What, if any, 3rd party products do you use for reporting out of RE?

Larry Wheeler

I've been struggling to keep up with the other duties of my position since going live with RE last July, and most of it because reporting is just too much (I came from having access to tables and using SQL to produce queries, and ARGOS to produce reports). Currently, to replicate a Giving Comparison report I wrote out of our last database, I have 6 or more pieces which I export from RE, put together in excel,  add in a column of data manually, summarize giving columns, sections, and totals... you get where i'm going .  This process takes an hour.  We are a hosted environment and do not have an updated version of Crystal Reports.


I'm wondering what others might be using for complex and professional reporting?  


Thank you for any feedback!

James Andrews

Larry Wheeler:

I've been struggling to keep up with the other duties of my position since going live with RE last July, and most of it because reporting is just too much (I came from having access to tables and using SQL to produce queries, and ARGOS to produce reports). Currently, to replicate a Giving Comparison report I wrote out of our last database, I have 6 or more pieces which I export from RE, put together in excel,  add in a column of data manually, summarize giving columns, sections, and totals... you get where i'm going .  This process takes an hour.  We are a hosted environment and do not have an updated version of Crystal Reports.


I'm wondering what others might be using for complex and professional reporting?  


Thank you for any feedback!

We are using Crystal, Tableau, and a combination of Access and Excel.  We do a lot of reporting where we export to an access back end, manipulate data in a front end, and then link to that via excel for charting/presentation etc.


But we're not hosted...

Kevin Hardy

Larry Wheeler:

I've been struggling to keep up with the other duties of my position since going live with RE last July, and most of it because reporting is just too much (I came from having access to tables and using SQL to produce queries, and ARGOS to produce reports). Currently, to replicate a Giving Comparison report I wrote out of our last database, I have 6 or more pieces which I export from RE, put together in excel,  add in a column of data manually, summarize giving columns, sections, and totals... you get where i'm going .  This process takes an hour.  We are a hosted environment and do not have an updated version of Crystal Reports.


I'm wondering what others might be using for complex and professional reporting?  


Thank you for any feedback!

Funny - I was searching around for a solution to a similar issue. In your case though, depending on how often you need those reports, you should be able to request a backup of your database and restore it in your SQL Server environment. From there you should be able to build your specialized SQL queries and Argos reporting as you used to.


Note: As far as I know you can only request a backup once a month (so if you need live or say, weekly data, you might be out of luck with this approach)

Jen Claudy

I like exporting from RE Query (generally faster than Export) and then building a process in Microsoft Access to get the final data calculations.  If the report needs to be run by someone who either doesn't have Access or isn't familiar with it, then I'd use Excel and formulas (save as xlsb to slow the file size growth).


Personally, I like having complete control over the data I'm working with...fewer filters buried in RE somewhere that exclude records that should be included.

Larry Wheeler

Kevin Hardy:

Larry Wheeler:

I've been struggling to keep up with the other duties of my position since going live with RE last July, and most of it because reporting is just too much (I came from having access to tables and using SQL to produce queries, and ARGOS to produce reports). Currently, to replicate a Giving Comparison report I wrote out of our last database, I have 6 or more pieces which I export from RE, put together in excel,  add in a column of data manually, summarize giving columns, sections, and totals... you get where i'm going .  This process takes an hour.  We are a hosted environment and do not have an updated version of Crystal Reports.


I'm wondering what others might be using for complex and professional reporting?  


Thank you for any feedback!

Funny - I was searching around for a solution to a similar issue. In your case though, depending on how often you need those reports, you should be able to request a backup of your database and restore it in your SQL Server environment. From there you should be able to build your specialized SQL queries and Argos reporting as you used to.


Note: As far as I know you can only request a backup once a month (so if you need live or say, weekly data, you might be out of luck with this approach)

 

You're exactly correct in that I need reports(some) weekly.   Thank you for the feedback!

Larry Wheeler

Jen Claudy:

I like exporting from RE Query (generally faster than Export) and then building a process in Microsoft Access to get the final data calculations.  If the report needs to be run by someone who either doesn't have Access or isn't familiar with it, then I'd use Excel and formulas (save as xlsb to slow the file size growth).


Personally, I like having complete control over the data I'm working with...fewer filters buried in RE somewhere that exclude records that should be included.

I worry about exporting out of Query, except for very simple parameter sets.  I have found where query will act strangely (don't ever remove the check from Include Deceased Constituents and also make Constituent Information>>Deceased as a parameter), but I do use excel for the final layout of the report because of easier calculations.  Thanks for the information!

Larry Wheeler

James Andrews:

Larry Wheeler:

I've been struggling to keep up with the other duties of my position since going live with RE last July, and most of it because reporting is just too much (I came from having access to tables and using SQL to produce queries, and ARGOS to produce reports). Currently, to replicate a Giving Comparison report I wrote out of our last database, I have 6 or more pieces which I export from RE, put together in excel,  add in a column of data manually, summarize giving columns, sections, and totals... you get where i'm going .  This process takes an hour.  We are a hosted environment and do not have an updated version of Crystal Reports.


I'm wondering what others might be using for complex and professional reporting?  


Thank you for any feedback!

We are using Crystal, Tableau, and a combination of Access and Excel.  We do a lot of reporting where we export to an access back end, manipulate data in a front end, and then link to that via excel for charting/presentation etc.


But we're not hosted...

 

I am afraid we may end up with multiple reporting applications if I can convince the holder of the budget funds.  If I get the time, I was thinking of possibly extracting data and setting up my own 'back end'.  Thanks for the reply!

Ryan Hyde

Given that you know SQL, why not invest some time and learn R? That's what the profesionally data analysis folks all use. You can certainly do the things you're doing in excel more efficiently in R. You could even write scrips to assemble the data in the appropriate ways and generate visualizations. 


It's a steep learning curve, don't get me wrong, but it's worth it.


That said, I've learned a bunch of R but find that Tableau suits most of my needs, so I don't fire R up very often at all. But R is free. Can't beat free.

Tammie Cach Abdu

Larry Wheeler:

Jen Claudy:

I like exporting from RE Query (generally faster than Export) and then building a process in Microsoft Access to get the final data calculations.  If the report needs to be run by someone who either doesn't have Access or isn't familiar with it, then I'd use Excel and formulas (save as xlsb to slow the file size growth).


Personally, I like having complete control over the data I'm working with...fewer filters buried in RE somewhere that exclude records that should be included.

I worry about exporting out of Query, except for very simple parameter sets.  I have found where query will act strangely (don't ever remove the check from Include Deceased Constituents and also make Constituent Information>>Deceased as a parameter), but I do use excel for the final layout of the report because of easier calculations.  Thanks for the information!

 

We have the same issue. I do a lot of marrying RE pieces in Access. We've also used some of the RE delivered reports to do all the calculating and then export it into Access with just the record ID and add in the other pieces. Some of the reports housed within RE may help cut down on your manual calculations.

James Andrews

Larry Wheeler:

I am afraid we may end up with multiple reporting applications if I can convince the holder of the budget funds.  If I get the time, I was thinking of possibly extracting data and setting up my own 'back end'.  Thanks for the reply!

 

Another thought: long term if you want back end access and your organization wants to remain hosted, you could look at a different hosting provider. Like I said we're not hosted so I can't personally endorse anyone, but for instance Concourse is a hosting provider that gives you direct access to the back end.

Daniel R. Snyder

 

We export to Excel and then use Power BI for a lot of our reports. It is similar to Tableau, but much cheaper.