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leprechaun
Starting Member
2 Posts |
 Posted - 2004-07-19 : 16:17:14
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| Greetings everyone,I'm rather new to databases, and programming all together. Cutting the intro short, i'm doing some home work for a coworkers project, and i have run into mushy grounds, perhaps you acn give me a hand.The project i'm helping on is a big web enable SQL Server database. Generating reports (with CR) is one of the objectives. Nonetheless, we can't go and code every single report our users could be thinking about. So we thought giving them an Access application and have them build simple reports with access.There are a couple things we need to get done. First and foremost is authentication. I've seen a library called "LASsie" that does security, but i haven't seen many references to much else.We also need to filter results based on the authentication results (user classes etc) by affecting parameters to stored procedures and the like. I also need to be able to hide certain columns all together.Is this at all possible? Could you possibly point me towards a more pinpointed source of info please? I've been googling for a while, although it works, the best would be something access/sql server specific.Thanks alot, Lawrence |
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AjarnMark
SQL Slashing Gunting Master
3246 Posts |
Posted - 2004-07-20 : 14:59:49
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| Lawrence,While I don't have a solution to your question, I am going to challenge your premise. You state that "we can't go and code every single report our users could be thinking about". And in it's purity that is a true statement; however, I would question whether there is a need to do that. By interviewing the users carefully, you should be able to define the reports that will produce the information that is needed on a regular, recurring basis. You also can put in place a user feedback mechanism and a system review to determine 1) What reports were created that are NOT used anymore and 2) What report do the users wish they had. Then those findings can be reviewed and reports can be deactivated or created as necessary. There should also be an option for a user (perhaps limited to certain users or managers) to request an ad-hoc report that you or someone skilled can produce.I think the idea of providing users the abilit to build their own reports on the fly is a bad approach. It will likely lead to a lot of duplicate effort and perhaps faulty information if they build them incorrectly. It also strikes me as similar to the 500 TV channel scenario. It sounds really cool to people at first to have all that choice, but after a month or two, they settle in to their top 5-10 channels they actually watch or care about.-----------------------------------------------------Words of Wisdom from AjarnMark, owner of Infoneering |
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leprechaun
Starting Member
2 Posts |
Posted - 2004-07-20 : 15:35:39
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| AjarnMark, Thanks for the reply.You bring a good point indeed. However, i'm somewhat stuck between the 2 camps.We have already made a number of reports. More are on the way. With those in the specification we are already set for good chunk of the users. Doing the 500 reports would be sweet, but it's indeed alot of work, for 90% that won't be used/watched much, but they WILL be used.I agree that we certainly can make the 500, but if we did 100 and listened for 100 more. 85% of our users would be happy, but 15% remain, i think it's in this case that the FrontEnd would be sweet.Anyway, whatever decision the bosses take, i'll probably end up being the on doing the work, atleast for the reports.Thanks again for the repply.Lawrence |
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