Reasons to use CE10 Business Views 3

[jedownsjr]

Could anyone who finds CE10's Business Views useful describe a little about the benefits they provide and how you are using BV's? I'm particularly interested in your thoughts regarding:

* Any benefits of using CE10 BV's over SQL Server views and other DB-level controls. Have you found benefits that CE10's BV's provide that you can't get from DB views? Pros & cons of generic (DB) vs. proprietary (CE BV's)?

* Any ways you have found BV's complement a Data Warehouse (or a Data Mart)?

* Any ways you have been able to reduce the number of reports developed/published (by relying on BV's rather than modifying report parameters, etc.)

* Any quirks or limitations to watch out for with BV's?

Thanks in advance for anything you would like to share. I'm trying to get a feel for what BV's can do and how they can reduce development & administration.

 

[synapsevampire]

I'll chime in on the other side.

Those who subsribed to the proprietary Crystal SQL Designer can attest to the problems when using a proprietary methodology as Crystal no longer supports it, so throw your reports away and start over.

The distinct advantage to DB Views is that they are usable across the enterprise, to almost every tool.

Some advantages to VB's might be that a shop does not have the Database expertise to build DB Views, or you might want to leverage the security aspects of Business Views, and then there are pluses with regards to connectivity across disparate data sources.

Overall it might makle sense for your firm to do so, baring in mind that you may have to recreate these objects later for a future release, or if you switch products.

Intelligently designed Views and a data warehouse seem the better long term investment.

-k

 

[cmmrfrds]

I have been testing BV's and ran into some reponse/performance problems. Out intent was to use the filtering capability in BV to drive individual level or manager level reports. Our database is Oracle and in order to drive the reports we needed Oracle tables to keep the relationship of the user identifier (nt login) to the departments and other relationships. This would be used regardless of the implementation. Since both CE10 and Crystal 10 allow you to pass the login id "CurrentCEUserName" then BV became unnecessary. We are building our reports to use the currentceusername which will work for us. For individual level reports they will be setup in a directory that has View (on demand) only, that way the user will get only their data. On manager level reports we put the login id in as a parameter when we schedule the report.

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
A contary view - We are using Business Views to implement column-level security much easier than we could by using Oracle's Fine Grained Access Control - We have many reports that will show confidential data in some columns so these are not shown except to specified CE group members ( actually AD group members)..It is a matter of convenience and ease of modification that we are using BV..After all, CE is propietary, so why not use their other propietary offerings if they help you get the job done.

 

[jedownsjr]

Turkbear, that is a good point. I had not thought about it, but our CE security model will probably need to carry forward into our new data warehouse, or at least into the Crystal reports that run in CE against that new data warehouse. Using BV's might help us to minimize our administration if we can set user's security up 1x, then let it guide what they can see from the data warehouse.

That is exactly the type of benefit that I am looking for out of BV's -- to hopefully increase the time investment we have already made in our CE system.

 

[jedownsjr]

Any other thoughts from anyone?

synapsevampire's point about using something that is proprietary is well taken -- would like to avoid things that will not carry forward easily. Also, his point about leveraging security and not requiring as much (maybe) in the way of skills is good to consider.

cmmrfrd's use of the CurrentCEUserName features are also good information. I tested that a little bit and I can see it could be very useful if used as a parameter input.

Anbody used CE Business Views on top of SQL Server or another data warehouse and have results to share, particularly about the best mix of what to do in each tool (BV vs. SQL Server)?

Thanks.

 

[paulmarr]

BV's are a great tool for the average business user with little db knowledge. With BV's as a developer - you can add only the tables you wish to - rename the fields to be user friendly - link the tables so business users don't bother IT with the "how do I" questions. BV's will also limit the business user's ability to link tables incorrectly - perhaps stopping a catastrophic event like pulling 100 million records across the network!

Row and column level security is a big deal in large companies - BV's using a processing extension secures even the smallest level of detail from unauthorised staff.

And finally - BV's are easy to design and implement - offloading much of the Ad Hoc reporting back to the business user instead of IT wasting time producing reports that will be used once and disgarded!

Cheers,

paulmarr