Exposing Data from ERP Systems through ODBC, OLE DB or JDBC

View PDF

Are you happy with your existing reporting solution for your ERP system? Do you need to easily create reports using tools like Crystal Reports, Brio, Impromptu, Microsoft Access, and others? Do you need to quickly analyze data using tools like Microsoft Access, Excel, Brio, and others?

Do you need to isolate your reports and applications from changes in the underlying ERP system due to version upgrades, customization and/or data relocation?

Do you want to use a business view (meaningful table and column names) of your data during report creation?

ERP systems store their data in relational databases like Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and others. This data is stored in complex schema that consists of hundreds of tables and thousands of columns. Each site in turn can customize their ERP system through changes in how the data is stored, addition of fields, and other customization. This makes it difficult to supply general purpose reporting tools. Writing applications that go directly to the database schema has limitations:

• Users need to understand how the data is stored in the database – relations.
• The table/column names can be very cryptic – F1001.
• The data may be stored in physically different databases of the same or different kinds – requiring distributed query processing.
• Data conversion and look-ups are not possible because of the use of a single query limit imposed by most reporting and analysis tools.
• Security and other business logic cannot be enforced.