Jared, A few years ago, we went through a process of constructing a Report Request/Report Distribution system. The client could select (from within Lotus Notes) a report they wanted and fill out a template for the report allowing them to control a number of options such as fields for report, filtering, ordering etc etc etc. They could identify the output format and a distribution list. This information was posted into Oracle tables and a scheduled process would check for new requests and dispatch the appropriate report(s) for execution and then email the reports back to notes. I believe, the actual reports went to a central notes repository and links were sent to the individuals. This way a history of reports could be kept online (provided you had access). This was all custom development using Lotus Notes and SQR (Brio's report writer) and Unix Shell scripts working under Control-M. It was supposed to be a short term solution for reporting off PeopleSoft. We have been stuck with it for several years. Ideally, we would have liked to purchase a solution but due to constraints at the time we could not acquire such a system. I have looked at both Business Objects and Information Builders (WebFocus) in the last 12 months. They have tools for not only constructing reports, but storage (history), scheduling and distribution of reports via a Web environment in multiple output formats. We were interested in the WebFocus product because the had special support for PeopleSoft. They might have for SAP. They are by no means the only vendors. Personally, I prefer to buy/implement then to build/support a custom solution. In any event. I wish you luck.
From: Jared Still <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Reporting - Casting about for ideas
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2002 08:59:52 -0800
Stephane,
Yes, you have hit upon the crux of the problem. Generating
reports is easy, but managing the output is hard. I was hoping
to find that someone here had faced the same or similar problem
at some time. Doesn't look like it though.
The idea for using a table with a BFILE sounds like it might be
a good start though. Manipulating the metadata for the report
output would be much easier in a table than trying to do so
by simply walking filesystem directory tree or working with a
flat file.
Thanks,
Jared
On Friday 01 November 2002 00:43, Stephane Faroult wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> > Dear List,
> >
> > First, a little background. A coworker and I have been charged with
> > developing and implementing a 'short term' 'Reporting Solution'.
> >
> > Glossary:
> >
> > short term: low cast, fast to implement, throw it away late next year
> >
> > Reporting Solution: Some method to make it easy for users to
> > see oft run reports without re-running them on the production SAP
> > ( and other apps also ) systems.
> >
> > The goal of the 'Reporting Solution' is perceived performance.
> > Only 1 or 2 of these reports have any detrimental performance
> > impact on the servers. The goal is to allow users to view current
> > and historic reports ( up to 90 days ) without being required to
> > wait on reports to run on the application/database servers.
> >
> > This is partly political, partly user friendly.
> >
> > The political part is that we want to do *something* for users so
> > that it looks like we're taking their requirements to heart, even
> > though we don't have the resources to do much right now.
> >
> > The user friendly part is that we want to do *something* for users so
> > that we can make their jobs a little easier, even though we don't
> > have the resources to do much right now.
> >
> > One idea we have is to have an ABAPer ( SAP programmer ) setup
> > the most requested reports to run in batch mode with a specified range
> > of dates and whatever parameters are needed.
> >
> > This would be done periodically, the report output put on a network
> > filer or database or something accessible via browser ( no shared
> > drive type solution, access is to iffy ), and a web page that would allow
> > simple navigation to reports by Category/Date.
> >
> > Click on the report, view your data.
> >
> > One thing that this is *not*, is a data warehouse and/or data marts.
> >
> > This is to be a low cost solution. Some software OK, a server is Ok
> > if necessary. The key is fairly easy and quick implementation.
> >
> > I'm open to any and all ideas you may have for this, experiences doing
> > similar projects, etc. If it uses Oracle software, that's cool, if not,
> > that's
> > cool too. Oracle is involved in any solution: at the very least, that's
> > where
> > all our source data is stored.
> >
> > Thanks for reading this long winded message.
> >
> > Jared
>
> Jared,
>
> I like the idea of putting the reports on the intranet much. I have
> done something similar some years ago with e-mails sent automatically to
> give job status. It's easy to administer. The main problem I see is the
> _identification_ of reports; if you can define a kind of 'primary key'
> for reports (dates - criteria (XMLized perhaps if there can be a varying
> number of criteria) you can probably store a pointer (BFILE) to all
> available reports in some table, fill it with batch reports and even -
> there always be somebody wanting that non-standard report - run reports
> on-demand and make them available to the wide world.
>
> HTH,
>
> Stephane Faroult
> Oriole Software
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