With just one log in, you can report across multiple companies through Custom Dashboards.
The two main ways to achieve this is to either make use a view that references the names of the database and table name or to use Custom Connection strings.
There is a difference between using a view that gets the data from all the databases or using a Custom Connection string.
With the use of views you can aggregate the data from all the databases and present the data (from all the databases) in one component of the dashboard (eg a graph), you then can make use of filters to see data for a specific database.
If using a Custom Connection string, this will bring in a separate data source per database (custom connection string) into the dashboard so you can dashboard data from every database but they will have to be in their own components. You cannot mix the data for aggregations.
What is going to dictate which direction you need to choose:
- Basically if you can write a view across the databases you can use the view method, if you can't then you have to use the Custom Connection string method.
- If all the databases are from the same financial system and are on the same SQL server and instance then using one view that has union joins to each database works very well.
- If all the databases are from the same financial system but they are NOT on the same SQL server and instance, then if you can setup linked servers then you may be able to use a view but if you can't setup linked servers then you have to use Custom Connection strings.
- If the databases are from different systems and are on the same SQL server and instance, then if there is a common link between the databases eg customer then you can write a view joining these to databases to get your data set.
- If the databases are from different systems and are NOT on the same SQL server and instance, then If you can setup linked servers then you may be able to use a view but if you can't setup linked servers then you have to use Custom Connection strings.
- If both databases are NOT from the same provider eg. SQL or Access then you will have to Custom Connection strings.