Access vs Crystal Reports to run reports via ODBC from "informix" tables

[newnewbie]

Hi,
Our vendor has a database that I connect to via ODBC. I work in Access. All the tables are "informix". The reports I run are rather painful to run due to the size of the original database and Access limitations. So I do a lot of table imports and then run the reports off local tables.
Now, our Data Department are proposing to migrate all of my reports into Crystal Reports. They say my data pulling and reporting activities slow down production. I am not a programmer, not even an IT professional, Access is all I know (and I am getting pretty good at it :) and I do not have enough skills to access their proposal/decision. The reporting will be off my shoulders regardless, I just need to be able to understand their logic.

Question:
Are Crystal Reports better with informix?

And why not get the native informix reporting tool to run these? Is there such a tool?

Apologize for a bit too general questions.

Thanks!
Lena

[Stewart Ross]

Hi. Sorry to say that it is unlikely you will find many responders who use Crystal, and fewer who have experience of comparative efficiency of Access versus Crystal, especially in a specialist Informix environment.

Access being run real-time in an ODBC environment can be slow and a resource hog. I find in accessing Oracle tables that it is far more efficient to make off-line copies of the main tables than it is to try to use Access real-time - performance is simply too poor.

Crystal is a specialist reporting tool, but as for its comparative efficiency I'm afraid I just do not have the experience or data available to say.

You are very welcome as a new contributor to Bytes, and perhaps there are other questions which we will be able to assist you with in future!

-Stewart