Fellow Focalites,

I'm looking for a bit of insight.

I am a 28 year FOCUS/WebFOCUS vet and am currently consulting. We have WF 7.6.2 / DB2 / UDB and some SQL Server. An upgrade is scheduled for 2011 but no guarantees.

The 200+ reports are hand coded - not using the gui tools. That's the good news. 95% of reporting is through Report Caster. An improvement I've suggested is a Self Service application, which I've built in the past at other clients. This would eliminate the need for many repetitive RC reports and provide increased flexibility for users along with the associated runtime savings. I've built a prototype here and they like what they see so far. It's WebFOCUS + HMTL + Javascript.

Where I'm getting some flak is regarding report level security (data level security is not yet an issue.) I can handle just about everything they've brought up - including using the base Report Caster tables to control report access within the Self Service pages. However, they wonder why we don't simply use MRE and its built-in security (expected to be even better with the next release?) instead of Self Service. My MRE experience is limited but from what I've seen, it's a clunky interface and does not easily lend itself to customization, what with publishing, republishing, carrying changes to pages over to new versions of the code, java code, queer syntaxes for HTML objects, etc.

Could you give me your impression of the MRE vs. Self Service option along with some positives/negatives to each?

Thanks and I truly appreciate your opinions.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

Virtually everything we do is Self-Service. Besides the things you mentioned, we never liked the idea of having to maintain MRE security. Just our Division has over 2000 users. We did not want maintain security twice, once for the network and again for MRE. While the users like the idea of having their own dashboard and their own reports, they have no interest in learning how to do it.

Personnaly, I believe trouble shooting is far easier in a self-service environment vs a MRE environment.

You have a choice. Build your own security and use Self Service or use the built-in security in MRE. You do not however have to duplicate authentication in MRE. You can piggy back that using your LDAP or Database. What MRE can do for you is to grant authorizations without having to do any extensive programming. Whether one method is better than any other is a matter of local requirements and preferneces.

on the other hand, i love MRE. I've built entire apps in both backend and in mre/dashboard..
there are good things about both, and some restrictions...
Here, mre fexes are launched via dashboard, and both backend fexes and mre/bid views are launched via an external portal. ALL of them use the user's network login id for various security functions (data, etc)
What MRE gives us is the ability to build a group of users...and give that group a 'view', an entire set of launch pages/fexes...and that assignment of users-to-views is a database we can read (and load up via an automatic external sql process)... lots of customizing possibilities there. (so we don't have to maintain separate security, we automatically assign a new user to the default public view and to one basic finance view); One user can belong to many groups, and have therefore many of these 'view' sets of launchpages/fexes. I, like you, am a veteran coder.. and am very happy in the mre/bid world.

I second Susannah's suggestion of MRE/BID.

MRE isn't that good for the users, but Dashbaord is quite customisable.

Thanks for your input, folks.

Since I can gain access to Report Caster tables, I do not have to replicate security. Individual user and groups can be maintained in RC.

Anybody else out there had to choose between MRE and Self-service?

Thanks!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Microfich,

First and Foremost, as a consultant it should be your responsibility to provide and direct the customer on what is the best fit for what they are trying to accomplish not only today but in the future, they often look to consultants as the expert if they do not have anyone in-house. I would dig a little deeper and find out what features and functionality MRE/DASHBOARD provides. There are several features that work outside of MRE, OLAP for one, but these feature is tied to MRE and used outside of MRE/DASHBOARD can be considered a license violation. Also, just because you are unfamiliar with something you should not rule it out. There are many, many people here on focalpoint that love to help others. It seems like there are individuals that race to be the first one to respond to a posting, but that’s just my opinion. IBI also has one of the best if not the best support personal on staff to help. Self-Service and MRE both have their place in the WebFOCUS World, you just need to use the one that best fits in yours.

Thanks for the reply, Stingray.

Please do not minimize the extent to which I am analyzing and researching this decision. I certainly have enough experience to determine whether input I receive is based upon shallow opinion or selfish marketing as opposed to true experience or healthy discourse.

As you have pointed out, I am in the midst of preparing a presentation on the MRE vs. Self Service debate. That is why I have come to Focal Point, for input from folks in the field with real experience. It would be foolish on many levels to rule out an option I know little about. I fully plan to discuss this with IBI as well.

I believe opinions I've received here and from other contacts will serve us well in helping to make our decision the proper one for our installation. If my many years of involvement with FOCUS/WebFOCUS products has taught me anything, (and I do love WebFOCUS!) it's that things are rarely as ordinary or complex as they seem.