Target Users

About Reports

Reports extract data from a data source or sources, perform manipulations and calculations on the data to answer business questions, and present the results as information in a formatted and convenient form for the business user to use. This information is then typically used for operational or decision support purposes within an organization. Reports vary dramatically in size, content and complexity and will include or combine characteristics such as:

• Listings of information � Example: Transactions in an account.
• Sorting, grouping and aggregation of data with and without subtotals � Example: A listing of all product sales for each sales person, grouped by state.
• Charts to present information in easy to understand formats � Example: Pie chart showing an investor's portfolio allocation by High Growth/Growth/Income/etc. categories.
• Matrix or cross-tab layouts � Example: Financial budget reports with cost codes as rows, columns for each month, and cells containing numerical data for that cost code/month.
• Delivery of information as one or a combination of web pages, PDF files, printed documents, Excel files, etc. � Example: Frequent flyer statement delivered as a web page online and a printed document in the mail.
• Precise, highly formatted layouts � Examples: Bank statements; utility bills; commission statements; invoices; government forms.
• Page navigation for long reports � Examples: Hundreds of pages corporate cell phone usage bill with First Page, Next Page, Go to Page, etc. buttons).
• Table of Contents � Example: Multi-page Investment Portfolio summary with Table of Contents to quickly navigate to Account Summary; Fund History; etc.
• Keyword or content search within a report � Example: find information on a customer in a 1000 page customer account report.

This can be contrasted with data-driven JSP pages where the data manipulation and presentation needs are more transaction driven and do not include recurring reporting needs such as complex aggregation (performed outside of the database) and highly complex layouts.

For report development, the project broadly targets three classes of developer:

• Application Developers � These are Java developers who are creating applications that include the need to retrieve data and present that data in the form of reports. This is likely to be a subset of the overall application and will include many of the characteristics discussed above. In this case, the report generation and viewing will be embedded in the overall application.
• Report Developers � Report developers are not typically skilled in writing Java code. They expect to use a visual desktop tool to create any type of report - including defining database connections, report content and report layout. These reports may then be deployed as part of an application, or through an easy to use deployment framework.
• Business Users � Business users often want to create their own report layouts or customize existing reports. They work through a very easy-to-use web-based report creation and editing facility to answer business questions on an ad hoc basis.

Дата добавления: 2014-10-31