On 8/2/2013 11:36 AM, rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
I think Query/400 counts as a reporting tool. Lots of users here using
that. "significant IT staff support" is up for debate.
It is indeed. Midrange shops come in a lot of flavours and small is a
popular one. In a small shop (OP wrote of one in house programmer and 2
outside consultants) a lot of the database was grown... organically,
incrementally, over time. Documentation tends to be thin for the
developers, and nonexistent for end users.
OP wrote about an ERP package. Some ERP packages have a full suite of
documentation, including table and column names, where business rules
are stored and all that. Some are less... thorough.
In either case, if the end users have been using Query/400 for a long
time, they have crib sheets and notes to help them navigate the
database. At some point, someone either helped them find the
documentation or explained some basics about how the database works. So
for these cases, IT staff time might very well have been spread out over
many years.
OP sounded as though his management were thinking they'd deploy BO, give
everybody a link and set them loose. Never seen that work unless the
end user community were familiar with the DB to already be performing
queries. In cases like these, the users want more than Query/400 can
offer - download spreadsheets, executive dashboards, XML to feed some
other analysis tool, stuff like that.
It's much easier to extend end user query skills than to get them going
from zero.
--buck
midrange.com
