I'm looking for some ideas on how you handle custom report writing in your organization as well as what you think are the pros and cons of your chosen model. So, for example, does 1 person in IT handle all custom reporting needs or do you have a power user in each department that can write reports, but use IT to vet them and move them into the Production system? Or something else entirely?
We're tossing around ideas and trying to balance what we expect to be a big desire for more custom reporting quickly vs. the security concerns around having non-IT folks access the database.
Thanks!
Kjersten SchladetzkyProgram Manager, American Museum of Natural History
Hi Kjersten,
We have one IT staff member who handles most of the custom report writing. I help back her up in that area, but only jump in when needed. We do not have users developing their own reports, although we try to push people to use tools, like lists/extractions, T-Stats, etc. We have been using Tessitura for over 10 years, so we've developed a significant repository of custom reports.
We have been toying with the idea of giving a select number of power users access to a tool like Report Builder (which comes with SQL Server) to help fill in the gap when something like T-Stats isn't going to help, but we haven't had time to dig deeper into that. If we end up having users build their own report, it would not be against the full impresario schema but some specifically designed views, similar to what Tom described. That should help minimize the need to vet the reports and simplify the process for the power user.
Thanks,David