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Version 6.0
===Connecting External Reporting Tools===__NOEDITSECTION__
The process for connecting external reporting tools is essentially the same for all tools. External tools connect to the {{IMSMANG}} relational database via an ODBC connection. Information managers establish this connection by installing the ODBC driver for MySQLPGSQL. When this is complete, information managers can connect any ODBC-compliant tool to the IM{{IMSMANG}} database, including reporting tools, other database packages and SQL management tools. Examples include:
Reporting tools and
*Crystal Reports
*ArcGIS Desktop
*Oracle
SQL management tools
*MySQL PGSQL Query Browser
*Navicat
*TOAD SQL
*Heidi SQL
When connecting an external reporting tool to {{IMSMANG}}, it is recommended that information managers build database views within the database to do any necessary data transformations. While it is possible to directly import or connect {{IMSMANG}} database tables in external tools and perform transformations within the external tools, the recommended method is to do transformations within the IMS{{IMSMANG}} database using database views and then import the resulting views into the external tools.
{{note|Building database views to transform data before importing it into other tools significantly reduces the performance hit associated with connecting external tools}}