Outputting to reports

[matthewseymour]

Hi,

I'm a beginner user of sugar and we are looking at using it for our charity. We really need a reporting function so that our database operators can get data out without programming experience.

I have looked at the professional version, but that is too expensive for us at the moment. The two other options I can see are:

Zucher Reports

Jasper Reports

From what I can see Zucher docs seems to intergrate better with the Sugar system, but the problem I have is that I need to be able to programme in SQL to set up the reports (and I don't konw how!)

Could anyone tell me if there is an easier way of doing reports. Should I be using iReport with Zucher reports. Does that make queries easier?

Is JasperReports better for Reporting?

Also, I have found the help files for these systems okay, but a bit technical even for me. Is there a web site wiith a demo or walkthrough of how to set up a report from scratch using a custom SQL query.

Thanks for any help in advance.

MS

[ftreml]

Hi,
both "JasperReports for SugarCRM" and "ZuckerReports" are based on the same reporting library. ZuckerReports is better integrated, and the JasperReports is not developed further, as far as I know.
If you only need simple SQL reporting, the "Custom SQL" feature in ZuckerReports is for you. SQL knowledge is required, of course - if you don't know SQL, I would recommend taking an SQL tutorial first.
iReport is needed if you want some fancy PDF printouts, with headers, groups, charts, footers and so on, just as with commercial reporting solutions (Crystal Reports, SQL Server Reporting, ...).
The mailmerge tutorial available at the ZuckerReports download page at sugarforge describes step-by-step how to enter your own custom SQL query (and how to use it in Microsoft Word Mailmerge further).
Florian