Crystal Reports Administration: Communication

What skills do you need to be a good report designer? A recent question on Tek-Tips asked what skills made a good report designer.

Formal training in Crystal Reports is always a starting point, but what do you need beyond that? There were the expected suggestions of some programming skills or 
some SQL and database courses.

All of these people were right, but they missed some very basic items.

They didn't think of the communication or analysis skills needed to make the reports truly useful. A skilled report designer needs to communicate effectively with those requesting the report. You must understand what is wanted in the report, even if others have problems articulating this.

A skilled report designer also needs business skills to understand what the report means in business terms.

For example, consider a particular report. The subreport added up the sales of the product for the last 12 months, and then divided that number by 12. While that was correct for most of the products in the warehouse, it was incorrect for new products. If you have a highly successful new product, the sales figures include only the last few months of sales, not the full 12 months. So including the date of the earliest sale in the summary table, we could divide the total sales by 12 or fewer months if required. As a result, the correct stocking level for the new products is calculated using the correct time scale. 

Always look beyond the request and ask what the numbers really mean. You will get more accurate results. This means your perceived and actual value as an employee improve dramatically.

Here are some communication tips:

1. Don't be report-centric. Too many designers focus on the report, rather than the needs of the user. Instead of asking, "Should I include this?," learn about the user's world. Ask for a 10-minute tour. Get them to give you an overview of their business process, and ask what information is important for each major step.
   
2. Listen actively. There's a huge difference between hearing and listening. When we actively listen, we are putting information together. Ask people questions, to make sure you got things right. "So, you need to see the sales figures excluding those from Alaska because the Alaskan figures come from an independent rep? Would you like to also see the Alaskan figures with a notation? How about a total as well?"
   
3. Get input at the earliest stages. Sketch things out, do mock-ups, and ask questions along the way. Find three or four people who would like to influence the process, and see what they have to say. They don't need to do a detailed, formal review.
   
4. Don't just seek a laundry list of what you should add. Concise reports are more valuable than those packed with information overload. So, ask people to name the top three things then need to know. If they can't tell you, they may have some competency issues--in this case, you will need to offer a few things and have them choose. Also ask people to identify some things they don't need in a report.
   
5. Control the time factors. Give people "reply by" dates if you are e-mailing them for input. Otherwise, you'll get an endless stream of changes while you are trying to move ahead with the design.
   
6. Provide summaries and updates. People like to know what's going on. If you've gotten their input but haven't provided feedback, you are giving them the message their input really isn't important. So, provide concise status reports. For example, you asked several people in accounting for input on a report the whole department will be getting. Send out an e-mail to all affected parties, briefly listing what information will be in the report. Include a sentence thanking the contributors by name, if possible--or thank the whole department if you have had many contributions. Explain what the next step is. If you go beyond three or four paragraphs, you are probably providing too much feedback. Remember, your report users aren't really concerned about your issues. They are concerned about their own. So, try to frame the updates around their issues and concerns.

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