Need for Reporting Software

When was the last time you came across a report on the net? Well, don't you remember the last telephone bill that you accessed on the net? Or the last e-bank statement which was sent to you by your banker? Well, have you ever thought how it is possible to generate these many reports when your banker or your telephone operator have client lists running in millions!!! Well, it is simple. Now we have softwares which does anything for making our lives simpler. Remember the times when we had to plan our budgets on papers, using pens, pencils, erasers and calculators and what not!!! Well, today, you just need to enter the details on an excel sheet and the tools to manipulate your report is abundantly available. You wanna see the total expense or your income after tax, you don't need a calculator also. Its just a click away. In excel, you can define formulas, for calculating complex things and then it just need your input. As soon as you keep putting your expenses, it will keep reducing it from the Balance available in your account. You have a very simple report ready.

For simple reports, Excel is an excellent software. For personal reporting purposes it works brilliantly. But that is not the case with the poor banker or the telephone or internet service provider, who has to do these calculations for millions of their customers. So, as the next step, they approaches a software developer for a solution. Now the software developer develops an application which automates the reporting works and integrates with an existing or a new web portal of his client. Report generation may not be the only thing this application does, it may have the ability to, say report customer complaints and suggestions or do a trading online et al. Now the developer has two options- Create a reporting solution by himself, or embed an efficient reporting software in the application, which can do all the reporting works by itself. Writing codes for reporting solution needs a lot of time, effort and manpower resources. So today programmers go for the easier way, which is an embeddable reporting tool.

Well, problem solved for your Banker or the telephone/internet service provider, and problem solved for the software developer. Wait a minute... You said there are so many reporting tools available in the market, which are they and how will I know which one to use!!! Hmmm... Now this is becoming more interesting. Firstly, different reporting tools provides different features. Its like this, an iPod is a sleek product which can be used for viewing mp4 movies, but when it comes to other commonly used formats like mpeg or mpegav, you may have to opt for a comparatively bulkier Creative Zen Vision or something like that. But you can convert movie files in other formats to mp4 with a software, which again will be time consuming. So, if someone does not want the troubles of all these would go and buy a Zen Vision and a valet to carry it. It is the same case with reporting softwares also. Some are a perfect wed for .Net platform, where are some are developed keeping in mind the Java platform users. For example, JReport or Jasper report works excellent with Java, but does not support .Net framework, whereas Crystal Reports from Business Objects is a good bet for .Net platform users. Now, Crystal report can work on .Net as well as Java with the help of some adapters called JRCs (Java Reporting Components). Now this is like using a software t convert mpegav files to mp4 files. If you don't want these troubles, you can opt for JReport or Jasper Reports.

List of Reporting Softwares available in the Market

Commercial software

• 90 Degree Software
• Actuate
• Cognos BI
• Combit List and Label
• Crystal Reports
• DBxtra - Reporting Software
• i-net Crystal-Clear
• InetSoft Style Report
• Information Builders' FOCUS and WebFOCUS
• Intellicus
• Izenda Ad Hoc
• JReports
• Logi 8 LogiXML
• Microstrategy
• OPRO X Server
• Oracle XML Publisher
• repro
• Microsft SQL Server Report

Free or open source software

• Agata Report
• Eclipse BIRT Project
• JasperReports
• LGX_Report by LogiXML
• Pentaho
• GNU_Enterprise (reporting sub-package)
• CrossCompass_Free

(Major ones are in bold letters)

To know more about the reporting tools available on the market, please click on the links with the reporting software's name.