Oracle Discoverer Ramp-up Time

Listers,

Is it difficult to get up to speed as an Admin for Oracle Discoverer? Is it a difficult tool to master?

It looks like I am about to start doing some work with Oracle Discoverer. I played around with a little bit 3 or 4 years ago. The company isn't using it yet; but, they are going to have 2 users using the product. I am told that they will want me to handle the admin side of it. I am about to start downloading the various documents and such from technet and Metalink and start reading about it. My question to the list is is this a difficult product to get up to speed on? And, what are person's thoughts on the product? A good tool? A dog? Mediocre product?

I've used Business Objects in the past (7 years ago?), setting up universes and such and serving as an admin. I have done the same with Impromptu ( 4-5 years ago), creating catalogs and doing some admin type of work. My experience with those tools was that some things were really easy to do, and, as long as what the user wanted wasn't too complex, one could get up to speed pretty quickly. But, there were some situations and needs that required a lot of work and "creativity".

I know that there are a lot of variables at play here as to how easy or difficult it will be for me to create the logical layer; but, I was wondering if there was a steep learning curve with getting adept with the tool. For all I know, they may have just a couple of simple needs that could be handled by referring to a summary table or two. I really don't know much about this project other than they said they wanted me to assist and set things up. I get the impression that they want to give a couple of people ad-hoc access; but, they want in done in a *managed* environment as opposed to letting the people just cut loose using MS Access or something else to hit the DB. They have one "power" user who hits the DB with MS Access, and I mean really hits it. Due to political reasons, they can't take that away. I think they are trying to avoid a similar situation with the other 2 people.

Regards,

Larry G. Elkins Received on Thu Nov 30 2000 - 18:58:28 CST