Report Studio - should anyone be able to use it?

[SueC]

This is for all of you who have had ReportNet impletmented for awhile or have implemented in a larger environment - we are a small environment and are *just* getting things rolling.

Up to now I've deployed cubes, a couple of Report Studio reports that are delivered via email and I have three users playing with Query Studio.  Most of the users are slowly catching on.

The sales organization wants to give one of their analysts report writing and formatting /distributing capabilities so they aren't dependent upon IT.  With current functionality that would mean giving a non-IT person Report Studio.  What are your thoughts/advice?  I'm caught between the old-school thought of keeping development in IT and the whole idea of putting it all in the hands of the users.  But is that going too far?

Thoughts and comments please.

Sue

[CoginAustin]

That user should be given access to query studio. In a small environment it doesn 't make sense financially to give one department access to report studio. That is of course unless this user will be a report writer for other departments as well.

I like giving power users query studio, they can develop their reports in QS and when they feel it needs to be a bit more elaborate or needs additional features only found in RS then they save it to a shared folder, where the RS developers pick it up, create a project plan to develop the report, and then develop it.

This allows the RS developers to service the entire organization instead  of just one department. Most of what sales needs can easily be done in QS anyways.

In larger organizations it may make sense to have a developer specifically geared toward a department. However, being a part of the department is another question entirely. I like IT duties to stay in IT so they can be used elsewhere if needed.