Re: BI/Report Writer

Adam,

We use SEQUEL as well. You can use real SQL in SEQUEL ViewPoint. In
Options, set the database to *LOCAL. Bear in mind when you do this
that you lose access to those handy functions. I'd love to see
Help/Systems implement these as real SQL functions.

We are considering a move away from ViewPoint to another tool, but I
wouldn't be surprised if we don't move. We've done too much with
SEQUEL and we have about 100 end-users trained to use it to write
their own reports. Some of our more skilled end-users don't like it,
but all of their complaints are really with our database and our lack
of documentation. If we can ever get permission to build a data
warehouse with good documentation, I have a feeling they won't be
nearly as critical of the BI tool.

Mike E.



On Fri, Nov 21, 2008 at 9:11 AM, Adam Glauser <adamglauser@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I am a SEQUEL user. I'd say that it is great *up to a point*.

Pros
Makes it really output query results to many formats
Includes a tool called ESEND which is a nice way to send email from i
Documentation is good, and both the green screen interface and the
Windows interface (called Viewpoint) are pretty flexible. New users can
be productive quickly due to the handholding options in the both interfaces
Has its own special syntax which is mostly the same as SQL, so it can
provide some handy functions that "pure" SQL doesn't (numeric date
handling is one area I can think of)
Great support team

Cons
Can't (as of version 8.7.x) call SQL Stored procedures.
Has its own special syntax which is mostly the same as SQL, but has some
significant differences and seems to lag behind SQL features a bit. Some
examples:
- when joining multiple files, can not use different join types for
each joined pair.
- no CTE support

HTH,
Adam
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