I was talking to a fellow attendee at the recent SAP conference in Orlando after a session on reporting with Crystal and Business Objects. She has a problem we see fairly often at Red Three: she has multiple databases on multiple platforms but no budget or time to create one central database. As we were talking, I realized the topic warrants a blog post. Here I’ll discuss the four options you have in this type of situation.
Read more on Reporting Alternatives to a Full Scale Data Warehouse…
SAP – A Map of the Minefield
I just finished reading the book SAP: A Map of a Minefield by Stephen Birchall. I’ve been working with enterprise software for quite a long time, so the book didn’t hold many surprises for me (although there are some decent SAP tips and tricks in the back). If you haven’t implemented a real ERP system (and certainly if you’ve never implemented a full-bore one like SAP), it’s worth a read. While I do have a fundamentally different take on the value of such systems (which I’ll get to shortly), the author makes many good points. In particular, I agree with his take on training (as in, most end user knowledge transfer happens as you go live) and documentation (as in, document only as much as you absolutely have to).
Crystal Versus SSRS: A Comparative Table
The two major reporting tools we use are Crystal Reports and Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services. I’ve written before about how Crystal Reports isn’t perfect but gets the job done. I’ve also posted on how we’ve joined the Microsoft evil empire. So, clients have been asking – which one do I recommend? To that end, we’ve assembled a table comparing Crystal and SSRS.
I’m generally a big advocate of making your software go as far as possible, even to the extent of using your general ledger as a simple data warehouse. But sometimes, trying to make your packaged software do everything doesn’t yield the best result. Here’s an example:
Read more on Should You Use an ERP System for all Your Data?…
CFO magazine has a good article titled No Employee Left Behind in its April issue. The article describes how insurance broker Marsh is training its entire firm in the basics of finance. As in everyone. As noted in the article, this isn’t uncommon in the financial sector. But Marsh differs in the effort it’s putting into it – using internal resources as opposed to canned content and making financial education mandatory, not optional.
Read more on How Important is Financial Education for Non-Financial People?…
Lawson: Beyond the Maintenance Vampire?
When Infor purchased Lawson last year, I wrote a blog post about how this wasn’t going to be good for customers. Infor isn’t known as a forward thinking software company, as Vinnie Mirchandani wrote in a recent blog post:
The other night, my wife and I saw One Man, Two Guvnors on Broadway. You may wonder why I’m posting about this on the Red Three blog. But as I thought about what I liked and didn’t like about the play, I realized it relates directly to point 5 of 7 Ways to Make Data Work For You – tell a story.
Read more on On Being Funny Versus Telling a Story: Making Data Work for You…
I saw this article this article on Bloomberg about non-financial statements that companies issue with their financial information. Things like corporate responsibility statements and environmental impact statements. The article’s worth a read. Here are a couple thoughts:
Read more on Corporate Responsibility Statements – A New Metric?…
In my last post, I discussed the problems of old code when it comes to training. Today, I’m going to talk about how old code becomes problematic when it comes to maintenance.
Read more on Spring Cleaning on the Brain: Maintenance and Cleaning Up Old Code…
I have spring cleaning on the brain as our housekeeper’s been away, and I’ve been doing more straightening around the house. It’s put me in a “throw things out/clean things up” kind of mood. I’ve written recently about how you can’t trust old reports. But now I’m taking it a step further. You need to throw out old programs you don’t use any more and clean up programs that work but are difficult to maintain (called refactoring in geek speak). There are two reasons for this: training and ease of maintenance. In this blog post, I’ll discuss how old code creates problems in training. In my next post, I’ll explore how old code creates problems for maintenance.
Read more on Spring Cleaning on the Brain: Training and Cleaning Up Old Code…
