Ten Ways Your Reporting Software is Failing Your Customers

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#10 Pixel-Perfect Design

Pixel-perfect is pretty in theory but messy in practice.

The Way It Is: Perfect it ain't. There's no help with aligning to margins, spacing charts correctly, or ensuring tables don't overlap.

The Way It Should Be: "Responsive design" means a cleaner layout for different displays and outputs.

#9 Banded Interfaces

The band approach is definitely not “one size fits all.”

The Way It Is: Each band holds one element. Banded interfaces can’t handle varying table heights so you get blank space or crowded tables.

The Way It Should Be: Look for reporting software that features “free-form design.”

#8 Steep Learning Curve

Does your software’s learning curve look like this?

The Way It Is: Your reporting software’s learning curve is as harsh as climbing a windy mountain road. On a bicycle.

The Way It Should Be: The tool should be as easy to learn to use as possible.

#7 Unhelpful Support

Don't be held hostage by poor customer service.

The Way It Is: You can’t get the answers you need when and how you need them.

The Way It Should Be: Free web support. Email support. Video tutorials. Extensive documentation. An interactive tutorial program.

#6 Lack of Charting Capabilities

If this is the extent of your data visualization tools, it's time to replace your software.

The Way It Is: You get basic functionality and nothing more.

The Way It Should Be: You deserve (at the very least) area charts, scatter charts and dozens of others to clearly display your data.

#5 Unusable Wizards

Serious software calls for serious wizards, not Muggles in disguise.

The Way It Is: Wizards that simply provide boxes for code, make you click “Next” seemingly forever, and are filled with jargon.

The Way It Should Be: Wizards should guide you step by step through each process, quickly and easily.

#4 Useless Templates

A sample template from a truly terrible reporting program.

The Way It Is: Useless or missing templates force you to start from scratch.

The Way It Should Be: Industry- or task-specific templates jumpstart your template creation.

#3 Confusing Features and Commands

A delete key should actually be attached to a delete function.

The Way It Is: The delete key doesn’t delete, an element is paragraphs from its desired location, and “charts pro” means what again?

The Way It Should Be: Basic functions are obvious to find and easy to use.

#2 Bugs

Is this bug lurking in your reporting software?

The Way It Is: Software crashes or gets caught in a loop, fonts get changed on a whim and tables do not appear correctly.

The Way It Should Be: The reporting software company should work out bugs before releasing new versions.

#1 Clunky Text Input and Output

Say goodbye to messy text.

The Way It Is: Pure chaos.

The Way It Should Be: Text should be easy to insert, and it should display properly in a report.

How'd you do? Did you say "that looks familiar" to any of the pictures here?

If so, see how much better life is when you use great enterprise reporting software. Check out the unique approach Windward takes.

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