I really like the reporting capabilities of CRM On Demand. Building simple reports is very easy to do, which is great. But the flexibility of Answers On Demand, the reporting tool built into CRM On Demand, also allows reporting experts to write very complex reports - which may or may not be so great. Like anything else, if you know what you're doing, having a lot of options can be a very good thing. But, if you're less confident, you might end up frustrated by a report that doesn't seem to do what it should. So, I'd like to point out some resources that can help you report developers out there - from novice to expert.
Post a comment if you know of other resources that I didn't mention. And be sure to tell me if you think something is missing that would be helpful - we want to hear about what people look for but don't find in our knowledge library.
The Basics
The Build Your Own Reports series of Webinars can help you get started with the basics of creating custom reports. You can find these on the My Oracle Support portal (click Training and Support > Knowledge & Training > Sign into My Oracle Support).
Build Your Own Reports:
- Control Visibility to Report Data
- Create List Reports
- Format Custom Reports
- Create Charts for Reports
- Create Pivot Tables for Reports
- Control Access to Reports
The Creating Custom Dashboards Webinar shows how you can group several reports together on a dashboard page.
Beyond the Basics
For real go-getters, the Advanced Analytics Workshop goes into depth about the capabilities of Answers On Demand. Lots of tips, typical reporting scenarios, and best practices for building reports are included in that course.
The Analytics and Reports user forum is a great resource because it connects you with a community of other CRM On Demand users and experts.
And here are a few documents from our knowledge library on My Oracle Support that you should check out.
- Optimizing Analytics Performance in Oracle CRM On Demand (Doc ID 804313.1)
Read this document before you create any reports. It gives tips about creating reports that return results quickly and points out options that are likely slow reports down. You might decide to use those options anyway, but it helps you make informed choices.
- About Analytics Visibility (Doc ID 434851.1)
Everyone should read this to understand the different settings involved in controlling access to data in reports.
- What Session and Repository Variables are available in creating reports? (Doc ID 601662.1) - if you don't know what a session or repository variable is, you probably don't need this document. If you do, this lists the variables you can use to filter data.
Finally, a former colleague who helped to write the Advanced Analytics Workshop has written a book. We all have it on our shelves around here - it's a great resource if you're going to be designing a lot of reports. The details:
Title: Oracle CRM On Demand Reporting
Author: Michael Lairson
The book on Amazon.
Mike put together a nice resource site to detail the prebuilt reports available in CRM On Demand, too: CRM On Demand Resource Library. It's always a good idea to take a look at what is already available to see if you can just modify one of the prebuilt reports a bit to get what you want - so this resource might help.
