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??

I am hoping this isn't an inappropriate question for the forum but I didn't know where else to ask.

 

[Maximizer]

Greetings! I'll bite:

An experienced Reports Developer

Duties and Responsibilities:
• Work with various business groups to translate written and oral communications into clear consolidated reports, accurate and extensible for multiple business units.
• Employ a reporting structure that efficiently utilizes system resources and automation tools that minimize turnaround times decrease repetition of development.
• Update existing reports to more current reporting standards.
• Assist development teams in defining new reports and reporting services that reduce costs and drive value for the company from new and existing applications.

Skills:
• Strong attention to detail.
• Able to manage multiple priorities
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Eager to adapt new technologies and more efficient reporting processes
• Ability to mine and exploit data to expose trends to the business.


James Keep, PMP
Crystal Reports(tm) Certified Consultant 8.5 (CRCC)
Authorized Crystal Engineer (ACE)
CMRC
Crystal Decisions Business Partner
Montreal, Qc, Canada

http://www.cmrc.qc.ca

 

[aushia]

Thanks, that sounds great, but do I need to have anything around understanding ODBC, knowing how to do formulas,any SQL programming, there is so much I don't know that I want to make sure someone else does know....am I needing an I.T type person...that is an experienced programmer or is just someone who knows how to work crystal sufficient.

 

[h0h0h0]

Heck you can contact me and i'll help you out

Seriously though those are good questions to ask. You would be better off with a programmer who knows how to work crystal. Not just a crystal buy. The experienced programmer will know about database design, joins and things of that nature.

 

[steve053]

First I think that you need to identify what specific types of reporting you desire.

- Clinical reporting
- Billing reporting
- Financial reporting
- ad hoc

Does your organization have a DBA or another technical resource(s), or will your reporting person have to understand the nuts and bolts of data base conectivity?

Are you reporting from a propriatary billing/emr system? Or is it supported from within the organization?

I am a data anlayst for a large physican group (~250 MD's and ancalary services). We purchased an emr and have in-house dba support. In our instance, someone that understands the internal workflow, is familiar with the software, and has a good industry understanding is much better suited to reporting than a dba or someone with lots of reporting experience and no clinical/healthcare experience.

Clinical reporting is very different than financial reporting in that MD's don't follow all of the rules like accounting/billing do . I can't say that it is harder, just a different mind set when collecting data.

Best of luck.