Delivery mechanisms - QV Mail, Publisher, NPrinting

[#1]

Hi,

Can anyone tell me the difference (e.g. pros and cons) of QV Mail/QV Report, QV Publisher and NPrinting in delivering QV reports to a variety of business units, please ?

fyi - The business units require a range of reports in PowerPoint and Word. One business unit is the Executive Committee looking at data from several .QVWs

To me, Publisher seems quite expensive but is integrated with QlikView.

Any comparisons/experiences would be useful.

Thanks,

MW

[#2]

So far I have discovered the following:

QV Mail and NPrinting both originated from Italian companies.

Publisher appears to be far more expensive than NPrinting or QV Mail

NPrinting has a larger number of partners/distributors than QV Mail here in Spain and in the UK.

Does anyone have experience of using NPrinting and QV Mail that could make a comparison ?

Thanks,

MW

[#3]

Hello Melanie,

my previous answer is still under approval.

Here's some more info, in the meantime.

- QV Mail and QV Report are both produced by BI Network (also a QlikView Italian Technology Partner).

- The information about pricing is correct: I can add that in most configurations QV Mail is cheaper than nPrinting (the two products have a different scope and a different set of features, hence different pricing): a fair more interesting comparison for you to address would be between QV Report and nPrinting, that have similar features and pricing.

- The information about resellers is also correct: nPrinting has been on the market for longer, so their reseller network at the moment is larger then BI Network's.

Once again, I can only speak for BI Network products: if you are curious to take a closer look to either QV Mail or QV Report I'll be glad to arrange a demo for you.

Kind regards,

Simone Stefanini

[#4]

Hello, Simone.

Thanks for replying.

Good to know about the difference between QV Mail and QV Report. I will go back to my client and find out whether they want any more information on BI Network products.

Thanks,

MW

[AlexOmetis]

Hi Melanie,

I've worked a lot more with NPrinting than QVMail, but this is my understanding...

QVMail is all about extracting individual QV tables and distributing them as Excel or PDF attached to emails. I think you can set some filters for an email address and cycles the table through some selections.

NPrinting does that and a lot more - it supports more report formats (Word, Excel, HTML, PowerPoint, PDF), allows inclusion of any QV object in a report (as data or image), can include data from multiple QVWs in one report and a lot more...

QV Publisher allows you to distribute filtered and reduced QVWs to folders and/or email addresses. If you buy the PDF Distribution add-on, you can also send out PDF versions of QlikView reports.

As I understand it, Publisher + PDF is the most expensive (but has the least flexibility in terms of formats), QVMail is the cheapest (but has limited flexibility) and NPrinting is priced in the middle and has the most comprehensive feature set and flexibility.

From your brief requirements, it looks like Pub+PDF won't work as you're looking for Word & PowerPoint formats. I don't think QVMail supports these either, but perhaps QVReport does. So I think your only option may be NPrinting...

[#6]

Hi, Alex.

Thanks for the comprehensive breakdown. That is really useful to know.

I will be discussing budgets with my client so functionality and cost will be of main concern.

Thanks,

MW

[#7]

Hello again,

I think Alex answer represents an accurate comparison, although the comparison is with the wrong tool (QV Mail).

As I have already mentioned, it makes more sense to make a comparison between nPrinting and QV Report: they do pretty much the same things, although approaching the problem in very different ways (nPrinting relies 100% on Excel, whilst QV Report is a "Crystal Reports-like" self-sufficient environment and Excel is not needed).

Alex has listed what nPrinting can do with regards to your problem, I will add that QV Report would also fit the job perfectly: we have ample exposure of delivering, via mail or web-browsers, thousands of ad-hoc reports in the required formats.

I disagree with Alex on his conclusions, as he seems to steer you directly to nPrinting, overlooking QV Report that is a perfectly valid alternative (or even better? not mine to say, but I expect still worth exploring from someone who is assessing what the market has to offer).

All in all: I still think your best option is to stick to Publisher as this is the QlikView official maintaned solution.

You should explore another product and make an assessment only if Publisher really exceeds your company budget and there is no other QlikView proprietary solution avaliable.

If this is the case, once more, I'd be happy to show you what we have here, as well as Alex and the nPrinting crowd are keen on presenting their product.

regards

Simone

[AlexOmetis · Accepted solution]

Hi Simone,

It's been a while since I looked at QVMail or QVReport, so yes my info may be somewhat inaccurate.

A couple of notes on your notes though

• NPrinting relies on Excel, Word, Powerpoint... but only if you want to use those formats. It can do HTML reports without any external programs installed. It can also do PDF reports either via the Office programs or direct from QlikView reports (with the help of a free PDF printer). As you point out, it doesn't have it's own in-build WYSIWIG editor like QVReport.
• You recommend sticking with Publisher when Melanie has stated that she wants Word / PowerPoint formatted reports - this isn't something Publisher can do as far as I know. How about QVReport?

Cheers

Alex

[#9]

hello Alex,

in fact I wrote that your comparison was accurate... my remark was about the fact that you have picked the wrong tool to run it against.

It has been a long time since I run nPrinting too, so I would also like to double-check a few facts before stating incorrect things:

• When I wrote that nPrinting relies on Excel, I meant that this is one of the prerequites to run the program: you are saying to me that I can run nPrinting without having Excel installed?

        Or is it just that particular output that can be obtained without relying on Excel?

        You say there is no in-build editor: so if it's not in Excel, where do you build reports at all?

• QV Report can deliver reports in PDF and PPT. I have recommended Publisher because it's the QlikTech proprietary solution and I think it's the one that all customers should explore first. From Melanie post, it looks to me like she's yet to run a test with it: though it's fair to assess all possibilities (and therefore I have offered to show QV Report) I was just suggesting the order of the assessment... that's why I disagreed with your "your only option is nPrinting": I think she should try out Publisher, then if something is really missing, also take a look at third-party solutions.

Before this goes off topic, Alex you have my Skype, feel free to buzz and we'll expand.

regards,

Simone