Re: Suggestions on Reporting Tools Please

I think the first question should be, do you want to give your users:

(1) fixed reports that they can feed parameters into, or (2) a flexible tool they can create their own reports with.

If it is the second option and they do not like Crystal, then they won't like any reporting tool. You can't give users flexible tools if they don't understand what they are doing. I have spent a large amount of the last 12 years working on corporate reporting, from defining fixed reports to delivering a flexible reporting system on a datamart gathering data from over 10 databases.

You will have to tailor/select the tool and method of delivery that best fits the ability of the users. The more flexible the tool, the more training time you will need to spend with the users.

I would suggest, from what I understand about your situation, that you sit down and get the users to define the 8 most important reports and deliver those and then, perhaps, spend time looking for a flexible system, if you need one, and have the users who will be able to use it and understand the data. Getting business users to understand the data can be the most difficult part. If you fail, they will report meaningless figures and information.

If the users are not up to using a flexible tool and they are screaming for one, they have one choice, educate themselves or put themselves out of a job. Sorry... but it is true. Flexibility requires flexibility.

Nick

"Chris Boyle" <cboyle_at_no.spam.hargray.com> wrote in message news:9bhi17$9u38$1_at_news3.infoave.net...
> I have to agree here. After the 4 day Crystal Report training class I was
> able to generate some complex reports with no problem. I have found it to
> be one of the easier report tools to work with. (Of course our PHB
 decided
> to do everything in Access 3 months after the whole department went to
> training but that is why there is an 80% turnover rate in his groups.) I
> have also seen a demo where Access was used to return very complex reports
> against an Oracle database with a stated (and met!) goal of no report
 taking
> longer than 30 seconds to execute. The crowd laughed at the very idea
 until
> we saw it done. There was a lot of up front setup involved and some very
> skillful design work (i.e. pass thru queries that were well tuned ) but it
> worked very well. I still don't like the idea of using access as a report
> tool since that is not its primary function but that's my own view. I
> really don't think you will find much out there that is easier than
 Crystal
> Reports if you can get at least one person trained. I don't know if they
> still do it but Seagate used to give away a free 50 seat license of their
> business intelligence software. Inside of one of the components was a
 full
> blown version of Crystal Reports. That might make it a wee bit easier to
> pry some training funds loose from management.
>
>
> Daniel A. Morgan <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com> wrote in message
> news:3ADBBB67.8449102A_at_exesolutions.com...
> > > i have some users that need a GUI based, ODBC compliant reporting tool
 that
> > > is easier to use than Crystal Reports but not as low level as MS
 Access.
> > > any suggestions?
> >
> > Your requirements are so self-limiting it is hardly worth trying to help
 you.
> > Why must it be ODBC compliant? Saying that excludes every single native
 Oracle
> > reporting tool.
> >
> > And, quite frankly, if your users are so (I hate to say it) untrainable
 that
> > they can't learn Crystal I doubt there is any tool they could learn to
 use.
> > Crystal is mind numbingly easy unless you get into very complex reports.
> >
> > My personal suggestion would be Oracle's Discoverer, followed by Crystal
 and
> > Cognos. But I suspect the best advice would be to hire a competent
 report
> > writer and get the amateurs out of the business (they probably wouldn't
 create
> > accurate reports anyway).
> >
> > Daniel A. Morgan
> >
>
>
Received on Tue Apr 17 2001 - 18:08:48 CEST