Reply to: Business Objects/ Crystal Report Contracting

Re: FAO Thunderlizzard

"I think so. It won't make you rich but you'll do okay versus permie."

Depends. I turnover 100k a year doing it. But that depends if you think thats a lot of money I suppose. :rolleyes

FAO Thunderlizzard

Apologies for my ignorance but what do you mean by selling yourself into clients?

Do you mean to agencies? hence they give the job to you before they advertise?

Cheers

Re: BO & Crystal

I think so. It won't make you rich but you'll do okay versus permie.

Re: BO & Crystal

If you "survive" it'll be by selling yourself into clients, convincing them that they need somebody like you: not by waiting for contracts already "out there" to advertise themselves.

BO & Crystal

So, now we've established what one requires to be successful in this area , back to my original question - are there enough contracts out there to survive and make the move from being a permie?

8o

BO & Crystal

Totally agree.

Regards

Re: BO & Crystal

Reporting is not just the front end report tool. Infact that is the trivial aspect in many cases.

The skill in reporting is

a. Understanding the business requirements
b. Identifying the best way to present the data.
c. Locating the data sources within the org.
d. Designing DB schemas optimised for efficient and flexible reporting such as star and snowflake designs. Tuning the DB for fast reporting.
e. Extracting, transforming and loading the data using SQL and other tools into these structures.
f. Summarising and aggregating data using SQL and/or OLAP
g. Generating the front end reports using a tool such as Excel, Crystal, BO etc.


You need all these skills to make money as a contractor IMHO.

BO & Crystal

You're right - I am a bit chicken, but I do have a family to support plus my perm job is very cushy at the moment so its a bit of a leap of faith!

cheers again

Re: BO & Crystal

MIS. Nice Niche. Good call. Means you may come up against me at some point.

"very tempting but I am going to bide my time " But then again - once a perm.:rolleyes

See. This is the second Crystal contract I have offered on this board in as many months.

No-one here but us chickens. Chicken. :rolleyes

BO & Crystal

Luckily for me, most of the developers I know have nothing to do with MIS so I dont get much grief I'd love to hear their point of view though to see what they've got to say

I have to say that alot of the BI products are overated and under used. I find that a lot of users just want an automated report in Excel format delivered to their mailbox! Adhoc analysis does come into it but that can only be achieved once you've established a fool proof way of presenting the data for self service. I only use BO or Crystal as an 'end of a process' delivery mechanism. The real hard work comes before that as you say in the requirements/definition gathering stage plus the data analysis of systems. I generally spend alot more time writing SQL and analysing tables etc before finally whacking out a report/universe.

Thanks for the offer but I'm not moving over just yet, plus I will probably work in London. Incidentally, I saw a BO contract right up my street yesterday for 450 a day (very tempting but I am going to bide my time and do some research).

Thanks all for your comments

Krystal

everything that ends with reports sucks.( screen painters and all that stuff also)
I dont even know what it has to do with IT.

Re: BO & Crystal

"Cue MarillionFan and "the art of pushy BullSh1t" - as if my magic.

As you will be aware the 'real contractors :lol ' and "hardcore developers" :lol of this board are against the idea of using tools like BO or CR.

As someone said, it's not actually being able to write reports using these tools, ( it doesnt pay well) you need to be able to bring the additional Value Adding skills. Business Analysis, business engineering, deployment, consultancy really adds value and allows you to get good rates.

That said.

Basic Crystal Reports skills at the mo is about £20-£25 p/h £30 at a push.

BO - £30-£35. £40/£45 at a push. ie. More expensive product, therefore 'harder' to learn.

If you are available at the end of next week I can probably get you a Crystal contract immediately. Basically you can have mine, based in Leeds, as I have given my notice for a 1 Year contract closer to home.

PS : There are many losers on this board who will shout you down. Partimer isnt one though.

Re: BO & Crystal

>Do you find Crystal rates good enough when compared to BO rates

Unfortunately, crystal for some reason has been tagged as the dumb mans version of BO.
A bit like people comparing C++ to VB.

This means BO rates are higher than crystal by far.
Personally I think you're right to stick with BO for rates. There's also less people that know BO in my opinion (since I meet more crystal people than BO in my travels).

Then there are rumours about Hyperion (but I don't know that well enough). Rates are suppose to be even higher ...
Always remember the market supply and demand.

Re: BO & Crystal

I been contracting for 5 years, most roles these days arent really pure reporting, but I've had a couple of decent contracts in the past where thats all I've been doing.

You really need solid all round BusinessObjects skills -designer / supervisor / BCA / Webi plus Oracle / PLSQL to have any chance.

Dont know about Crystal, never used it, dont intend to particularly.

Re: BO & Crystal

Ok Ok, so I admit, I did get a bit pissed off I'm calm again now

Do you find Crystal rates good enough when compared to BO rates? They seem to be lower and as I know both I always lean towards BO as the best way to go.

cheers