Thread

This is my last question before I buy, I promise.

I have been told by a couple of EE developers that accessing the EE MYSQL database is difficult. This seems odd, as I thought report writers were better than ever and MYSQL is about as popular as they get. I Googled MYSQL report writer and instantly found two: Winward and Intelliview that would seem to be just fine.

My question array: Is there some issue that makes accessing EE data difficult for a non-professional? Can I get a copy of the schema/data dictionary? Are the tables and fields named in a user friendly fashion? Or are the relationship obscure and difficult to map correctly? Is either Winward or Intelliview a good choice for a non-professional? If not Winward or Intelliview do you recommend something else? I didn’t look for the price, so maybe on price/value alone there is something better? Finally, if you are still with me, could it be difficult depending on my hosted environment and if so, what should I be looking for in a hosting environment to make it easier?

Thank you for your help,
Dan

Hi, Dan -

The EE database is fairly complex, and that is true.  There is not a published schema at this point either.

What kind of reports are you feeling you’ll need to get out of ExpressionEngine?  Knowing that would really help us to understand your situation.

Thank you!

I am somewhat surprised Ellis Labs has not published a schema; hopefully that will be rectified soon. As for how I might use a report writer, there are many ways. Here are a few examples.

There will be key words, tags and categories associated with content items stored. I would like to be able to select and report on these in many ways, some unknown at this time. For example, authors will assign key words to their blogs and other items. I would like to be able to count the use of each key word and present an alphabetical list of the key words and the frequency used. I might also want that list in order of frequency used.

As a development cost savings and to reduce necessary upfront specifications, I’d like to be able to have my developer capture data that I can report against later. For example, each time a specific key page is accessed by a member, I might want to capture who accessed it and date/time accessed. Later, I could report this easily in whatever timeframe I wanted – day, week, month or year, by user or by page. I might want to show the members by some category, etc.

These are two current reasons and I’m sure there will be others; this indeed is the essence and need for ad-hoc reporting, as was defined in the 80s and perfected in the 90s.

Having been in the software business for many years and having fought long and hard for user access to data, it would gall me to relinquish this capability, if not right.

Hi, Dan,

Unfortunately we do not have a published schema, I’ll certainly pass your request on to our development team.

As for using a report writer, thank you for explaining.  Right now, that would be a custom integration, there is no out of the box way to address those concerns, but the data is not obfuscated and available to you if you do integrate such software.

What I can do is offer to you dev copy to try out ExpressionEngine, which will let you see the database directly.  If you’d like to do that, just email sales and mention this thread and we’ll get you set up.

Thank you.

Thanks Lisa.

Please do pass the request along. Since I’m new to internet applications, I’m going to take the advice of my developer, HCC Development, and go with in-box stuff and add-ons. If I find I need what I think I might, then I’ll add it later. Consider this question closed.

Thanks for your help,

Dan

Thanks Dan, I’ll certainly do that, with your story as the background.  I do appreciate you writing that up.

Do let us know if you have any other questions come up. Thank you!