000 separate discussions, or “threads”, with in excess of 10,000 replies to those original questions and/or comments, for a total of over 13,000 posts.
Odds are that someone has encountered a challenge that you’ve just run into, or one that’s close in nature to yours, and has written on the forum about it, and that the answer is in there. Somewhere. And therein lies a bit of a problem.
There is a search mechanism built into the forum for finding key words in the past forum posts, but I personally find that some results returned are better than others at times, most especially when the search terms are short words. Arguably there’s one search engine king and luckily, to facilitate searching Monarch forum posts, there’s a custom Google search engine page.
One of the other Monarch related document is also published by Datawatch: the Monarch eNewsletter. The “Monarch Report Newsletter” is always an interesting read as Datawatch usually includes a customer profile which spotlights how a company or organization has overcome challenges by using Monarch, along with a description of a tip or special technique, new product announcements, and other interesting news.
But when you look over the list on the referenced newsletter page, you might find it odd that for a product with such a long history, there are only less than a dozen documents listed (as I write this today). Did Datawatch just start producing these relatively recently?
In short, no, they’re not just recent. It’s just that not all of the Monarch Reports are listed there.
Perhaps it’s because the older editions focus on older versions of Monarch. I suppose that the newer stories work just as well for the publisher, but I still find that good examples of people overcoming problems still ring true; no matter how long ago the story was written.
After all, those experiencing difficulties were only doing what they could to overcome them at the time. And many of those struggles helped to shape what we now see and use in Monarch. So with a healthy respect for the past, I did not give looking for the Monarch Reports that I knew to exist when I didn’t see the older editions listed on the current Datawatch site.
Your intrepid reporter did not give up, and successfully located those gems.
Your Task for Today
I have no hands-on model building work for you today. Instead, blow off the virtual dust and download and read each of the Monarch Report eNewsletters going all the way back to 2001, before they disappear.
Learn all that you can from genuinely interesting business cases and some ingenious use of Monarch’s features.
Help Build Monarch’s Future
I invite you to join the group over at the Monarch Forum if you haven’t already. It’s easy to register as a new member. Even if you haven’t run into the proverbial brick wall with a challenge of your own, don’t hesitate to post a message to introduce yourself to the group and share your Monarch story.
When you envision a way in which Monarch could be improved that you’ve confirmed doesn’t currently exist, post your idea in the Future Features thread – you’ll see it listed at the top of the Monarch Forum – and maybe one day your concept will help all of us excel with Monarch.
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Continue your commitment to Become a Better Monarch Modeler with Part 7 of the series, or review Part 5.
