Re: Report writer or query?

The consensus of past threads on related topics on BPCS_L are that a company 
should use NEITHER any report writer from SSA, NOR teach end users Query/400, 
but rather get a quality report writer & PC inquiry tool that is 
user-friendly, and does not require the query creator to have a PhD in BPCS 
file structuring, and functions efficiently without locking up your AS/400 to 
its knees, and works well with corporate notions of what data is 
confidential, and is easy for anyone to tell whether it is giving out correct 
answers, and will still be supported by the software vendor for years into 
the future, of which there are a great abundance of wonderful tools out there 
to choose from among.

You need to balance this vision of an ideal solution with how long it takes 
your company to reach a decision on such matters ... you may be better off 
starting to use a flawed tool this month & getting data right away that 
people can use & abuse, than conducting a software evaluation with no 
decision for years.

Suggestion ... think about what data your vice president might consider to be 
the most confidential, such as break down of billing $ & cost of sales on 
model lines of particular customers, showing profits ... that some executives 
might not want the competition to see ... or a report on how much money 
everyone makes, which some managers do not want the union to see, or detailed 
copy of master card bill from expense reports that some departments might not 
want others to use in the budget wars, or copy of company's annual P&L to the 
stock holders, before adjustments ... then show the VP some of these examples 
of what EVERYONE IN YOUR COMPANY will get to see, or possibly everyone on the 
internet, depending on your e-policies, if the company does not carefully 
select what tools should go into the hands of the end users.

Suggestion -2- work with that VP to jointly create some data the VP wants, 
using whatever tool it is that the VP is enthusiastic about, so the VP can 
see if the tool is flawed - plan on spending a large chunk of continuous time 
on this, like a weekend day.  

I used this approach with such an individual about 10 years ago ... he wanted 
to download masses of BPCS data to his PC so that he could massage the data 
to his heart's content using standard Windows utilities that he was 
comfortable with & was not interested in a discussion with me about 
alternatives & risks, so after one nite's backup/400, we started the download 
running of what he was interested in & we all went home, for the purpose of 
seeing in the morning from jobs history how long it took ... well his PC 
bombed because he did not have enough Gig to get the data in his preferred PC 
format & on the 400 side it said less than 10% of the file had been copied.  
He rapidly lost interest in this idea, now that he had a personal practical 
example of some of what I had been trying to talk about.

> Subj:  Report writer or query?
>  From:    stagis@fansteelvrwesson.com (Rob)
>  
>  I don't know if this is even a valid question, but one of our
>  vice-presidents is making noise about the users using SSA's report-writer 
to
>  generate reports on V6.1 Mixed-mode running on an AS/400.  Is it worth it?
>  Or do we train them on IBM's query?
>  
>  Thanks in advance - Rob

Al Macintyre  ©¿©
http://www.cen-elec.com MIS Manager Programmer & Computer Janitor for BPCS 
405 CD mixed mode on AS/400
http://www.whma.org = our nitch industry has a large committee searching for 
ErPdMes products right for WHM without work-arounds, which for many members 
resemble a snipe hunt - if you are in this software business & want to fix 
your product so it will not be mistaken for what your competition has been 
doing, then you might want to join our great game.

Y2K is not the end of my universe, but a re-boot of that old Chinese curse.
The road to success is always under construction.
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong.
When you want it cheap - you get what you paid for.
When in doubt, read the manual, assuming you can find the right one.
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