Steve, The R:Base report writer is infinitely easier to use than Crystal reports. In fact, we had previously purchased Crystal 10 but found it better to attach to Oracle and create a report in R:base. Easier to manipulate objects and much easier to use columns, sub-reports, etc in general. The problem with ODBC connections is usually speed, as you cannot always take advantage of some indexed columns. (a lot of oracle tables are huge views in big enterprise systems). But if the data is in R:base, especially v8, it is very slick now. Lots of shading and color availability. Plus, your development time is faster. hope this helps BC
From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Wills, Steve Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 1:19 PM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - RBase (v8) versus Crystal (Enterprise?) versus MS Reporting Tool ... I'm askin' all y'all to share your perspectives, experience, sales tips, etc., as my boss and colleagues now have "R:Base" in their vocabulary and want to begin comparative analysis of these products as a reporting tool (writing and generation, at desktop or via browser, i.e. RWEB ...). Words such as "department" and even "enterprise" have been used in some preliminary discussions. The organization is primarily Win XP & VISTA, some MAC's, with various backend DBMS's (ORACLE, SQL Server, Etc.) serving core university systems in areas such as registration, accounting & finance, student info, research proposal and grants administration, etc. The area in which I work and for which this tool will be targeted is research proposal and grants administration. Let me also request samples of "pretty" reports that anyone is willing to share, perhaps via PDF or WWW. That word was used by my boss, so "pretty" counts ... Thanks, Steve in Memphis J. Stephen Wills Program Manager, Research Informatics Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research University of Tennessee Health Science Center 62 S. Dunlap, Suite 400 Memphis, TN 38163 Office: 901-448-2389 FAX : 901-448-7133
