Business Intelligence Reporting
Business intelligence reporting describe the practice of analyzing
large amounts of data in the form of human readable reports. For
most users business intelligence reporting describes the software tools
available that allow this form of reporting to take place. In
this latter definition then, business intelligence reporting is a software
tool whose purpose is to harvest information, categorize the information
into logical order, sum up the information, and present the chosen
information in a viewable and understandable format. Business intelligence
reporting uses archived or previously stored data, usually in a data
warehouse. Every organization uses business intelligence reporting
in some fashion, making business intelligence reporting one of the
very first applications to be utilized in the business intelligence
implementation. Because of business intelligence reporting, the company
can get easy access to key information, quickly manipulate the information
into any desired format, and ultimately provide that information to
any necessary executives, employees, and consumers.
Open Source Software vs. Commercial Software
There are two classes of software when it comes to business intelligence
reporting, open source software and the commercial variety. Open
source software (OSS) is sometimes referred to as “free” software,
because the source code is available to the public via a public domain.
By definition open source software is made available to the public
in its source or uncompiled format; users are then free to modify it,
use it as is and re-distribute it at will, provided that they re-publish
any changes they make back to the original source. In theory,
OSS is available so that the product can be more accessible to masses
and more understandable among all users. Commercial software on the
other hand is exactly as it sounds- proprietary software that is designed
to be marketed and sold to the public.
Business Intelligence Reporting Software
Open source business intelligence reporting software products are
Agata Report, Eclipse BIRT Project, JasperReports, Pentaho and GNU
Enterprise. Options of commercial business intelligence reporting software
products are more extensive- Actuate, Alchemex, Cognos BI, Crystal
Reports, Style Report, Information Builders’ FOCUS and WebFOCUS,
Intellicus, LogiXML, Microstrategy, Oracle XML Publisher, Business
Objects, DevExpress Reporting, Telerik Reporting, SQL Server Reporting
Services, and Proclarity.
Example of Business Intelligence Reporting OSS
One such open source software program is the Agata Report- a cross-platform
database business intelligence reporting tool which includes ability
to create graphs in addition to a query tool that allows the user to
access information from various applications and reformat into various
useable formats. Another open source software business intelligence
reporting program is the BIRT (Business Intelligence and Reporting
Tools) Project which has business intelligence reporting capabilities
for both rich client (the computer’s central server) and web
applications.
The JasperReport business intelligence reporting tool
is another open source program that can actually
transfer the retrieved and finalized information in written format
directly onto the screen, a printer, or generate as PDF, HTML, and
a variety of other file formats. This type of business intelligence
reporting tool can be used in either Java or Internet-based applications.
Example of Business Intelligence Reporting Commercial Software
An example of commercial business intelligence reporting software
is Crystal Reports, a business intelligence reporting tool that can
devise and create final information reports from a large number of
data sources. When Crystal Reports is installed on an operating system,
users can highlight select data and then catalog the information into
the desired format. The final report can be seen on the screen, printed,
or formatted into a variety of file types (PDF, Excel, etc.).
Selecting Business Intelligence Reporting Software
The number of available alternatives for business intelligence reporting
software are broad and easily identified. The key aspect of selecting
business intelligence reporting software is to ensure that you don't
over-buy and that your business intelligence reporting software provides
the feature set you need, without providing features that are overly
expensive and that you will not use.
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