Why create web report studio reports to display stored process results?

[Quentin]

Hi All,

I'm new to stored processes, and have just "finished" my first stored process.  It allows a user to pass a few parameters, and makes a little report.

I have been running it through the Stored Process Web App.  And was thinking I would basically send the URL around to users, and they could do the same.

Then it was suggested that I create a report in Web Report Studio which will be a shell for the stored process, and have users go through web report studio to run the report.

Was wondering if people have thoughts as to benefits of using WRS to package a stored process?

As I understand it, the main functionality of WRS is to allow less-technical people to *build* reports.  In this case, I don't expect anyone to want to build a custom report incorporating the output of this procedure as a sub-report.  So I don't yet see much benefit to packaging it as a web report.  Except it sounds like maybe I can do some more formatting of the WRS pages, and I guess if we have a whole library of reports the WRS might provide an organization scheme (but the indexing provided by the stored process server seems plenty useful for that).

Thanks for any thoughts,

--Q.

[milts]

Hi Q,

You are actually correct that WRS makes it easier for less-technical people to build reports. These are the people who "prefer not to code" or are not much experienced with SAS programming or are just consume the report. Compared to stored processes where you actually code or use Enterprise Guide to generate a report, typical WRS users come up with reports using Information Maps, which can actually be prepared to be more readable for business users or report consumers(Ex. If on the actual table has a column named MON_TOTAL_AMOUNT, It can be prepared in the Information Map that this column be displayed or renamed as Monthly Total Amount).

If you want more formatting on the reports, I suggest sticking with Stored Processses. You'll have much more freedom on layouts there. But I think newer versions of WRS give you more options on layouts or formatting. It's at least an advantage for you to be knowledgeable in SAS programming, at least you now have options on how you want to deliver your reports.

Just my thoughts.

Regards,

Milton

[RMP · Accepted solution]

The advantage of WRS studio in this instance is that you offer the user a central standard location for accessing reports. All reports WRS or Stored Process are stored in the same location. Don't forget that WRS also offers the user the ability to schedule and distribute reports, which offers a more secure and stable manner to deliver reports than "sending the URL around to the users".

[Quentin]

Thanks very much to Milton and RMP for helpful replies!  More questions to come later today (new threads), about the differences between running stored processes from WRS vs SPWA.