New report designer

[nattivillin]

Can we get an updated report designer? I havent played with it in a long time, but this thing is horrid.

On the design screen you think you have room for fields, you switch to preview and you don't.

Is it very hard to alight things without a grid.

Our tickets look so bad I was considering going back to the default ones.

[Support Team]

The included Report Designer was used to design the default system reports you are going back to... Anyway, we have some items on our list for the report designer however we're currently spending the resources in other directions. You visit the report designer Window once in a long time so if it will take you two more minutes, or five, to design you reports because there aren't grid lines, well, while not perfect you may visit this Window once in a few months so that's, well, OK. So if, for example, we spend the resources on improving the Tickets Window experience, you'll benefit from it many times a day. Anyway, thanks for asking and it will definitely be considered.

[lpopejoy]

Well, the bigger problem is that because the report designer is so limited - we actually CAN'T create the reports that we need. And so we have to resort to ODBC and Access instead. I find the report designer so lame that I just don't even bother.

I would definitely say that it is one of the top 10 items that need attention. ...maybe not the most important but it is up there pretty far.

Somehow, it seems like you guys need to think like business owners, not developers. "How can I make a business run more efficiently." It seems like we always get workarounds - or a solution too half backed to use. (Dashboard?).

I'm CONSTANTLY after people to update and close tickets. (Including myself). Why isn't there some nice GUI that pops up or shows over to the side that says you have tickets exceeding SLA. Oh, don't get me started on the SLA. ...or maybe some charts on the dashboard.

There are so many things that need improving and it seems like development CRAWLS.

Anyway, not sure how I got started on this rant from where I started, but that's my .02 for today.

Btw, a public, "votable" roadmap would be amazing. Has that come up before?

[Support Team]

Your view will on this will definitely be considered. Thank you. We do not, however, think that development crawls, actually we think that it totally the other way around. 6.0 was just release a few months ago, 6.1 (in Beta) will be officially announced in just a few days and 6.2 is already being sprinted, agile wise.
I believe that the idea for a public "votable" option was mentioned before. Thanks for suggesting this.

[racassel]

< written in jest :) >
Lpopejoy... Welcome to OZ... The Wizard has Spoken.... Now Go Away.
<jest mode off>
The report writer is a 1992 piece of rubbish. You can't even preview. I was able to track down the third party Delphi developer of this $.50c per license royalty product and found a better manual, PM me and I will send it your way, its still rubbish. Heck, you cannot even save your parameters for individual technicians, you have to hard code your filters into each report. It won't expand on the screen larger than 800x600 so everything is jimmied up overlaying fields on top of fields and its no wonder CommitCRM internally refuses to take another look at it. I truly get ill to my stomach trying to work with this. Basically have given up and take screen shots or export everything to Excel, or copy and paste to get something presentable enough for client-facing.

My suggestion for improvement would be to add in the ability for a Crystal Reports run-time plugin (free for the developers). Outsource the report writing to a brilliant third world expert for $9.00 per hour and provide the CRM user base with the most awesome, easily configurable, impress your friends and clients with stunning reports that this product so desperately needs.

We're technology workers considered experts in our fields and are expected to represent ourselves as being on the cutting edge of technology. These 1990's style reports and are simply not presentable to our clients. (Don't get me started on the web portal). It's all about the image you present to your clients. A little color, chrome and lipstick would do wonders for these reports.

[Support Team]

racassel - plenty of inaccurate details here but we do not see the point of arguing as your request for enhancements is clear. Besides, as you know, we're open and you can use any third party tool to generate reports - Access or the Crystal Reports tools you mentioned. We understand it's not the same but we've seen great looking custom reports.

[nattivillin]

I wasn't even considering the actual system reports. I gave up on that long time ago. No package is perfect and the reports are something CommitCRM just fails at. I accept that.

I am simply trying to format the tickets we use.

You are right, it is not something we use everyday. It is however something that makes us look bad every day. We are constantly having them signed by clients. They look at me and go "who created this"? I have to say " Yeah it could use some work", even though I did it. The more I mess with it, the worse it gets.

The lack of grid lines makes it look a downright mess. Nothing is aligned. Nothing is straight. Utter disaster.