RE: dw tool question

>From: "Koivu, Lisa" <Lisa.Koivu_at_efairfield.com>
>Subject: RE: dw tool question
>
>We have two products here: Business Objects and BRIO. It depends on what
>kind of end-user you expect to support. The main difference I see between
>these two is that Business Objects can easily hide the metadata detail and
>joins from the L-user.

Brio can do this too, via the setup of the actual hypercube you want to publish. Brio doesn't "hide" it as well, meaning that if the user really wants, they can see the underlying structure, but they can definitely mask it to make it simpler for the user. Basically, you set up the schema and define the joins yourself, then when a column is called from one table, the join is pre-written for the user.

>With Business Objects,
>the user community had been running their own reports for years with a very
>simple universe.

You should be able to mimic the BO Universe in Brio, at least to the extent that the table joins are not visible and are pre-written for you.

>So I guess it's dependent upon what kind of end-user you plan to support.
>If you have some really savvy users, Brio is a good choice. If you have
>users who expect to just refresh and get their report without wanting to
>know why and how, then BO fits the bill.

Brio allows you to embed reports and pivot tables into their "portal" concept, so that's one way you could do it. Create the portal with a few canned reports and/or queries, and then let the user have that. If they want to do ad-hoc reporting, just make sure the schema is set up before hand.

>We are being pushed away from BO to Brio and I don't like it... I just
>remind myself that "it's just a job", sigh and remind myself that every
>company makes dumb decisions like this.

I don't think either of those solutions will ultimately differ that much -- they are closer competitors than it would appear on the surface. Very similar offerings, just at different points on the complexity scale.

>Bruce, in your experience, has Brio been customized to the extent that I'm
>describing above with BO? I'd love to hear your comments, on the list or
>off.

And yes, we essentially did just what I described above. Created a number of pre-built pivot tables (just to get things started) and then let them have at it with the raw materials. For the most part, I don't remember encountering many support issues. Part of it might have to do with your schema. A star schema is a lot easier for an end user to understand, and for Brio to hide, than, say, a snowflake or a normalized schema.

Anyhoo, good luck! ;-)

thanks,
bruce

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Author: Bruce A. Bergman
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