Frequently Asked Questions

Here are answers to the questions that keep coming up.

These are general questions about our software or technology direction. For specific FAQs on the individual products, please see our documentation section, including the Access ELF FAQ and the VB ELF FAQ.


We often get inquiries about how complicated it is to set up our English query systems
Q) How much Access/VB knowledge do I need to work with your software?
A) Using our Access ELF product is as easy as installing the add-in. With simpler databases, you can often have a working query interface in under a half-hour. Just click the Analyze button and let Access ELF build everything for you. Then start asking questions.

Our VB ELF product is designed for developers who want to build the power of the ELF language engine right into their own products. For this you'll need the ability to create your own VB database programs. Calling the VB ELF functions in our OLE server is quite straightforward and well-documented.

Everyone is concerned these days about the Y2K problem
Q) Are ELF Software products Year-2000 compliant?
A) Y2K bugs are caused when programs store date information using 2 digits, such as "99", for the year. The problem occurs when "99" rolls over to "00".

ELF interfaces translate queries on-the-fly from English to SQL and don't store date information in any form. Of course, we do handle dates, and in cases where numbers could either be interpreted as years or values, we use a 1950-2050 "rule-of-thumb" to help identify the years.

All this means that we don't expect Y2K to have any impact on using our software.

Good software at low prices. What's wrong with that again?
Q) Can you explain your pricing model?
A) When you purchase Access ELF as an individual, you purchase the right to use the software on any number of machines. (There are folks at ELF Software that own up to seven!)

If you're part of a workgroup using Microsoft Access on a LAN, you can purchase a 5- or 10-user license at substantial discounts off the single-user price. This gives everyone in your workgroup the right to use the software, as long as it is installed in a single location. If they want to take the software home and install it on their personal machines, they'll need to purchase individual copies of the software.

If you're a Microsoft Access developer who creates value-added programs and then distributes them to off-site clients, we'll work with you to make Access ELF available to your clients at extremely reasonable per-unit prices.

VB ELF has several licensing options, please see the VB ELF Configurations page for details.

Quel dommage, nous ne parle pas les autres langes...
Q) Will you be making your software available for other languages besides English?
A) Unfortunately, we do not anticipate supporting natural languages other than English in the foreseeable future. However, the rules which the ELF engine uses to translate between English and SQL are not hard-coded into the software, but are distributed as part of the package in a set of Microsoft Access tables. Just as every licensee has the right (and the tools!) to modify these tables for their individual purposes, you could if you wished, attempt to translate these rules for use with your native tongue. We will be happy to provide what assistance we can for this effort.


Paging HAL 9000, paging HAL 9000...
Q) What is your technology plan going forward. Will you be supporting voice interfaces?
A) We continue to evaluate the progress being made in the field of speech recognition, and expect to begin integrating our software with the popular commercial speech recognition sometime in 2000. This has been on the back burner because in our opinion, voice software has not yet reached the threshold level of true utility. While it makes for great demos (which is why our competitors have leapt on it), our software is targeted more for for day-in-day-out use than for sparkling demos.

Our technology plan is to migrate our interface technology to the new standards promulgated by Microsoft, namely Universal Data Access (UDA) using the Active Data Objects (ADO) component of OLE DB. (We have met this goal as of September 1999 with the release of VB ELF 2.0, which supports OLE DB/ADO interfaces.)

The other main area of effort is in developing easier-to-use customization wizards for tailoring interfaces built with the ELF family of products.

You'll want to compare us to what others are offering. Please do!
Q) How do you stack up against the competition in this area?
A) There are only three credible suppliers of natural language interface software for databases at this time. There's a much-distributed but little-used product called English Wizard from Linguistic Technology, and a software component called English Query from Microsoft, which is now distributed as part of SQL Server 7.0. Our software is flatly superior to both of these products, not by a little, but by a lot.

A great way to see the enormous difference in the capabilities of these products is to try out the demos. We've prepared some background material and a review of the demo Web sites in the Overview of NL on the Web section in "Other Stuff".

Actually, a better way to see how well natural language software will work for you is to try it out on your own database. This is because NL software is highly dependent on specifics of data organization and in fact on the data itself. While our NL software is by far the best in the world, it may not be suitable for your database. This is why we offer a full 90-day warranty on all our products. This warranty is not limited to assuring you that our CD-ROM is free of defects. Our guarantee means what it says. If you're not happy with the software, return it for a full refund at any time within three full months.

We cannot represent what our competitors mean by their guarantees. (In fact, we can't even understand them.)

Some time back, we posted a page comparing our products with Microsoft's English Query. Recently, Microsoft has responded, taking many of the questions on our comparison page and adding them to their demo of English Query. We urge you to go look at their effort. First, note that it took the engineers at Microsoft about four months to create this interface manually (ours is created automatically by the software itself, in about 60 seconds). Second, the questions are now essentially "hard-wired" into the interface. For example, one of our examples was "Which products come in boxes?" This is merely an example of dozens of ways that people might phrase this question, all of which are automatically handled by our software with no effort on either the part of the system administrator or the user. By copying the question, Microsoft MAKES IT APPEAR as if their system will handle this kind of question. But wait! What if the user asks: "Which products are shipped in boxes?" or "Which products get delivered in boxes?" or "Show the products that are sent in a box." In each case, Microsoft's EQ will not understand the question. In other words, if you can predict in advance the exact words your clients and customers will use to query your database, then you can enter those exact words IN ADVANCE into EQ, and it will respond beautifully. (Of course, you don't actually need an English query system in that case, since you could just match up the pre-programmed question with a pre-programmed answer and save yourself some trouble and expense!) But, if you don't happen to be telepathic, or have trouble predicting the future, possibly you might have more success with our products.

(Incidentally, by the time you read this, Microsoft may well have added the example questions above into their list of questions. We won't chase after them looking for new examples, since we're sure they won't be fooling you anymore!)

Buy now, or buy later . . .
Q) What is your upgrade policy? Is there an upgrade fee?
A) Access ELF 2000 was released on July 23, 1999. It is a new product designed specifically for use with Microsoft Office 2000, and there is no upgrade pricing. We continue to provide easy upgrades to all licensed users of our Access ELF 97 product. There are major feature additions in version 3.0, which was also released in July. Registered users of previous versions of Access ELF, up to and including Access ELF 97 version 2.0, will be upgraded to version 3.0 of Access ELF 97 for $65, which represents the difference in cost between the older and newer versions.

We are no longer upgrading the 16-bit version of Access ELF for Microsoft Access 2.0, nor Access ELF 95.

The VB ELF product is licensed in several configurations. Only the Developer's Deluxe Edition includes continuing upgrades and subscription to the VB ELF Developer's Bulletin (tricks, tips, bug fixes and workarounds). Please note that we of course reserve the right to change our upgrade policy in the future.

We're not in ShareWareLand anymore, Toto
Q) I have problems with a downloaded shareware version of your software. Can you help?
A) We no longer distribute shareware versions of our software, and we do not support unlicensed shareware versions.

There's a world of data out there . . . we're here to help
Q) Can I use ELF products with SQL Server, Oracle and other ODBC data sources?
A) As of VB ELF 2.0, we now support SQL Server 7.0 T-SQL as well as Oracle's PL/SQL dialect. Every feature available in the earlier Jet-only version of the software has been extended to these new dialects -- whether or not they are natively supported by the language. In other words, you can ask pivot table questions, like: "Show the average order subtotal, giving the customer down and month of order date across during 1999." -- VB ELF will create SQL for either SQL Server 7.0 or Oracle to generate the grid. No need for custom solutions like expensive and confusing OLAP tools!

Need FULL JOIN capability in either MS Access or Oracle, but are frustrated because they don't support it? VB ELF will emulate the FULL JOIN capability of SQL Server 7.0 by constructing the Union of two inverted joins. Sounds hard? -- nope, it's easy as clicking the FULL JOIN radio button.

Because we now support both Jet attachment and the newer OLE DB Provider data access standards, you can have client-server efficiency (or Web access) -- using OLE DB. You can also continue to use our products in the original style, with data connections through Jet to ODBC drivers. Basically, we've got you covered.

"We Make Little Helpers"
ELF Software Co. 210 W 101 St. NYC NY 10025
(212) 316-9078     Last Updated: September, 2000