A little help regarding what a Crystal Developer does?

[aushia]

I was hoping someone could help me. I have been functioning as a struggling Crystal 9 report developer due to the lack of expertise within the organization. Really, I am the Quality & Performance Manager of a large teaching hospital, I have an opportunity to look at finding someone for a short term that is an expert at programming and developing crystal reports but I don't know what to ask for in terms of a position profile so that a true techinical specialist would understand. Could anyone help with the specifications for this type of position??

 

[SQLSister]

Ideally I would look for someone with Crystal9 experience creating complex reports. Hospital or medical field experience would be a big plus as understanding the data is key to writing good reports. In fact if the person has medical field experience and has written reports using another report writer I would prefer that to a person who only has Crystal reports experience but no understanding of the medical field. Understanding of HIPPA requirements (do I have that right?) would also be a big plus. I would also make it a strong plus that the person have database experience writing SQL code, preferably in the database you use as your backend. You can't effectively write reports unless you understand Boolean algebra and relational database structures. With large amounts of data you must know that how you are joining the data and filtering it are correct for the result you want as you cannot know just by looking at the results if you retrieved what you wanted when the report is based on summing a million records. So understanding database programming is a critical skill.



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[eyeswideclosed]

That "short term" stuff doesn't fly anymore, good people need a real job.

 

[aushia]

Hi hejamana
You are abosolutely correct, if I had my whay I would snap someone up and keep them forever, unfortunately Canadian health care system doesn't always see the value in a Quality Manager having such a resource but at least it would be a step in the door into a large teaching hospital for a good person and if a person is really good even they would be snapped up internally pretty quick....I hope I can still find that good person.. regardless of the mat leave fill in...

Thanks and again you are so right

 

[eyeswideclosed]

That's too bad, and I didn't mean to be unsympathetic, but in my experience short-term contracts are rarely worth the bother, even if you get a "great" person, it still takes time to learn the business model and all the nuances of a particular network and server setup, database issues, etc. A great programmer is cultivated, always learning, and most are looking for a real home. It's not like digging ditches, this stuff takes years to develop and retain. You may get lucky but it's a crap shoot.