Are the posted questions getting worse?
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Brandie Tarvin (11/5/2015)
BWFC (11/5/2015)
Woolly nebulous request of the month alert.I've been asked to look into ad-hoc reporting solutions so users can create their own reports.
All I know is it's a SQL Server back end.
I don't know:
- The level of the users skills; is it a BI person or anybody from the cleaner upwards.
- What level of reporting i.e. whether it's operational 'did this happen', whether it's month by month figures or both.
- How ad-hoc it will be; is there going to be data there to be queried or is the user (see above) going to have to bring it in themselves.
The client is also in Australia and isn't to know that I'm looking into this.
Any suggestions?
At risk of being lynched: Crystal Reports is probably the easiest ad-hoc reporting tool a user with no experience can learn to use.
Back in days when I was a developer, Crystal Reports was the best product for ad-hoc reporting.
It was also the only reporting tool that gave the ability to craft page-perfect reports without driving you insane. SSRS was still in its early days.
-- Gianluca Sartori
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Brandie Tarvin (11/5/2015)
BWFC (11/5/2015)
Woolly nebulous request of the month alert.I've been asked to look into ad-hoc reporting solutions so users can create their own reports.
All I know is it's a SQL Server back end.
I don't know:
- The level of the users skills; is it a BI person or anybody from the cleaner upwards.
- What level of reporting i.e. whether it's operational 'did this happen', whether it's month by month figures or both.
- How ad-hoc it will be; is there going to be data there to be queried or is the user (see above) going to have to bring it in themselves.
The client is also in Australia and isn't to know that I'm looking into this.
Any suggestions?
At risk of being lynched: Crystal Reports is probably the easiest ad-hoc reporting tool a user with no experience can learn to use.
I have not used Crystal Reports. But, I work in the data science and BI side of things for my company.
We primarily use MicroStrategy or Tableau. Most analyst love to use Tableau for it's easy and visual appeal. It's super easy to use, hooks up to any data source and is the current top visualization tool out there outside of just Excel.
MicroStrategy was used for their MOLAP technology. You can build in-memory cubes that allow you to fully model a data set for the end user to build reports on top of. Unfortunately, this approach has been popular for technical people like myself, but not as popular for non-technical people who just want to hit the ground running like they can in Tableau. The server tech for Tableau has been improved with better caching options to really surpass MicroStrategy performance with larger datasets.
PowerBI from Microsoft if you were looking for a good transition from Excel to a new similar visualization option from Microsoft. Some users I've talked to liked it. Others who work with bigger data dislike it and opt for Tableau with Tableau Server for the caching.
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xsevensinzx (11/5/2015)
Brandie Tarvin (11/5/2015)
BWFC (11/5/2015)
Woolly nebulous request of the month alert.I've been asked to look into ad-hoc reporting solutions so users can create their own reports.
All I know is it's a SQL Server back end.
I don't know:
- The level of the users skills; is it a BI person or anybody from the cleaner upwards.
- What level of reporting i.e. whether it's operational 'did this happen', whether it's month by month figures or both.
- How ad-hoc it will be; is there going to be data there to be queried or is the user (see above) going to have to bring it in themselves.
The client is also in Australia and isn't to know that I'm looking into this.
Any suggestions?
At risk of being lynched: Crystal Reports is probably the easiest ad-hoc reporting tool a user with no experience can learn to use.
I have not used Crystal Reports. But, I work in the data science and BI side of things for my company.
We primarily use MicroStrategy or Tableau. Most analyst love to use Tableau for it's easy and visual appeal. It's super easy to use, hooks up to any data source and is the current top visualization tool out there outside of just Excel.
MicroStrategy was used for their MOLAP technology. You can build in-memory cubes that allow you to fully model a data set for the end user to build reports on top of. Unfortunately, this approach has been popular for technical people like myself, but not as popular for non-technical people who just want to hit the ground running like they can in Tableau. The server tech for Tableau has been improved with better caching options to really surpass MicroStrategy performance with larger datasets.
PowerBI from Microsoft if you were looking for a good transition from Excel to a new similar visualization option from Microsoft. Some users I've talked to liked it. Others who work with bigger data dislike it and opt for Tableau with Tableau Server for the caching.
Part of it is the amount of data in SQL, along with the structure.
How much IT involvement to do any staging is also important.
You want to make it easy to get the same answer.
Excel / Power BI is very flexible, and some users will likely be fairly familiar with this.
If SSAS is available, pivot tables in Excel can be very flexible.
Even in an ad hoc environment, some power users should work with IT.
And some standard report templates likely should be created.
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Ed Wagner (11/4/2015)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (11/4/2015)
Ditto. Why don't you come down here? A bit better weather and good economy 😉I'd cast my vote in favor of you moving to Michigan. I'll even volunteer to buy the first lunch. 😉
Mountains, err, hills aren't tall enough.
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Greg Edwards-268690 (11/5/2015)
xsevensinzx (11/5/2015)
Brandie Tarvin (11/5/2015)
BWFC (11/5/2015)
Woolly nebulous request of the month alert.I've been asked to look into ad-hoc reporting solutions so users can create their own reports.
All I know is it's a SQL Server back end.
I don't know:
- The level of the users skills; is it a BI person or anybody from the cleaner upwards.
- What level of reporting i.e. whether it's operational 'did this happen', whether it's month by month figures or both.
- How ad-hoc it will be; is there going to be data there to be queried or is the user (see above) going to have to bring it in themselves.
The client is also in Australia and isn't to know that I'm looking into this.
Any suggestions?
At risk of being lynched: Crystal Reports is probably the easiest ad-hoc reporting tool a user with no experience can learn to use.
I have not used Crystal Reports. But, I work in the data science and BI side of things for my company.
We primarily use MicroStrategy or Tableau. Most analyst love to use Tableau for it's easy and visual appeal. It's super easy to use, hooks up to any data source and is the current top visualization tool out there outside of just Excel.
MicroStrategy was used for their MOLAP technology. You can build in-memory cubes that allow you to fully model a data set for the end user to build reports on top of. Unfortunately, this approach has been popular for technical people like myself, but not as popular for non-technical people who just want to hit the ground running like they can in Tableau. The server tech for Tableau has been improved with better caching options to really surpass MicroStrategy performance with larger datasets.
PowerBI from Microsoft if you were looking for a good transition from Excel to a new similar visualization option from Microsoft. Some users I've talked to liked it. Others who work with bigger data dislike it and opt for Tableau with Tableau Server for the caching.
Part of it is the amount of data in SQL, along with the structure.
How much IT involvement to do any staging is also important.
You want to make it easy to get the same answer.
Excel / Power BI is very flexible, and some users will likely be fairly familiar with this.
If SSAS is available, pivot tables in Excel can be very flexible.
Even in an ad hoc environment, some power users should work with IT.
And some standard report templates likely should be created.
I mentioned the Excel BI tools and apparently they don't want use 'spreadsheets'. I'm pretty sure though that's down to a lack of understanding of the capabilities.
I've no idea about staging and IT involvement. As I said, a user could be anybody from the cleaner up. We're not even sure whether user means the client as an organisation, that would put a whole different slant on it of course.
On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
—Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a PhilosopherHow to post a question to get the most help http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537
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ChrisM@Work (11/5/2015)
yb751 (11/5/2015)
Brandie Tarvin (11/5/2015)
At risk of being lynched: Crystal Reports is probably the easiest ad-hoc reporting tool a user with no experience can learn to use.Well I agree with you on this one. By far one of the easiest reporting tools I've come across. The only problem I've seen is when users were given full access to the DB's and decided to pull back entire tables down to the client and wonder why it's so slow.
ChrisM@Work (11/5/2015)
Seconded. Not necessarily the safest, I've seen an instance restarted by poorly designed Crystal reports - but probably the easiest.Wow, that's crazy...never came across that glitch before. Was it tied to a specific version of Crystal?
That was Crystal 11 point something about 7 years ago, using Crystal's query designer and applying parameters after grabbing a few tens of millions of rows from the server. As to the cause of the restart, nothing obvious stood out at the time.
Same risk applies to any reporting tool allowing end users to design their own reports. This includes Excel and ReportFramework (Cognos report tool).
I have seen Crystal, ReportFramework and Excel all cause production outages due to poorly designed "reports".
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events -
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (11/5/2015)
Ed Wagner (11/4/2015)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (11/4/2015)
Ditto. Why don't you come down here? A bit better weather and good economy 😉I'd cast my vote in favor of you moving to Michigan. I'll even volunteer to buy the first lunch. 😉
Mountains, err, hills aren't tall enough.
Those hills are called overpasses. :hehe::hehe:
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events -
I mentioned the Excel BI tools and apparently they don't want use 'spreadsheets'. I'm pretty sure though that's down to a lack of understanding of the capabilities.
I've no idea about staging and IT involvement. As I said, a user could be anybody from the cleaner up. We're not even sure whether user means the client as an organisation, that would put a whole different slant on it of course.
Just for clarity, I was referring to PowerBI as the new solution from Microsoft. Not the plugins for Excel.
https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/[/url]
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BWFC (11/5/2015)
Greg Edwards-268690 (11/5/2015)
xsevensinzx (11/5/2015)
Brandie Tarvin (11/5/2015)
BWFC (11/5/2015)
Woolly nebulous request of the month alert.I've been asked to look into ad-hoc reporting solutions so users can create their own reports.
All I know is it's a SQL Server back end.
I don't know:
- The level of the users skills; is it a BI person or anybody from the cleaner upwards.
- What level of reporting i.e. whether it's operational 'did this happen', whether it's month by month figures or both.
- How ad-hoc it will be; is there going to be data there to be queried or is the user (see above) going to have to bring it in themselves.
The client is also in Australia and isn't to know that I'm looking into this.
Any suggestions?
At risk of being lynched: Crystal Reports is probably the easiest ad-hoc reporting tool a user with no experience can learn to use.
I have not used Crystal Reports. But, I work in the data science and BI side of things for my company.
We primarily use MicroStrategy or Tableau. Most analyst love to use Tableau for it's easy and visual appeal. It's super easy to use, hooks up to any data source and is the current top visualization tool out there outside of just Excel.
MicroStrategy was used for their MOLAP technology. You can build in-memory cubes that allow you to fully model a data set for the end user to build reports on top of. Unfortunately, this approach has been popular for technical people like myself, but not as popular for non-technical people who just want to hit the ground running like they can in Tableau. The server tech for Tableau has been improved with better caching options to really surpass MicroStrategy performance with larger datasets.
PowerBI from Microsoft if you were looking for a good transition from Excel to a new similar visualization option from Microsoft. Some users I've talked to liked it. Others who work with bigger data dislike it and opt for Tableau with Tableau Server for the caching.
Part of it is the amount of data in SQL, along with the structure.
How much IT involvement to do any staging is also important.
You want to make it easy to get the same answer.
Excel / Power BI is very flexible, and some users will likely be fairly familiar with this.
If SSAS is available, pivot tables in Excel can be very flexible.
Even in an ad hoc environment, some power users should work with IT.
And some standard report templates likely should be created.
I mentioned the Excel BI tools and apparently they don't want use 'spreadsheets'. I'm pretty sure though that's down to a lack of understanding of the capabilities.
I've no idea about staging and IT involvement. As I said, a user could be anybody from the cleaner up. We're not even sure whether user means the client as an organisation, that would put a whole different slant on it of course.
I'd strongly suggest looking at Excel and, maybe even more importantly, PowerBI. the technology is wildly different from what we think.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
SQLRNNR (11/5/2015)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (11/5/2015)
Ed Wagner (11/4/2015)
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (11/4/2015)
Ditto. Why don't you come down here? A bit better weather and good economy 😉I'd cast my vote in favor of you moving to Michigan. I'll even volunteer to buy the first lunch. 😉
Mountains, err, hills aren't tall enough.
Those hills are called overpasses. :hehe::hehe:
Although some of those "hills" are trying to get shorter on their own...
(Rouge River Bridge pothole[/url])
But, hey! We got great fudge (Mackinac Island,) and ginger ale (Vernors!)
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I think PowerBI is very cool. It's not as intuitive as it looks in presentations, but I'm starting to play with it.
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Grant Fritchey (11/5/2015)
I'd strongly suggest looking at Excel and, maybe even more importantly, PowerBI. the technology is wildly different from what we think.PowerBI is very pretty, and it's pretty easy to use. Hell, I can produce useful graphs in it and I can't even spell BI.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverabilityWe walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass -
xsevensinzx (11/4/2015)
Jeff Moden (11/4/2015)
Brandie Tarvin (11/4/2015)
Jeff Moden (11/3/2015)
Man o man... yet another self-proclaimed DBA bites the dust in the interview process as has another self-proclaimed "expert" Database Developer. It amazing how they don't know what they don't know. I'm not asking difficult questions so far because none have gotten that far, yet.I am curious. How many people have you interviewed who (though unqualified for this specific posting) know more than they realize they know?
Actually and as impossible as it seems, there have been two and they're both wicked sharp. One was one of those self-trained Ninja's that never thought of herself as a "DBA" and yet she knew more about SQL Server and T-SQL than the last 8 candidates combined. It was a real pleasure to interview her. I also had the pleasure of interviewing Geoff Albin.
I'm also curious! What is it about the candidates that is really turning you off? I mean, are you generally looking for people with high capacity of knowledge on the phone or in person? No one trainable or anything like that? I heard you talk about this before when mentioning candidates failing to answer questions about date functions or something along those lines.
I ask because I generally fail at a lot of capacity questions like that too when on the spot. There is a wealth of information out there on every piece of technology. In most interviews, a lot of the common stuff gets asked and sometimes forgotten by the candidate because they are generally so simple and easy to reference it slips beneath the cracks like knowing every formatting code to a function or something like that versus how to restore to a point in time.
One being critical to the job to know where the other is not critical. 😀
I can't speak for Jeff but I can recall some of the things he has mentioned in the past that a shocking number of people can't answer. The date part was something like "Name at least one way to get the current date". Nothing tricky or memory required. If you can't come up with at LEAST one instantly you obviously don't have any real world experience. He has made it clear at least in comments that his questions are not the kind of thing the require memorization, instead the require basic knowledge of t-sql.
_______________________________________________________________
Need help? Help us help you.
Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.
Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/ -
GilaMonster (11/5/2015)
Grant Fritchey (11/5/2015)
I'd strongly suggest looking at Excel and, maybe even more importantly, PowerBI. the technology is wildly different from what we think.PowerBI is very pretty, and it's pretty easy to use. Hell, I can produce useful graphs in it and I can't even spell BI.
This!
The fact that I can create a useful set of graphical presentation of information pretty much sums up the power of the tool. Now, the real issue is the quality of your data. The tool can't help that at all.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore RooseveltAuthor of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning -
Grant Fritchey (11/5/2015)
GilaMonster (11/5/2015)
Grant Fritchey (11/5/2015)
I'd strongly suggest looking at Excel and, maybe even more importantly, PowerBI. the technology is wildly different from what we think.PowerBI is very pretty, and it's pretty easy to use. Hell, I can produce useful graphs in it and I can't even spell BI.
This!
The fact that I can create a useful set of graphical presentation of information pretty much sums up the power of the tool. Now, the real issue is the quality of your data. The tool can't help that at all.
Okay. Now I have a new toy to look at.
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