Makes one long for CrowFlite, doesn't it? For those that don't remember, CrowFlite was an add-in to Excel that allowed it, at a per-cell level, to "reach back" into a Pick database and grab individual pieces of data. In other words, it was a "pull" solution as well as a "push".
I'm cc'ing its creator, Phil Gerber, so he can reminisce about the past while reveling in the sights among the mountains of Oregon :-) On Mon, 6 Feb 2012, Tony Gravagno wrote: > Not responding to any particular quote here, just the CSV topic > in general. > > Respected colleagues, CSV is not Excel. If you have an end-user > that asks for Excel and you give them a CSV you're just > perpetuating the myth that Pick is a dinosaur. They will gladly > spend tens of thousands of dollars to replace your application > with something that creates real Excel (and PDF) despite the fact > that such things can be attained at low cost or no cost right > now. Trust me, I've seen it happen. > > This dove-tails with the reasons why people get 20 people to > support Oracle when they can have 3 working on Pick. The reason > is that the Oracle people say "yes", and give them pretty > reports, when their Pick guys say "no", and give them plain text > in columns and rows and call it "Excel". > > Please don't let that happen to you. Be sure you are properly > responding to end-user requests. Just ask them what they do with > the documents after you generate them. If they really just want > raw data, OK. But if they go on to tell you how many days it > takes to reformat the data, assemble the multiple CSVs into a > single workbook, etc, then you have found a great deal of room > for improvement. Yeah, I've been there too. > > Off the soapbox, thanks. > T > > _______________________________________________ > U2-Users mailing list > U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org > http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users > > Regards, ....Bob Rasmussen, President, Rasmussen Software, Inc. personal e-mail: r...@anzio.com company e-mail: r...@anzio.com voice: (US) 503-624-0360 (9:00-6:00 Pacific Time) fax: (US) 503-624-0760 web: http://www.anzio.com street address: Rasmussen Software, Inc. 10240 SW Nimbus, Suite L9 Portland, OR 97223 USA _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
