Re: Impromptu

Rob Andrew (Robert.Andrew_at_adm.monash.edu.au) wrote:
: Our organisation is looking into going Client-Server.
: Now one tool that has been put forward for some of this
: work is Impromptu by Cognos. Does anyone have any opinions
: on this? Good bad or ugly. Comparisons to other 'query'
: tools would also be appreciated.

I like Impromptu much better than Gupta's Quest. Quest seems to incesantly be redrawing screens even if the information is already available. That can be slow in C/S environments. Also fealt there was more setup I did in Quest to define the database and what was inside. Impromptu does have the predefined data view concept firmly in place. This may not be desirable in all instances (in which case I would say use the administrator version) but for many of the cases I would use the product with less knowledgeable users. They would benefit from having the more complex data relationships prepopulated.

I think Q+E has better data entry capabilities than both of the other products, but gets beat out on the reporting sophistication side. I have heard not too great things about Crystal Reports and Report Smith, but haven't used either product enough to comment.

HTH. YMMV. DSMIHNMA.

Geoff Crawford                                     Phone:   (201) 627-0307
Innovative Client Servers                          FAX  :   (201) 627-0634
24 Dogwood Drive                                   Email: innov8cs_at_gti.net