You Don’t Know Jack

Great Enterprise Reporting Software, or Greatest Enterprise Reporting Software?

Here at Windward Reports we like to think we make some pretty kickass Enterprise Reporting Software. So much so in fact that we think we're the best in the industry. Quite a bold statement, so let me back it up.

I mean, this is pretty kickass.

Reasons why Windward's Enterprise Reporting Software Kicks Ass:

• Our Report Designer AutoTag operates in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint so you don't have to create reports in a horrid interface like Crystal Reports or SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
• AutoTag is the most fluid report designer. If you've used any of our Competing Products, you'll catch on to AutoTag in no time and create better looking reports faster than you ever did before
• Our Reporting Engines are fast. Just how fast? I created and generated similar reports with AutoTag and SSRS, with AutoTag taking about half the time to create a 14,000 page PDF (yeah, that's a REALLY big PDF)
• Our Sales Team rocks. Seriously, who wouldn't want to talk to someone who can go a full day doing a Yoda impression?

I do not own this image. Please do not sue me.

Quirkiness aside, I've used quite a few of our competing products and AutoTag just feels right. I find it humorous that Crystal and SSRS release versions of their software that look similar to MS Office, but they'll never beat us as we actually work inside Office. Complicated Report, Page, and Table headers are made easy in Word and Formula and Expression Editors are beaten to a pulp by Excel. You can even create awesome charts and dashboards for your presentations directly inside PowerPoint.

If you still aren't convinced, I dare you to check out the Free Trial of AutoTag. Use it for a week and you'll be ready to make the switch, I guarantee it.

My (Fake) Review of Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

I was recently required at work to read the book Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson. I must admit that under the surmounting pressure of all the reading I'm supposed to do (and of course don't do) for school I haven't had time to read the book. However, considering my knowledge of several other business books I've read I thought it would be fun to write a review about the book without actually reading it (strikingly similar to every literary essay I've ever written). Thus, I present to you my (fake) review of Rework:

 

Rework is short and to the point, much like another book I reviewed. It skims over a few examples from the company the authors work for and provides tips from the lessons they've learned. There is some valuable information in this book, but it's buried deep beneath a lot of other tips and lessons I've learned from countless other books, blogs, and articles.     One of the central themes in Rework is to work smarter, not harder. This entails everything from not spending more time than necessary on projects to limiting the time you spend in company meetings. One of the golden rules in software engineering is to not "reinvent the wheel", a quote that resonates well after reading Rework.   It works. Move on now plz   We've implemented a few of the ideas found in Rework in the office. Here are my thoughts on two of them:   Timing meetings. I think it's important to keep your meetings short and relevant, but if people are on a roll I see no sense in cutting them off just because a timer ran out. No distractions work time. Should work great in theory, except as an intern when I come in to the office 30 minutes into "no distractions work time" I get to sit around for an hour and a half until I can actually talk to my boss.   While I do think Rework was an overall good book and has many applications to the business world, I personally feel it could have brought more to the table. Real world examples go a long way, and without evidence your strategies work you're just preaching to the choir. I also found it humorous that the book encourages us to stay on our feet and move at the speed of light, while they also expect you to set aside a few hours of your valuable time in order to get through the book. All in all I would recommend giving it a read, but don't expect its lessons to turn your business around overnight.

 

In the end I think you could say I practice what Rework teaches better than most. Rather than spending time reading the book to learn how to avoid work, I was already one step ahead by not even reading the book at all. Maybe I should write a book…

Have you read Rework? Think I'm dead-on or totally off my rocker? Sound off in the comments.

Reasons Why My Internship Might Be Better Than Yours - #1

Reason #1 – I got to play with a Lite Brite today.

It's supposed to be a lock and a red check mark, which is meant to remind my boss to check in files to the repository after working on them. One of my coworkers told me it looked like a purse – weak.

Either way, I bet YOU didn't get to play with a Lite Brite at work today.

This is the first blog in a series I like to call "Reasons Why My Internship Might Be Better Than Yours" which includes short blogs about why my internship kicks ass.

Looking Forward To It

Part of my job here at Windward is to engage in what we call "Social Marketing," which basically breaks down as taking advantage of all the different avenues of social media for marketing purposes. Doesn't sound too difficult, but there are hazards that come with the territory. You see, partaking in this task requires you to tread a very fine line between casual marketing and spam. Case in point:

Dear *****,   You have been warned for one of your posts, which violated the Forum Rules. The reason you have been warned is because:   Ban this user (Warning Type = 'PERMANENT BAN')   For this violation, you have been given 10 point(s). The point(s) will remain in your account for 99999 days. After that, they will be removed automatically.

 

I'm not all that heartbroken though, a little over 273 years and I'll be back. I might be making my posts from The Matrix, but I'll be posting nonetheless.

Have you been banned from a site before? Think I deserved it? Fire away in the comments!

Somebody Help Me!

My fellow bloggers, I have a problem. You see I've recently become obsessed. I can't stop watching Star Trek.

So awesome

Every now and then a movie comes along that for some reason or another I can't stop thinking about. I've had stints with Jurassic Park, Sin City, and the original Star Wars trilogy (not the new ones with emo Vader, the old ones with give-you-nightmares Vader).

Anyone else think Darth Vader shouldn't have flowing locks?

I don't exactly know why Star Trek is the latest obsession. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm a huge geek, but regardless let's break down a few reasons why Star Trek rocks.

Awesome Cast. It's no easy task finding replacements for one of the most legendary science fiction casts of all time, but J.J. Abrams nailed it. I was skeptical at first, but now I love watching this guy with super powers pretend to be Spock, this guy who kills zombies brag about beaming and warping, and this guy who once ate 60 White Castle burgers fly a spaceship and fence with Romulans.

Great Story. It's rare these days that a story can hook you in the first five minutes and leave you on the edge of your seat for the entire movie, but that is exactly what Star Trek does. From Kirk's birth to Spock's upbringing, the way each crew member falls into their traditional roll is flawless.

It's Freaking Star Trek. I grew up watching The Next Generation reruns with my mom, and I love the original movies. Don't get me wrong though, I'm not about to dress up and go to a convention.

So there you have it. Star Trek is just downright awesome. We'll see if I can go the week without popping it into the DVD player.

Are you obsessed with Star Trek? Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments below.

The Joys of Working at Windward

I don't know about you, but I work for a pretty badass company. Considering I'm only 22, I think I have a pretty decent variety of work experience under my belt. I worked construction as a plumber's assistant for three summers during high school. I've done two retail stints, one at a Longs Drugs senior year of high school and then at a Best Buy during my early college years. I also volunteered to coach youth hockey while I was in high school, which was AWESOME!

Like Coach Bombay, minus the flowing locks and DUI

Now I'm in my (first) senior year of college and I've been a Marketing Intern at Windward for more than a year now. So why is working at Windward awesome? Let's start off with a little table comparing some of the jobs I've had:

	Get to use porta-potties everyday	Awesome employee discount (so your entire paycheck goes towards crap you'd never buy in the first place)	Get to deal with kids just as annoying as I was as a kid	Free snacks, game night, and beer when we hit quota
Plumber's Assistant
Longs Drugs
Best Buy
Volunteer Hockey Coach
Windward

 

I think it's pretty clear why Windward is the best, especially considering I get to use real toilets and don't have to deal with annoying kids. One time I did get to fix a broken toilet here at Windward though. Yeah, it's on my resume.

Now we'll break down what makes Windward truly awesome.

Game Night

One night a week, all the cool kids (i.e. geeks) stay late and play video games. We played Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings until we were bored to death and were finally able to successfully lobby the company purchase of StarCraft. Now once a week I get to prove why the Marketing team is better than the Development team.

You know you want it

Lots and Lots and Lots of Snacks

All college students love free food, but Windward takes it to the next level by actually paying me to eat free food. Nothing's better than stalling trips to the grocery store so I can eat my weight in Goldfish everyday. And yes, that is beer in the fridge. Shhhhh…

Hungry? Your fault.

 

Thirsty? Again, your fault.

Awesome Workstations

These things are bigger than my freakin' TV. 'Nuff said.

StarCraft + 26" Monitor = AWESOME

The Good and The Bad

This wouldn't be an honest article if I didn't tell you at least one negative aspect about working at Windward. As a Marketing Intern, I get to experience the joys of sharing a window with the CEO of the company. Needless to say, my work gets done on time.

Big Sister looms in the shadows…

 

And now you know why working at Windward is awesome. Until next time…

 

Think your job is better than my job? Sound off in the comments!

 

The Joys of Video Production

One of the most powerful selling tools for almost every business and every website is videos. They let anyone who wants to receive advice, training, support, or even a laugh do so at their convenience. It comes as no surprise that having high quality videos will convey that your company, product, service, and reliability are also high quality.

Creating high quality videos is no easy task, but you can make the job infinitely easier with the right tools. The professionals all use Final Cut Pro, the Mac-only industry standard for any serious video production. I mean, they made Napoleon Dynamite with it so it must be legit.

Tina! Final Cut Pro is teh shiz!

Of course we make software that plugs into Microsoft Office so Macs are in short supply here at Windward. I love my MacBook to death, but iMovie just doesn't cut it for screen capture (although it does rock for Cubicle Wars 2010 Trailer Epicness, created by yours truly). Which leaves us with Camtasia. Oh, Camtasia…

A whole bunch of piss you off, in a box!

Where to begin? I suppose Camtasia does work well for screen capture. It's taking the screen captured footage and doing something with it though where the troubles begin. Let me break down my typical Camtasia experience.

For any work videos I start with a script. I DO use my Mac and Ableton Live to record and edit voice narrations. Once I have a working version of the narration, I take two or three trial runs while recording the screen and listening to the audio recording. I've had pretty decent luck with this in my opinion.

Occasionally I'll go crazy and use Camtasia for something other than screen capture. Beware that this is a LONG process. This 2:00 minute Introduction to AutoTag video took me more than a full day to do. Probably because I used the ghettoness known as Microsoft Paint to do all the image editing, but you still have to admit it's pretty awesome.

Creating a video is only the beginning here at Windward. Once we produce and publish the video, I would say that on average we go back and reproduce the video at least five times. Our boss in notorious for sending us an email response within five minutes that says something like this:

Great video!   Love this… Awesome at 1:30 when you do thing… Love that…   Nice job. Oh, can you make it say this? And do this other thing? And while you're at it just redo the whole thing?   Thanks - dave

 

Getting it past the critics is the first part. After that we test the videos on every computer, every operating system, and every internet connection we can get our hands on. Then we usually get another email like this a few days later…

 

Just tested (insert video name here) at home while I was downloading a few gigs worth of files and compiling our entire enterprise reporting package. It skipped for 1 second. Redo the whole thing.   Thanks - dave

 

And they wonder why we hate doing videos. This ensures we get to spend about two hours on the phone with Camtasia until after another eight versions we finally get one that doesn't skip. Oh and we took out every effect, transition, and zoom-and-pan so now it sucks.

So what's the lesson here? If you're creating videos, don't kill yourself trying to win an Oscar. You won't. James Cameron beat you to it. Instead, go for something functional that gets the message across. Like always, the KISS method definitely applies here.

 

Do you have nightmares about some of your video production projects? Got some tips to make the video production process smoother? Fire away in the comments.

 

A special thanks to my boss, David Thielen, for having a great sense of humor and for not firing me after reading this blog.

The Cubicle War Continues!

In 2006 we contacted the geniuses at Barats and Bereta about creating a promotional video for us. We gave them free reign and asked that the video only contain a single mention of our company name. We put a lot of faith in their comedic talent, and they delivered far beyond what we could've hoped for. Four years and 2.5 million views later, Cubicle War 2006 has cemented its place in viral video history. Check out the video below.

Considering the great success that was Cubicle War 2006, we're extremely excited to announce that in 2010 the Cubicle War will continue! Barats and Bereta will be delivering the next installment of Cubicle Wars this March. Until then, sit back and relive the greatest Cubicle War 2006 moments with the official trailer for Cubicle War 2010 below!

What Computer Science Means To Me (and why it’s OK to hate programming)

I started my college career as an Open Option Engineering major. Sounds fancy, but all it means is that I got to sit through a 1-credit hour class designed to give us 'open optioners' an understanding of all Engineering disciplines to help us make the most informed major selection. The field that caught my attention the most, and managed to get me to enroll in the major, was Computer Science.

This doesn't really have anything to do with Computer Science.

The Computer Science presenter pulled out a pencil and told us to think of it as a computer. There are all sorts of things you can do with a pencil like math, writing, and drawing. However, to say that the study of math, writing, or drawing is the study of the pencil though is incorrect. The analogy made sense to me, Computer Science is the study of computers as tools and what can be done with them, not necessarily what can be done to them.

Four years later and I'm now entering the second semester of my senior year. I'll soon be a full-fledged Bachelor of Computer Science, according to my degree. According to my classmates and coworkers however, I am fairly unique Computer Scientist. You see, I hate programming.

It's hard for me to hit the nail on the head. Whether it be dreading the monotony of staring at thousands of lines of code all day, spending hours trying to find a single bug or syntax error, or picking up a new project and having no idea where to start, programming and I don't get along all that well.

It didn't start out that way. My first introductory programming class used Python and the short programs we had to write were like puzzles, fun and not overwhelmingly difficult. To this day my favorite programming language is still Python.

Then came the second course. We used a mixture of Python and C++, and while the assignments and projects were manageable, somewhere along the way I found myself beginning to hate programming. I felt that our professor, who primarily taught graduate courses, used lectures as a chance to show off how much he knew and I could hardly follow the code being written in three different applications with syntax and structures I'd never seen or used. I struggled, but made it through nonetheless.

Felines make excellent programmers.

At this point I've taken classes I hated like Data Structures and Principles of Programming Languages (lots of programming) and classes I loved like Algorithms and Computational Theory (not so much programming). While I can read and write code fluently enough if I have to, I would still much prefer to avoid it altogether.

The whole reason I became a CS major is because I think computers are the most fascinating devices man has ever created. They can be applied to any field and make pretty much everything faster, better, and cheaper. They're used for everything from simulating highly complex gene folding on the microscopic level to unmanning Wal-Mart's inventory and reordering systems.

A lot of people give me weird looks when I tell them I'm a CS major who hates programming. They think it's like saying I'm a self proclaimed literary genius who happens to be illiterate. But coding is not and will never be what I think of as the essence of Computer Science.

Einstein had mad programming skillz.

Saying Computer Science is only about computers is like saying astronomy is only about telescopes. Computers are the beginning, not the end. And while coding may be the means to an end, it is not the end itself. And that is what Computer Science is to me, taking these machines we've created and using them to make our jobs easier, show us things we never thought possible, and maybe make life a little better for all of us.

What do you think? Is my opinion of Computer Science dead-on or am I just a n00b without the balls required to be a hardcore programmer? Sound off in the comments!

What Makes Windward Reports Different?

The following is an email exchange that took place between our CTO David Thielen and a well-respected Crystal Reports consultant. This blog is meant to serve as a reference for anyone curious about the differences between Windward Reports and the majority of other reporting software packages. I think it does a thorough job of addressing the concerns some of the more diligent users may have.

I initially contacted the consultant and offered him a free copy of our product. He and our CTO proceeded to exchange a handful of emails discussing the differences and similarities between our product, Crystal, and a few other packages.

Windward messages are highlighted in light green with black text.

Responses are highlighted in dark green with white text.

 

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Hello ******,   My name is Adam Jackson and I'm with Windward Reports. I'm writing to you after stumbling across your blog and website dedicated to Crystal Reports. I'd like to offer you a free copy of our report design tool AutoTag and the Windward Reports reporting engines. I don't ask anything in return because I'm confident that you'll be impressed with our product and that you'll potentially share or blog about your experience.   If you're interested please visit: http://www.windwardreports.com/apps/PressCopy.aspx   Your download code is: (removed)   Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or would like to know anything further.   Best, Adam Jackson (Windward)

 

Adam,   >> I'm confident that you'll be impressed with our product and that you'll >> potentially share or blog about your experience.   I am always happy to share new ideas with my readers. But I will be honest. I have seen plenty of "no learning curve" tools, all of which promise to be different from the last "no learning curve" tool. So far everyone of them has been useless. You see, I have to solve real world business issues with CR every day. The users have the steepest learning curve understanding their own business issues and then the limits of their own data. It is rare that the reporting tool interface poses the most serious challenge. So my experience is that the complexity of the reporting interface is going to correlate closely with the capabilities of the reporting tool. Tell me your interface is simple and I expect it to be limited. You will have to convince me.   While your offer of free software is a nice gesture, it doesn't compare to the value I place on my time. I am still willing to spend some time with your tool, but only if your team is willing to do some homework for me. The first step is to compare the raw capabilities of your tool to Crystal. I want to see a list of things that each tool can do that the other tool can't do AT ALL. NOT which does things easier, so no adjectives at this point. Do you think you can have someone make an initial list of these features for me? I am sure that there are a handful of things that CR can do that Windward can't (an vice versa) and I won't be impressed if I have to uncover them myself. That would mean that you really don't know your competition and then I would be wasting my time. But here are some places to look:   Subreports. CR can take one already completed report and embed it within another. Cross-tabs. CR can create a grid that dynamically changes the number of rows/columns based on the values in today's data. Group Sort. CR can subtotal each group and dynamically find the top 10 groups today, showing an 11th group for the others. Running Totals. Create a column that automatically increment on every detail line, or even once per group. Formula Functions - Does Windward have a formula syntax comparable to CRs.   Once we get the first part done then I have another simple test that lets me cut through to the heart of the matter. I would like to take one or two standard reports that I use in my Intro and Advanced class and then see what it takes for me and your team to create them in Windward.   Let me know if you think I am being unreasonable.   From ******

 

Hi;   Adam asked me to answer this. Let me give you a general answer, and then a specific one.   With Windward you use Word, Excel, and/or PowerPoint to design the report. The report template is the document created by that app. Let's use Word as the example. A Word document is a sequence of objects - paragraphs (which are a sequence of characters), tables, bitmaps, charts, etc. We allow our reporting tags to be placed anywhere within that stream.   Big picture this gives you a couple of advantages: You are designing a report that is a document (if it's a spreadsheet same with Excel) in a layout that is fundamentally a document. This gives you the ability to easily set anything you want that can be hard to impossible in Crystal. The logic can break anywhere. So a forEach loop or an if can start in the middle of a table and end in a different table. You are operating on that stream of objects that makes up a document. Group sort/by does not exist in our system because it's not necessary. You would just have a forEach inside another forEach. Subreports – yes (you just import another Office template). Running totals, functions, formulas, etc. – yes. All of Office's functionality is included. You can lock parts of the document, use version tracking & commenting, display differences between two templates, etc. In Office 2010 some incredible collaborative features have been added to Office. You get all of that.   Now on to some specifics: You want to iterate over a series of rows, where for each row you have a table, some text, a chart, and more text. All of that occurs for one row, then goes to the next row of data. Piece of cake in Windward. From what I know of Crystal – impossible. In Excel, we expand all references so a SUM() of a table remains a SUM() function – this holds for everything built in a spreadsheet. We also carry the Excel cell formatting across and use it for output in any format including PDF, DOCX, etc. In PowerPoint you can set up all the PPT functionality to carry across to the output. Yes it comes under easier – but you can have someone with no training on our system design a report – because they know Office. You can't do that with Crystal.   The above is off the top of my head. If this is sufficient we would be happy to give you a free copy. We would also be happy to answer any questions you have creating a couple of your reports for class. But to be honest, I'll be surprised if you have more than 1 or 2 questions. As you say, ease of use is overused. But when something is a lot easier – it does make a difference.   Thanks – dave (CTO – Windward)

 

David,   >> With Windward you use Word, Excel, and/or PowerPoint to design the report.   So it sounds like you are assuming that the user already knows how to do specific data manipulation in Office? If someone (like me) has never needed to go beyond Office XP, you really think there won't be a learning curve?   From ******

 

Hi ******;   Good question. BTW, we're going to use these exchanges for a blog post because it's a really good way of making clear how we are unique.   To your question - we don't use the data manipulation in Office. That not only is difficult and has a learning curve - but it is also quite limited. We have our own tags which you place using our Office Add-In AutoTag. If you use our databin and/or user defined tags (UDTs) - then it's just drag & drop from a pop-up window.   If you want full control, then you need to use the tag editor in the Add-In and that does require an understanding of the underlying data - but by and large maybe a minute or two of training on our system. We heavily borrowed from the Excel UI so it looks very familiar.   Where the rubber really meets the road is the SQL and XPath wizards. If you need a complex SQL select, and it was not prebuilt in a UDT, then you need to create the select. You need to try it to see but the best way to describe how easy it is to learn & use - we get virtually no support questions on it.   So if UDTs are set up - truly zero learning curve (except drag this to where you want it to be in the template). For full control beyond UDTs, incredibly easy and most people will need no training on the report design part - but they do need to understand their data.   Thanks – dave (CTO – Windward)

 

David,   >> If you want full control, then you need to use the tag editor in the >> Add-In and that does require an understanding of the underlying >> data -   Oh, I finally get it. Getting full control requires learning how to build a meta data layer like in Cognos. Some people have a use for that model but not me. Thanks anyway.   From ******

 

No, not at all. I agree a meta layer like Cognos is a lot of extra work (and rarely worth it). It's hard to explain because we don't fit any of the existing models and people tend to assume we must be similiar to others. We had the lead product manager for Sql Server Reporting Services stop by for a demo and it took him 15 minutes to start to understand how we work - because he kept looking for things that just aren't required with us.   When I say an understanding of the underlying data, and this is only if you don't set up the UDTs for people, you need to understand that an employee name is the FirstName and LastName columns in the Employee database. You don't need to be a DBA or know how to create a select statement. But you do need to know that the employee name is not in the ProductList table.   What we have is different - and we've eliminated a lot of steps. Not changed them, but eliminated them. We're happy to give you a free copy and you could spend just 10 minutes using it in Word to see.   thanks – dave (CTO – Windward)

 

David, I teach my users to create 10 second reports using the CR wizard to explore unfamiliar tables.  They might have to do a dozen of these before they find the data they want.  Can you report directly from the tables without setting up any UDTs? When doing UDTs whose job is it to link the tables together?  The user or the person doing the UDT? Who determines the type of join required each situation?   From ******

 

I think that's the core issue for any reporting approach. One is that with a ton of setup then it's all right there for the user - but that setup is killer. The extreme example of this approach is Cognos. The other is there is no setup, but users are floundering. This is what the CR wizard works to address. If you want to drop in, do no prep work of any kind, and help people unfamiliar with the tables - then our UDTs are not the solution. They come after. For this case you want to use our SQL wizard (there is also an XPath Wizard - click on links for a video of each). What this does is let you drag and drop to select tables, columns, sort, filter, order by, etc. Every time you make any change in the wizard, you immediately see the resulting table. So you get a very simple to use system, that requires no knowledge of how to write a SQL select.     The final issue is the joins. We build those automatically from the database metadata - where we can. We can't read minds and so we go for the shortest path between two tables, and for two jumps, give precedent to an intermediate table that has two columns (ie a join table). For one or two hops we're almost always right. For more, we can be wrong. If we are wrong, or the metadata does not have the relationship, the user can then set it, again via point and click with the table being built live. (We also have a means to predefine all the joins outside of the metadata, but that does require an upfront effort - generally on the order of minutes to hours.)     I very much wish you would try AutoTag - and give me your feedback after doing so. I'm also happy to have one of the support people here do a screen share and you can ask to see how we do various things, and they would then show you. So you would direct, and they would then do it. If so, again I ask that you give me any suggestions you have for us.     ??? - thanks – dave (CTO – Windward)

 

Dave,   Thanks for being patient. I like the screen share approach and may take you up on that. I am reviewing some CR deployment options for my January newsletter but once I have that in place it might be interesting to see what you have done.   One more question in the meantime. Is there a Crystal Consultant - someone who has done it professionally - who has either converted to using your product or added it to their repertoire? If you know of someone like that then I would like to talk to them.   From ******

 

Hi;   Thank you for sticking with this - I used to be a tech author in my spare time and I know you get hit by a ton of people. I think a screen share will be great because we can then quickly show you what/how/why on your questions.   I'm not aware of any Crystal consultant that has dived in to it but we do have one who has also promised to dive into it "soon." I will ping them right now to see if they have yet.   Thanks – dave (CTO – Windward)