Alternate reporting tool for Oracle ?

From: Dag Eggemoen <nho9deg_at_nho.hydro.com>
Date: 1995/05/09
Message-ID: <3onb67$b60_at_vkhdsu01.hda.hydro.com>#1/1


We have used Oracle Reports 2.0.13.1.4 as a reporting tool in our project (a document archiving/retrieving system) primarily to be consistent with our choice of Oracle Forms as forms designer while also adhering to the requirement of cross-platform compatibility between Unix and PC/Win.

However, having used Oracle Reports for some time now constructing a few standard reports of medium complexity, we have come to the conclusion that this tool is highly cumbersome to work with, primarily thanks to its "frame tyranny" and other designing features, and therefore is not very suitable as a reporting tool. One of the intentions, at least in this project (but we suspect most other projects as well), is that the more/less advanced end-user (or those that are fingered to be one) will have the possibility to design their own reports. Given the painstaking process of designing anything more than the simplest reports, Oracle Reports is a very doubtful contender as a end-user reporting tool.

We are therefore on the lookout for a substitute for Oracle Reports and would like hear from you fella's out there what you would recommend. What we need is a powerful yet easy to use reporting tool that is able to draw information from let's say 20-25 tables, group them in 8-10 groups and allowing repeating blocks within repeating blocks, is fully GUI enabled, and allows lines, fonts and graphics to be inserted at will. The reporting tool shold also be relatively speedy not using to much overhead/resources while printing (or designing) the reports. We have also come to the conclusion that the cross-platform compatibility requirement between Unix and PC/Win can be eased, leaving the PC/Win platform as the primary objective, although we would appreciate suggestions for both alternatives.

We'll eagerly await your responses...

     ABa and Dag :-) Received on Tue May 09 1995 - 00:00:00 CEST

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