Michael Voloshko is a senior pre-sales consultant for the financial services team at Business Objects. Michael has been with Business Objects for six years and is based in New York City.

Customer Reviews & Comments
Remember back in the "good old days" of shrinkwrapped software when the box was mostly full with a big printed reference manual? Well, this is the book that should have come inside the now-nearly-empty box. The book is a standard reference-type manual designed to provide an overview of every feature within the product including the newest features such as Dynamic and Cascading Parameter Generation. Besides the standard overview type stuff, it includes some basic tutorials on often-confusing topics such as report integration (in .NET and J2EE environments); you won't become an expert using these tutorials, however. The book also includes a lot of information on how Crystal Reports integrates with Business Objects' larger software platforms (which, I suspect, will be a useless topic for 99% of users). Beginning users will find the manual easy to use and full of interesting information. Intermediate users will find solid suggestions here and there. Advanced users will probably give it a flip-through and stuff it on the shelf next to all the other references where it will be used for occasional consultation. All in all a solid offering in a fairly crowded field, but one that is authoratative and complete. But I just can't shake the feeling that the manual should have come in the box. Heck, it even looks and feels just like the typical software documentation of days gone by... Comment | Permalink | (Report this)