No SQL Tutrial or SQL Help Required
Syd Stewart
Many proprietary database systems come with a report writer but are too difficult to use. They need a knowledge of SQL or they need an expensive expert to prepare the report. Sometimes there is no report writer available at all. Here is a solution.
I have a client who had just this problem - he had a hospital departmental system that had been supplied to several hundreds centres but the report writer available came from a large business intelligence vendor and it was just too difficult and tedious for a busy departmental manager.
What is needed is a software package that lets you access your database e.g. SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, to get the answers you need today. All you need to know to get started is to know the Database name, Server address, User Name and Password.
Getting internal IT help can be difficult too so you want to disturb as them little as possible. You can't do any harm to the database as you will be reading the data only and not changing it, so you won't be causing any data validation issues.
Once you have access to the your database the software will let you see the tables and columns and all you need to do is to join up the tables you need to produce the reports you need by linking on the common columns so you get unique rows of data. So far there has been no fancy SQL syntax. There some know how you need on join types but that can be dealt with later.
Now you can see all your data items and can start to build your report by just dragging and dropping the data items you need. You can readily create filters to allow you to find the subsets of data you need. No fancy SQL WHERE clause are needed.
The system I use can also produce highly visual representations of the data in graphs and charts not just data columns with totals- data visualization is the buzz word. You'll stun your colleagues. You will be able to spot trends and outliers in a snap.
You can even construct dashboards that can be distributed around your department or company.
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