Granting Access vs. Creating Reports
Randy writes in with some feedback and thoughts about the question of whether it’s best to give your end-users full access to your databases so they can build their own reports, or is it better to build custom reports as needed, so you don’t have to give access…
"It depends on the setup of your data.
If you have a good data warehouse set up, then, yes, I think you can permit users to access the data successfully. I base this on two experiences:
1. Much of our legacy data is in FoxPro data tables. The original data tables are not so well normalized, they are actually more like you’d expect tables in a data warehouse to appear. Typically, the key fields were user-recognizable codes, not numeric primary keys. Our company through the years has had many users capable enough of manipulating this data (in read-only access), for their ad-hoc reporting needs. These have been cost accounting, lab, regulatory, and other personnel who routinely work with data, numbers, calculations, etc.
2. I have been experimenting with QLikView, and it’s apparent that once you’ve set up the data foundation adequately, you can hand off to a handful on non-IT “power users” who can set up the user-interface and reporting interfaces for others who are less comfortable with the data. Give the data columns recognizable names.
If you primarily have a database with well-normalized tables, but nothing (in addition) like I’ve described above, then, I think, you must set up all of the stored procedures, views, etc., for user access, b/c you’ll find few users capable of successfully, and accurately, getting the data they need from the databases. The data structure and relationships are likely too complex."
Holiday Schedule
The newsletter will be taking a break over the holidays – we’ll be back January 5. In the meantime, we’ll be continuing to release resources to SSWUG.org – so be sure to stop by. We hope you have a great holiday and New Year!
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