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Which Reporting Tool Should I Use?

Currently Supported Data Warehouse Reporting Tools

There are currently two primary means of accessing data from the UCAR Data Warehouse; Crystal Reports, and the ART (Administrative Reporting Tool - formerly known as DWOW, renamed to reflect its broader scope than just Data Warehouse reporting). Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and determining which one to be the best for your reporting needs and hardware capabilities is an important step for you to make in conjunction with your manager, system administrator and the UCAR F&A IT team.  Each of the software tools are listed below, along with the generally recommended user focus.  If you have further questions about which tool you should be using, contact the F&A IT Help Desk at ext. 8888 to get in touch with one of our business reporting experts.

Crystal Reports - Crystal Reports is the full-featured report development tool supported by UCAR F&A IT, licensed by and available for purchase from Crystal Decisions (current new license fees can be as much as $500 - upgrades from previous versions run somewhat less).  This product is limited to use on a Microsoft Windows platform such as Windows 2000. It is suited to the division administrator that is required to, and has the skills to, design custom business and financial reports.  External training, and/or prior experience with report design, coupled with an understanding of data warehousing, is a requirement for successful use of this product.  This software is installed locally on your pc, and you access the ART to retrieve copies of the report you would like to run or modify.  Reports may be customized and run fully within the Crystal Reports program and saved for later use both locally on your computer and, with the ART administrator assistance, to the Web server for use by users of ART in your division if you so choose.  Since both the software and the resultant reports reside locally on each users' PC, anytime upgrades are made to either the application or to the underlying reports that the custom report may be built on, the end user (occasionally with the assistance of your division's system administrator) is responsible for downloading and installing upgrades to their own custom reports and the application as needed. 

New, custom report templates are easily created with this tool, provided the user has been adequately trained in its use and keeps those skills current.  Training in Crystal Reports is occasionally offered by UCAR, and can also be attended offsite with such training vendors as Business Objects or New Horizons.  For more information about where to purchase Crystal Reports software, and to find out which version F&A IT recommends that you purchase to remain compatible with the common systems, contact the F&A Contracts department.  For recommendations for upcoming staff training opportunities at UCAR, contact the HR department.

The UCAR Administrative Reporting Tool - or ART, as it has come to be called - is the latest edition of this reporting tool is released for UCAR staff use.  It's predecessor, DWOW, became ART in March 2005. ART is a "thin-client" tool accessed via a Web browser, built on the application Crystal Enterprise™.There is no charge to the UCAR end user for using this reporting tool. Since this is accessed by way of the web, it is accessible to PC, Mac, and Unix machines as long as they have internet connectivity and are operating either Internet Explorer (which works best for pc and Mac), Netscape Navigator or Mozilla (Safari has also been tested on the Mac platform, but it is limited in its compatibility with Crystal Enterprise). The Crystal Enterprise report viewer, "ART", was designed primarily for the ActiveX, DHTML or Java plugins that Internet Explorer or Netscape/Mozilla can operate.  A matrix of the compatibility of various plugins, browsers, and browser versions is provided at the end of this document. 

While the majority of the current pre-designed reports in ART run using data from the UCAR Data Warehouse, additional reports have, and are, being developed that run using live and nearly-live data from the HR, Advanced Notice and Conference Services systems - and this is just the beginning of what may be to come!  These reports give you the opportunity to select data for specific time periods in the past, specific divisions, and on many reports, even to the level of which account keys or programs you wish to report on.  However, one limitation of this product is that there is no ad hoc reporting available.  What are available to you on ART are generic, yet highly useful, pre-defined reports. If you feel it is necessary to make modifications to the pre-defined reports to make them work with your particular reporting needs (which may be limiting a set of reports for a specific range of account keys, or a certain division number, etc.), Crystal Reports may be something you and your supervisor might consider purchasing (remember Crystal Reports cannot run on Mac or UNIX systems - see more about this in the section on Crystal Reports above).  

No software installation is required to operate ART, only a valid login and password issued by UCAR F&A IT, along with some minor configuration settings to be made the first time you log on to ART, are needed.  For login and password information see Logins/Accounts/Alias Support, and for more information about ART see the ART Release notes, ART & Crystal Reports page, the IT FAQs or contact the F&A IT Help Desk for assistance.

Seagate Analysis - For those of you who have been around a while and remember (or still have on your PC!) Seagate Analysis, well, it's time to say goodbye to it!  Seagate Analysis is no longer supported by the software manufacturer Business Objects or by UCAR F&A IT.  Our decision to discontinue its use is primarily due to its incapability of handling the progressively more complex reports that are being developed for the use of UCAR staff, but also due to the fact that a very worthy replacement for Seagate Analysis has been found in Crystal Enterprise (which runs ART, the Web interface explained above).

Web Browser Compatibility Comparison - These are the results of the comparison of operating system platforms and their commonly associated browsers when accessing Crystal Enterprise 10, the application running ART. 

If you have questions about the content of this page, please contact the 
F&A IT Help Desk with the subject "ART & Crystal Reporting"

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