NGS-IQ

I am new to the AS400/System-i environment. I appreciate how easy NGS-IQ makes it to query files in the system. The green-screen interface is good, but the separate desktop GUI client is even better. I can quickly develop a query and publish it to production. Using the web-interface my users have access to the query immediately. I am able to let them self-serve results from our 40+ year old system.

Maybe I just haven't found it yet, but it would be nice to be able to write ANSI-standard SQL if it would be quicker. Also to do sub-queries without having to write and link two separate queries.

NGS-IQ works and works well. I've used the product to write literally hundreds of reports in the 10+ years that I have been a user. We have built significant business processes out of the data that we are able to extract from our system with this product. The ease of getting data out of our IBM database and out to Excel where it can be shared with coworkers or clients is fantastic. The product works well and is very well supported in the rare case that there is a problem. The regular, free training webinars offered are invaluable to picking up and learning more about the capabilities.

No real major complaints or issues, the one thing that we kind of struggled with at first was that reports needed to be copied for each base library that we want to report for. We checked at the time and there was an add on module that would have helped with that, but we chose not to pursue it.

I love how approachable NGS-IQ makes your data! The user interface is really friendly and helps readily display the way you're linking the information between files and creating relationships for your data. Another greatly appreciated feature is the versatility you have to define your own custom fields. You can build really complex logical relationships for your data sets in a separate window that doesn't then bog down the body of your query and make it much easier to understand what you and your colleagues are doing. Last thing - the customer support is superb! You can call or email them anytime and if you're doing so during their business hours, you'll usually connect with an actual person that's genuinely curious about what you're trying to achieve with your query. They'll even go so far as to ask you to send over your entire query definition so they can scrutinize it and work out whatever strange kink you may not even realize is causing the issue. Truly a great product with an even greater user-support team!

The only thing I can think of (and I may just have not figured it out yet) is there doesn't seem to be a quick/easy way to view the contents of a table/file. You usually have to run a generic "show all" type query, which requires selecting the file you want, re-compile the query with said file selected, then running your updated query so you can see a sample of what you're working with; no "right-click->View" option.

Ease of use, creating reports on the fly. allowing other users to create reports and taking programming request away fron our RPGLE programmers. Support is awesome

not having a listing of new features. documentation of changes and new features.

Both IQ Client and Qport. We don't use Smartview very often but I think it is also a good tool.

Over all I like this software a lot; there are some great functions in the software but I have to learn the syntax in order to use them such as SKIP, PREVIOUS, ect...