Date:         Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:35:01 GMT
Reply-To:     JCunington <jcunington@AOL.COMJKELM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         JCunington <jcunington@AOL.COMJKELM>
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Subject:      Re: SAS user considering BRIO

>Apologies if this is in the wrong forum but I am a SAS user who may
>soon start to use BRIO software.

By choice? <G>

>I curretnly work for a company that uses SAS. They are thinking of
>obtaining BRIO and using their software as well. I do not know
>anything about BRIO. Could anyone help? I am after views on the
>products, company itself and the recent merger with Hyperion. All
>views are welcome
>
>thanks in advance

I was at Milwaukee Public Schools last year when they started using the
product. Only the DBA had access to the full product. The rest of us (poor
schmucks) were stuck with the web client, so my views may not apply if you have
full access.

We were attempting to help the Technology Dept. work on designing tables and
views for presenting students' test scores. Our success was limited. For the
few things I used it for it worked well, but not as well as SAS WEB/ODS has in
my past experience (not at Milwaukee Public Schools). The file export feature
worked well and had no problems with SAS except where we had commas in the
students' names (using a CSV file). Then I had to manually edit the file before
using it with SAS.

I was also out of there (a victim of budget cuts) before the project was
completed, so I don't know if the growing pains got over with or not. Project
success in my time was mixed, but showed promise. Most problems were due to
dirty data or rules inconsistently applied.

Jay