| ign="center"> | | | | to get the reports they want. This creates a second |
| Crystal Reports Alternative | | | | point of frustration: the âIT Bottleneckâ. |
| Crystal Reports by Business Objects is one of the | | | | The IT department is already overloaded with installing |
| most popular and widely used reporting solutions in the | | | | upgrades and patches, dealing with hardware issues, |
| world. Yet why are so many people frustrated with it? | | | | network support, software development, bug fixes, |
| To answer this question you must first understand that | | | | and more. Writing end-user ad-hoc reports is the |
| there are two types of Business Intelligence reporting | | | | lowest priority. The casual users canât get |
| users: casual users and power users. Casual users, | | | | what they want when they want it. |
| which typically make up 80% or more of the people in | | | | Stonefield Query: the BI reporting alternative |
| an organization, include executives, managers, staff, | | | | Stonefield Query is designed specifically for the casual |
| and business analysts. Power users, making up less | | | | user. It gives them the ability to create their own |
| than 20%, include IT developers, super users, and | | | | ad-hoc queries and reports, production reports, and |
| analytical modelers. | | | | parameterized reports from scratch without needing to |
| Power users have no problem working with Crystal | | | | know anything about programming. |
| Reports because they understand database design, | | | | Stonefield Query lets you produce row and column |
| structures, relationships, joins, and SQL commands. To | | | | reports, cross-tab reports, charts/graphs, labels, etc. It |
| a casual user, on the other hand, this is all Greek to | | | | works with virtually any database including: Oracle, |
| them. This is where the first point of frustration comes | | | | SQL, DB2, MySql, Sybase, Pervasive, and more. It also |
| in: casual users donât have the time to learn | | | | comes with built-in scheduling. Stonefield Query can |
| Crystal Reports nor do they want to become | | | | even run Crystal Reports. |
| programmers. | | | | Bottom line: give a casual user a BI tool designed for |
| So now the casual user must go to the power users | | | | them. |