Hello,



I have no experience of using this tool before, but i need to do the
evaluation and give my recommendation to my client. below are my
considerated tools i have found; however, they all seem very good to me
so i dont know which one to pick. if you have experience using one of
them please tell me.



- Cognos: Cognos Query or Cognos netReport

- Crystal Enterprise: Ad Hoc Query

- Hyperion Analyzer

- Microstrategy



Thanks in advanced

dotQ


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"dotQ" <member38299 (AT) dbforums (DOT) com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:3335318.1062775366 (AT) dbforums (DOT) com...

It depends what your customer wants to do. Roughly Cognos and Crystal are
having a strong focus on formatted production reporting whilst MicroStrategy
has an analytic focus. Hyperion Analyzer is a tool to visualize tabular and
graphical data in a kind of dashboard or MIS environment (Web-based).

Kind regards,

Joerg

The ones that have made the biggest impression on me, based on sheer
use of web technology have been Cognos ReportNet, Microstrategy 7i,
PowerAnalyzer and maybe Crystal. However I would not normally choose a
product in this way as these types of products offer such a variety of
functionality, also some maybe total overkill in terms or price and
complexity. I guess one of my questions would be who is your intended
users, joe public, business users, technical business users, technical
staff etc. This will give us a better idea of who you may want to send
an RFI out to or ask for demo that is designed around your intended
use - be cautious of canned demo's.

Great tools you mention, but I am missing some not so well known but
very good webbased analytical frontends: Panorama NovaView, ProClarity
and Temtec, based on a Microsoft AS 2000 Bi/OLAP engine. We have very
possitive experience with Panorama + MS AS2000 as analytical webbased
solution not only on the intranet but also in the internet.

Regards, Marco

nick_wakefield (AT) hotmail (DOT) com (Niko) wrote in message news:<9da94cd1.0309061059.142e6aba (AT) posting (DOT) google.com>...

Hello,



thanks so much for your reponse!



my clients used to use Arpeggio (stand alone application), so they want
to upgrade to something can be 100% web-based environment. they dont
need anything fancy like BO tools, but writing report tool which they
do everything including write their own queries (ad hoc query) and view
their reports on web-based environment.



although price is not an issue but cognos NetReport seems a right tool
but it is too costly, over $90K.



thanks, dotQ


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The only good web-based ad hoc report tool is a dead web-based ad hoc
report tool ;-)

Usability of web-based tools is not impressive, should therefore be
limited to incidental use.

Stephan

A while back I ran across a startup, Unifact (www.unifact.com). They
were sill in beta but their product might be done now. It was web based
and they were priced way below $90K. Might be worth checking out.



Good luck.









Originally posted by dotQ

thanks, dotQ


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"Stephan Eggermont" <stephan (AT) stack (DOT) nl> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:bjk4re$2nu$2 (AT) news (DOT) tue.nl...
Not correct. It always depends on the user requirements and if a company is
looking for an ad-hoc reporting tool - not analysis - there are tools
available that can meet a lot of requirements.

Have you ever thought of maintaining a 1.000+ PC site where you have to
install the software on any PC?
Not incidential use, it is correct use. Give the users what they need with
least efforts.

Joerg

Joerg Narr <n_o_s_p_a_m_joerg_narr (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:
A lot of requirements indeed, but usability is not one of them.
If you don't have automated configuration management for a 1000+ PC
site you are in need of different management, not another tool.

If 1000 users are going to regularly use this, nearly every effort is worthwhile
to improve usability. The easiest way to improve usability is to move away
from a web-based system.

When the PCs are not under your control you'll have more problems with
a web-based system than with a proper application, especially when the PCs
are properly (secure) configured.

Stephan Eggermont
Sensus, systems that make sense

I am not sure how much true exposure you have had to web based
reporting tools in academia but many of the desktop clients out there
offer to much complexity for business users and a simplified web
front-end offers an interface that they all already partially familiar
with. One of big benefits of web based reporting tools is that they
tend to built upon an open API which allows business to configure or
customize the front-end to fit a common enterprise look and feel.


Stephan Eggermont <stephan (AT) stack (DOT) nl> wrote