Does Your Company need a Crystal Reports Writer?
Here is a video that Kristin with Reporting Guru created with that shows how to create a basic custom sales report:
Must haves for a Crystal Reports Writer:
- Crystal Reports is the actual application that is used to build the reports (.rpt files). A lot of times this comes with the ERP you are using, so don’t go out and buy it unless you need to. Talk to an expert at Reporting Guru first.
- A place to publish the reports such as Crystal Server. Tons of applications use Crystal Reports as their report engine, so many company just need reports written within their application (ERP).
- Great communication skills to communicate with the end users that consume the reports. Someone may be the best programmer in the world, but if they can’t communicate then they will not be a good Crystal Reports Writer
- Report Requirements = Try to get this in Word, a PDF, Excel, or even a napkin!! A picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to report requirements.
Questions that the Writer should be asking :
- How do they want the end report rendered? In a web browser? A PDF? Export to Excel? This is EXTREMELY important because the report has to be developed different ways do to sizing or what is exported. You don’t want to find out at the end of developing a report that you need it to fit on an 8.5 x 11 PDF.
- How important is formatting? Is the end user just interested in the data? Or will this report be delivered to a Customer? Formatting and take a lot of time.
- Where is the data located and what kind of database? For example SQL Server is easier to work with than a Dbase or Pervasive. You may need 3rd party drivers to connect to the database.
Do you need to hire full time Writer or can you just use as needed?
You can most likely get away with just hiring Reporting Guru on an as needed basis. Typically, our customers have a subset of reports they need initially and then they may need a minimal amount of help each month, so there is no reason to hire someone full time to sit around 40 hours per week and not do anything.
Reporting Guru is Crystal Report Writing experts.. To discuss your Crystal Report Writing needs or business requirements, give us a call at 1-800-921-4759, fill out our contact form, or email us at info@ReportingGuru.com
Crystal Reports is an application used in designing and generation of reports from wide range of data sources. A good Crystal Reports Writer will always add value to a company. It is thus crucial for any company to get a Crystal Reports Writer that understands the business requirements so that a solid technical solution can be obtained.
A Crystal Report Writer must clearly understand several things when beginning a report. Some basics are:
1. know the audience
2. understand the data that needs to be displayed
3. understand where the data is stored
4. understand how much detail needs to be presented to the user.
Here are some general tips to help be the best Crystal Reports Writer possible:
1. If the report needs to be written against a single database, the data explorer needs to be set to only tables and views that are owned by the database being queried. This saves you from having to sort through all other irrelevant data sources which hurts performances and potentially confuses the output.
2. Templatize and reuse reports!! It is always much easier to start out with an existing report that is similar to what is needed and just modify it.
3. Be careful when linking data in your report. Make sure you clearly understand the difference between the different types of joins used to connect tables together.
If your company needs a Crystal Reports Writer, Reporting Guru can help. To discuss your needs or business requirements, give us a call at 1-800-921-4759, fill out our contact form, or email us at info@ReportingGuru.com
We work with tons of ERPs, here are a few:
PMWeb, SAGE / Peachtreee, SAP, Yardi, Fishbowl, Dovenet, Quickbooks, Dynamics, Epicor, Investran, ACT, Bolo, Concur, Maximo,