RE: MIS Departmental improvements -- MIDRANGE-L

I am not in the camp that all reporting must be strictly controlled by the 
MIS department and that all queries, etc must be generated by them. 
Normally what happens in a shop like this is that a second system is built 
up and a bunch of data gets duplicated and the users look more and more at 
the iSeries, and the IS department, as being inflexible.

We have our users use queries.  And they can modify them also.  We've had 
users upload PC data to the iSeries because they found Query/400 a great 
tool.  And they used that for their reporting.

I've heard that Crystal reports is nice because, not only can you use it 
on db2 data but you can query Notes data, etc as well.  And we have people 
who do cross those lines.

Rob Berendt
-- 
Group Dekko Services, LLC
Dept 01.073
PO Box 2000
Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





Mike Berman <mikeba777@xxxxxxxxx> 
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10/06/2004 03:18 PM
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RE: MIS Departmental improvements






Thank you for your responses. I think what I want to understand is if 
there is a software product or process that you have implemented or would 
do so. How this would improve the MIS Functioning. For example, I would 
like to implement Crystal Reports so that the user could have their query 
and make the parameter changes as they need.

Dwayne Allison <Dwayne.Allison@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:The user is the most 
important part of the puzzle. I would say develop a language where the 
user and MIS department meet. A lot of time we use words that do not mean 
anything to them. They have a problem and want to know when it will be 
solved. They want to go across the street and we want to explain to them 
the inside of how the signal light works. Get them across the street, and 
see how nice they can be. Explain to them what is considered not working. 
I had a user who was trying to enter data. The file was lock, so the could 
not enter the information. After trying for about an hour the user decided 
to contact the support line and found that we were doing updates. May rule 
here is if you smell smoke than we have a fire, contact the IT department. 
Don't wait until you see the flames. 

-----Original Message-----
From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Booth Martin
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 1:17 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: MIS Departmental improvements


Some would say "shoot the users" but not me. 



I would look to match expectations with reality. An assessment of where 
the
deltas are would be step one, and then do what can be done to move
expectations into alignment with reality. Are users expecting too much? 
Too little? Does MIS expect user skill levels that just will never occur? 
Is MIS pandering to the lowest possible user skill level, and therefore
boring the average user, and causing errors through carelessness?



---------------------------------

Booth Martin

http://www.martinvt.com

---------------------------------

-------Original Message-------



From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion

Date: 10/06/04 11:12:40

To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion

Subject: MIS Departmental improvements







What would you do (or have done) if you could to make your MIS the best
technical and service delivery entitiy in your eyes as well as in the eyes
of your users? I am interested in both AS/400 Centric as well as related
products and platforms.











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