We have the Clarity product inhouse for tracking time, tasks, meetings, etcetera. The reporting tool that comes with the product is Crystal Reports, however we are proposing to use WebFOCUS so that this can be an enterprised solution using the MRE Dashboard. We have heard the metadata for Clarity is a very complex model and is stored on a SQL Server. Would like anyone's input and experience with developing reports going to a clarity database.

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

We don't use Clarity, but if the underlying data is SQL server, there should be no issue. The WF SQL server adapter can create the metadata necessary for WF use and you can create them off of individual tables, business views, or even OLAP data sources (requires a separate license.) Our claims management software is very complex as far as the data layout and end user application, but it's still just SQL server data. Once you understand the data relationships, WF reporting is easy.

Hopefully someone that actually uses Clarity can shed some light on their experience.

Thanks for you input. I figured it would not be an issue, I just wanted to know if anyone has gone against their data.

We use webfocus to go against Clarity data. It was a matter of figuring out where the data we wanted was. We use SQL passthru to do the initial pulls.

Thanks for the info - that was very reassuring and good to know. Any other tips you can give us besides the using SQL passthru for the initial pulls?

I have no specific experience with Clarity but in general when dealing with "fancy" queries due to complexities in the underlying database model one alternative to SQL passthru would be to use Database Views and, in really complex cases, Stored Procedures. You can then map WebFOCUS synonyms (masterfiles) on all of those objects thus creating some "abstraction layer" for WF developers.

Thanks, that sounds like that would be even better and would help in making the database make 'sense' to our business units. Thanks for that bit of knowledge. I need to get back into coding and application design!