Re: Creating Reports?

[rob@xxxxxxxxx]

There has been a few things I've discovered in our industry about report
tools.

I)  Some programmers and/or analysts fight Query for a number of reasons.
  A)  They can't write anything more complex than a simple report program.
We had one here.
      Possible solutions:
      1)  He is no longer here.
  B)  The users can't figure out anything more than a one file, and maybe
on a good day, a simple join.
      Possible solutions:
      1)  Create some decent join logical files to give the users a single
view representing the data.
          This can be intense and may take you quite awhile.  But the
payoff is great.
      2)  Duplicate all the data to a file and query that.  Sucks disk
space but will work.
      3)  Duplicate the data to a PC database and the users will query
that.  I guarantee you that if
          you remain inflexible to Query for users the users will revolt,
and this is what you will get.
  C)  The users don't understand the business.  I don't know how we've
stayed in business.  They will
      make bad decisions based on their interpretation of the data.  For
instance, just because
      something is on hand doesn't mean it isn't already allocated to an
order.
      Possible solutions:
      1)  Get over your elitist attitude.
      2)  Train the users.
      3)  Keep fighting them.  They will revolt and get a PC based data
analysis package.

II)  Many PC based packages aren't that much more productive than Query.
They just require that analysts
     predefine the joins.  They just force you to create the join logical
files.  But since they don't call
     them that, the analysts don't seem to mind.  I am not saying that many
of these packages may have more
     features.  I am sure they do.  Like selection based on group
subtotals.  The ability to drill down on
     subtotals, etc.

In the past we've had users upload data from their PC's to the 400 because
they could then analyze the data using Query.



Rob Berendt

==================
A smart person learns from their mistakes,
but a wise person learns from OTHER peoples mistakes.