Does anybody know a way of making reports available for users to use from all PC's on a Symposium Network?

When I log on Symposium on one of our 10 PC's and cread a 'User Defined Report', I can only access that report from using the Nortel Networks - SMI Workbench on that PC that I created that report.

I want to know if anyone knows how to upload these reports onto a central server so that I can use the report from any PC on the network? or even to transfer the report file from PC 1 to PC 2.

I have heard that it is easier to set up you own reports using Crystal Reports, has anyone used this in conjuntion with Symposium?

Unfortunatley using the FAT client version of Symposium, custom reports are helpd locally. To have a central repository of reports you need to use the web client.

Web Client is only available from version 4.2 upwards.

If you are using an earlier version then Crystal is your best alternative as the reports can be created and then distributed, though you will still need to save them down to each PC running the reports.

Using one PC you could schedule your reports to run at specific times then use VBA to format the report in Excel and save it to a network drive where others can view the report. This would more cost effective than having lots of people running the same report and overcome change control problems when you update your reports.

OK. I havd a look into where I think the reports are stored. I found them in a local database named nicrpt.mdb. Would it be possible to share this file over a network so that all the local clients can use this database?

**** Warning *****

MS Access and Symposium dont like each other.

Whilst MDB files are being used to store information,using them outside of supported processes could be disruptive to the working of your ACD.

I know from bitter experience having brought down a whole site using MS Access to interrogate Symposium.

Best refer to your vendor for potential solutions re web client or go down the Crystal route. If you do something that is damaging Nortel may restrict support.

Yes this was also my concern. I would like to know how you use crystal reports to intergrate with Symposium. Does anyone have any documentation or wesite guides etc?

Ian,

If you have all of the information, and reporting tool only on one PC/server then you would maybe consider introducing remote access to that server from any of your satellite offices / PC's. You could achieve this by a few means e.g terminal services, vnc viewer (would only allow one connection to server at a time), citrix, pcanywhere. Your IT department may already utilise any of these products elsewhere in your operation therefore it may be a licensing question. Certainly a terminal services installation would allow multiple sites to connect to that one server, simultaneously and interrogate the reporting tool.

Or you get a web client.

Gary.