NaviCat 8 Software Review

I recently had a need for a Crystal Reports like program for MySQL. I’ve imported a lot of client data into a MySQL database and wanted to pull invoices, reports, et cetera based on this information. A quick Google turned up Navicat from PremiumSoft . While they claim that you can connect through any firewall through one of their many supported connection methods, I was unable to connect through my firewall at work. However, anywhere outside of the office I have zero problems, and since this will be used primarily at home and at a less locked-down office, that was fine for me.

Importing from an Excel spreadsheet is fantastic. Pick the fields you want, which database fields they will correlate to, what row or tab to start the import from and then click Start. Great GUI, easy to perform the task and so far, no errors.

Next up was working with the reporting capabilities. After about 90 minutes of working through the online PDF manual, I was able to get the gist of how the report works. Adding new database fields was pretty easy and I was eventually able to figure out basic calculations (like sums and percentage calculations). JOINs were also pretty easy once I found the necessary tab.

So far I am wildly impressed with this software and could just use a more polished and attractive report designer, but certainly no key elements are missing.

- Jason Langone

Rating: 4.5/5.0

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