|
|
Ad Hoc Reporting - A Business Need
David McClellan, Insala Technology Coordinator
The term "Ad Hoc" is a Latin term meaning "this purpose". When using this terminology to talk about reporting, we're referring to the ability to run any report to meet unique and immediate needs. Ad Hoc reporting gives one the capability to retrieve and slice and dice data for a variety of purposes to satisfy specific needs.
Traditional reporting tools were built for a single purpose; to satisfy reporting needs with strict business logic. A standard report may give you all the information necessary to fulfill your needs, and may have extra features to help sort and categorize data. It may meet one need, but customizations are limited to the built-in features and are only adequate some of the time.
What happens when business needs change? A trusty report you might have been using could become obsolete, and new reports would need to be built or purchased. This can be time consuming for your IT group to complete or costly to purchase from an outside vendor. An Ad-Hoc reporting tool removes the business logic constraints and gives the user a means to create on-demand reports with virtually unlimited flexibility, eliminating these problems.
A quality ad hoc reporting tool allows non-technical and pseudo-technical individuals to create meaningful reports that are not limited by predefined templates or business logic. This involves handing the reins over to the user to decide how to approach creating a report. The user must know which data points are meaningful, how the data needs to be organized and what logic needs to be applied. Ad Hoc reporting is the closest you can get to the data without actually looking directly into the database. It acts as a layer of security between the user and the actual database, and it provides a simple interface to build a customized report without any programming knowledge.
Insala's answer to Ad Hoc reporting needs has been the creation of a soon-to-be released new online reporting engine called "Insala StarReports". This tool provides real-time access to pertinent data in a format that empowers Insala clients to select, filter, and group data to create customized reports that meet their unique and ever-changing requirements. The integrated StarReports environment also allows users to dynamically modify reports and drill through live data on the fly and in a web-based environment. The data available to each user is configurable to the needs of each situation and role.
While the need for accurate reports is a constant, the format and data within is ever-changing. A user-friendly Ad Hoc reporting tool such as Insala StarReports is a great way to create needed reports quickly without the need for costly IT resources. Look for announcements on the launch of Insala StarReports coming soon!
|
|
|
|
