When it comes to reporting tools for the AS/400, iSeries and IBM i platform there are many products to pick from. In fact a whole cottage industry has sprang up over the years with a myriad of different data tools for reviewing and extracting data from the OS/400 integrated DB2 database. But for creating straight forward reports I really like Query/400 because it is a down and dirty tool that makes accessing the underlying data fast and easy.

Query is really easy to use. In fact it’s so easy an end user can do it. But seriously, Query is a very straight forward program that is easy to use because it is menu driven. You can start up query right from the command line, select the file you want to peruse and add some record selections in no time flat. To preview the report just press the F5 key and presto, you see the results on the screen almost instantly in most cases depending on how much data you have.

It’s worth mentioning that you don’t have to be an Excel wizard to be useful with query. How many times have you opened up a spreadsheet crafted by your resident spreadsheet guru that does all sorts of trickery and spell craft with macros to produce the final numbers. And good luck finding the problem when the macros breaks. Unless you are the guru. With Query everything is straight forward and you can’t hide formula calculations behind a cloak of secrecy.

Now there are drawbacks to using a reporting tool that is centered completely around the green screen and reports. Some users want to get there data into Excel or another tool so it can be sliced and diced for more advanced data analysis and unfortunately this is one of the shortcomings of Query/400. Where it excels in generating lightening fast reports and inquiry screens on the IBM i platform it lacks with integration with the Windows world.

You can get creative and dump Query/400 results to data files and then copy those over to the PC side of things and import them into your spreadsheets. This can be a bit of a hassle and forces a few extra steps in the process. So if you have this sort of need it may be a good idea to invest in an advanced tool that can query the AS/400 and dump the results directly into your spreadsheets without the extra steps.

There are also some third party programs that will take your existing query definitions and do the same thing without needing to re-create the reports. You can also use the Excel Ad-in included with i Access licenses. The Ad in plugs directly into Excel and uses the included ODBC driver to do pretty much the same thing. But the issue with the ad-in is it’s not as polished or user friendly as the other commercial tools available.

So get out there and start generating reports, better yet have some training sessions for more advanced users so they can begin satisfying there own reporting needs. Just make sure that they follow a few guidelines like having people save the query definitions in a specific library along along with with setting the query profile options contained within the QQUPRFOPTS data area.

Author Bio: John Andersen is an IT manager and programmer. Discover how you can quickly and easily manage your AS/400, iSeries and IBM i platform be sure to check out his Midrange Jump Start web site.

Category: Computers and Technology
Keywords: as400, query/400