Should allow to access, view, print, export, schedule and manage published reports. A good reporting tool will have a central publishing capability which centrally manages these varied activities.
Publishing Report Objects
A report publishing capability should include Reports, files (pdf, xls, doc, ...) and Report packages. A report package (sometimes called a report briefcase) includes multiple and sometimes inter-linked report. Inter-linked reports are those reports which share common data and cross-refer data with each other. For example- sub-reports within a report. You have a report having a pie-chart. If you click on one pie of a pie-chart, it will take you to some other report carrying the next level detail.
Central Report Delivery Management:
A central management console should allow to administer and to configure the system, reports, groups, users, etc.
Report management for Scheduling, Delivery and Availability
Though many Vendors share ad-hoc reporting as one of the big advantages of Enterprise reporting solutions, most of the enterprise reports are scheduled, and not Ad-hoc. A well-managed organization does not change its reporting needs every day. If there are too many ad-hoc requests, it could mean two things:
- People are not clear on what information they need to manage their day-to-day business.
- Many of the ad-hoc requests need to be converted into scheduled reports.
Following are the typical scheduling, delivery and availability:
- Online Availability: Available, on demand, several instances (historical instances) are kept. These are the reports which are already executed and are available for you in pull mode.
- Execute and distribute NOW: Run a report on the ad-hoc basis and get the results distributed on immediate basis..
- Scheduled: Execution at a particular time (Every Monday) OR linked with an event (sales report for a campaign can be linked to the closure of the campaign).
- Standard schedule templates: A standard scheduling template, which allows you to apply that template to different reports. Therefore you don’t have to provide new schedule with every new reports. For example- a scheduling template could contain the report publishing time and the frequency of publishing.
- Delivery channels: Executed reports can be delivered through several channels: MAPI, file, FTP, etc.
- Printer Selection: One should be able to define which instance of report can be published to which printer
- Dynamic subscriptions: One should be able to subscribe to a report automatically, if it contains the data relevant to the user. For example- I can configure the system in such a way that if the sales exception report contains anything related to NY, the report should be sent to me.
- Report Alerts: These are the alerts, which sends a message for a specific report being executed and being available for view. For example- you getting a mail that ‘the sales report is ready for your view. Please click on this link to access the report’
- Publishing & Scheduling Wizard: Having user-friendly publishing wizard, whereby you can set-up publishing and scheduling.
- Linked reports: These are the reports which pick-up the same data and format for the original report, with some input parameters which filter out the contents of the original report.
- Report History: Run instances, which can be automatic in terms of retaining and archiving.
- Export formats: Should be able to export in PDF, XLS, RTF, Doc
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