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Support Guide

Support for developed software, particularly Business Intelligence comes in several forms. Business Objects themselves have a very good knowledge base and support agreements for technical developers but that may not be a lot of help to a busy client who perhaps has not got resources dedicated to Business Intelligence software.

 

The other consideration of course is whether the client wished to develop reports or configure Business Objects (was called Crystal Enterprise) in any way themselves..

 

Blue Crystal Computers Ltd can tailor a package to suit the clients specific needs and therefore pricing and service levels are best left to individual negotiation.

 

It may be that we have developed and installed your required solution but you simply require a telephone call now and again to assist with minor operational problems or perhaps you need to have some reports and user groups changed. Services can therefore be annualised or per incident.

 

 

 

 

What we support

For those who are not completely sure what Crystal Reports and Business Objects does here is a very brief guide. It is a simplified guide and some of the more complicated features are not mentioned. In essence a particular report is programmed by the developer to connect to a particular datasource. This is usually, but not necessarily an SQL database (Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase etc).

 

The developer then works from a specification from the client and programs the report to send an SQL statement to the database (datasource) which returns a single table of data to Crystal. This table is then Grouped, Sorted, Calculations carried out, Sub-Totalled and Totalled. Graphics and formatting are added and the completed report is then saved for user use to be either viewed or printed or even published to the Web. The report can of course be run on an ad-hoc basis or a regular predetermined basis. In addition the user can enter selection criteria in the form of parameters if the report has been set up to accept these.

 

 

Business Intelligence is being considered of increasing importance for companies of all sizes and the view is that the more information a company has in a comprehensive format the better for the efficient operation of that company.