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What Tools are You Supporting…?
I asked yesterday what types of things people are finding themselves supporting when it comes to working with information in SQL Server. Interesting how it morphs a bit over time. Not to sound old, but "back in the day" the answer was simple – 3rd party applications, custom-built applications (typically in VB or C flavors) and so-on. Things are clearly changing to be more end-user-centric, which I’m sure isn’t a huge surprise.
– Excel – several people wrote to talk about the extensive dashboards and tools that are being built and deployed using Excel as the foundation. Many of these of course use pivot tables for analysis, but many are query and display reporting as well.
– PowerPivot – very high on the frequently talked about listing – while it’s a newer tool, it’s clear that it’s making serious headway in providing great leverage and utility to people working with SQL Server (and other databases). The interesting thing is that this is also mentioned many times when it comes to cross-database-platform queries and the need to consolidate them in a single reporting or query solution.
– SharePoint – while it’s not a solution in and of itself, it is mentioned many times as the sharing platform once a report is created.
– A few people have mentioned pulling data to PowerPoint and regularly using it to show information. Some are going first to Excel then to PowerPoint. Interesting how people that use the presentation tool find ways to use it for reporting too. It seems like a painful, read-only solution to me, but if that’s what you really need to do – pull information and show it to others in a presentation type environment, it’s the right ticket.
After these, the applications are back to the 3rd party applications and solutions, ranging from CRM to Point of Sale and other automation solutions. Of course the custom applications are still there as well, though they seem to be taking a more minor role at this point just in terms of implementation counts.
What did I miss? Drop me an email here.
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