Our Autumn 2007
meeting was held the Legends Suite at Pride Park Stadium in Derby on 29th November 2007.
47 delegates registered to attend and of those, 34 actually attended, which
is pretty much the same as the previous meeting.
As well as four plenary sessions, there
were four hands-on sessions.The main plenary
sessions were:
 | Reporting: SQL Server Reporting
Services and Crystal Reports. |
| A discussion about how Report 7 can be
used as part of your regular work cycle, by Philip Taylor. Philip also
suggested the idea of a KPR (Known Problem Report). |
| A simple example of integration using
Excel. |
| A combined and shortened session about
upgrading, database restructuring and entities. |
Feedback from delegates (out of 5) was:
| One session received more than 4.0 |
| The other three sessions received between 3.0 and
4.0 |
Other sessions included the usual welcome,
a website update and a chat about the 2007 enhancement survey. We are very much indebted to Mike Booty
for all the preparatory work he did for the meeting, and for his
presentations. We are grateful to
Philip Taylor for taking the time on a busy day to come and give a
presentation. In the light of CODA's
correspondence with the Council, and despite what we said in Issue 4 of the
eJournal, we didn't invite them to this meeting. However, it was suggested,
and agreed, that we would in future invite CODA to all future meetings.
|
Such presentations as were available in soft copy are available in the
members' website in the Autumn 2007 meeting data folder.
Feedback about
the meeting itself from members was:
|
The venue received an average score of 4.1 (out of 5) - up 0.4 |
|
The catering received an average
score of 3.6 (out of 5) - down 0.4 |
|
The location received an average
score of 3.7 (out of 5) - up 0.1 |
|
The organisation received an
average score of 3.9 (out of 5) - as last meeting |
|
The event format received an
average score of 3.8 (out of 5) - as last meeting |
It appears to have been a popular venue.
The catering will have pleased junk food fans, more than more discerning
eaters, who would
probably have preferred less stodgy food.
 |
| AGM
The User Group's AGM was held at the meeting.
Andy Plumbly gave a report from the Council, including an update on the User
Group's relationship with CODA. It was decided that we will contact CODA's
new Director of Client Services with a view to trying to re-engage CODA with
the group.
The AGM also ratified a revised
constitution for the User Group, and re-elected the existing officers,
except for Pam King who has retired from work.
|
For information about Mike
McGrail, follow this link:
http://www.coda.com/Art?AID=1296 |
 |
The audience listening to how
Microsoft's SQL Server Reporting Services can deliver enterprise reporting
at no additional licensing cost, watched by the Rams' stars of the past,
notably the great Roy McFarland. |
| Break-out Sessions |
Four
break-out sessions were held in the Rolls Royce box overlooking the pitch.
Members discussed BACS and Remittances, Report 7, the Event Engine and Diary
Entries.
|
| Attendees break off into
groups to discuss ways the User Group can help them. This short session
resulted in many interesting suggestions. |
 |
| Suggestions |
In mid-afternoon,
we broke the meeting up into 4 groups, and asked each group to come up with
suggestions as to what the User group can and should do for them. The result
of this minor brain-storm was that users would like:
| Meetings twice a year as now |
| Information about third party products
and services |
| More speakers at meetings (third
parties and users) |
| Part of meetings set aside for SIGs |
| A grid of members vs
functionality/interests on the members' website to help members contact
other users with similar interests |
| Inter-member communication, e.g. a SIG
for UDI design |
| More workshops, featuring both Dream
and other programs |
| Members should use the members
website |
| A general suggestion board should be
available on the website |
| case studies
|
|
 |
Philip Taylor talking about
the way he uses Solution 7's Report 7 system. |
