Today's reporting solution are often considered the most important part of the whole Business Intelligence systems and all other products need to be adapted to them. Pentaho Reporting isn't only a reporting solution, but also a part of a comprehensive BI packet.

Nowadays, reporting solution are often considered the core of whole Business Intelligence packets. Even though it may be a little exaggeration, the fact is that reporting is an aspect which users have the most in common with tangibly. And which work most people understand and find indispensable. As a consequence, the fact that reporting solution often is the first application installed, make other products need to be adapted to it. In case of many reporting solutions it's quite a problematical task - being a comprehensive reporting solution, they lack for integration capabilities, for instance.

Pentaho Reporting - regardless of the version it's provided in - is a part of a wider Business Intelligence product family, thereupon its integration capabilities from the very beginning had to be well worked out. And they are. However, it doesn't mean that Pentaho Reporting solution lack for any other functionality - there is everything what may be considered useful in delivering the information from its source to organization employees, customers, and stakeholders.

Pentaho Reporting is one of the most comprehensive solutions in the market, which allows users to take care about the whole process, not only information delivering itself. Besides, it allows to derive data from multiple sources, then format it in the way that is the most usable at the moment (and change it totally after another while, if needed), and - eventually - deploy it in any of formats needed. Then, the last thing is to spread the information via e-mail, print it or use for a presentation, for instance.

Reporting with Pentaho

Reporting itself never is such a simple question as it seems, solutions by unconnected vendors often differ significantly. What a user can benefit from in case of Pentaho Analysis are:

• wide and comprehensive set of reporting capabilities which meet the standards, including the whole range, from the simplest forms for websites, to complex and highly customizable applications for multiple purposes like financial reporting
• multiple connection options, which allow users to choose connecting to single data source, or numerous data sources at once, or to the centralized metadata layer by Pentaho
• twofold report creation options - on-demand and scheduled
• User Console which allows to deliver the reports quickly via e-mails, print them, store on a file server, or forward to any other application
• multiple formats support which includes PDF files, HTML documents, MS Office Excel spreadsheets, RTF files, and plain text
• wide set of report content objects, including charts, tables, sub-reports, templates, headers, footers, and drill links
• intuitive graphical drag and drop interface to control all the stages of report preparation process
• step by step wizards leads users through the stages of report design
• direct publishing on Pentaho Business Intelligence Server what ensures that users across the whole organization are provided with a constant access to information
• one report for multiple users
• a single reporting engine used for the simplest reports and the most advanced, visually perfect ones

Other features of Pentaho Analysis include:

• Java Database Connectivity 2.0 standard
• Oracle, IBM DB2, and Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, EnterpriseDB, and PostgreSQL databases support
• OLAP databases support through XML, XML/A, MDX, and XQuery standards
• data connectivity, formatting, and security centralized maintenance what means that there is no need to update data manually once it's refreshing automatically when the report is re-opened
• Common Warehouse Metamodel being a base for metadata layer used in Pentaho Reporting
• scalability, portability, and integration capabilities ensured with hundred percent J2EE server components
• an open XML-based repository for documents, rules, and information management
• Secure Sockets Layer support
• high efficiency security and business rules
• user activity tracking.

Pentaho Reporting resources

http://www.pentaho.com/download/asset_container.php?durl=pentaho_reporting.pdf&furl=540000 - the data sheet provided by the product's vendor is comprehensive, nonetheless covers only those general aspects of Pentaho Reporting product. Besides the different sides of Pentaho Reporting solution, there is some attention paid to the differences between the two editions of Pentaho Business Intelligence software - community edition and enterprise edition. However, the whole document - supplied with a few illustration - can be considered an interesting choice for the very beginning. Even though it lacks for details, it consists quite a lot of interesting information.

http://reporting.pentaho.com/ - here is the official website devoted to Pentaho Reporting project as a whole. Here - therefore - is where one can download the recent version of the open source edition of the software, check the news and find out what is new in the newest release of the Pentaho Reporting product. Additionally, there is quite a lot of other tools than just the Reporting itself, so that it's a place where one could get almost everything he needs to start an efficient reporting system for his organization. What else one could consider useful are the links on the right side of the website, too.

http://wiki.pentaho.com/display/Reporting/Pentaho+Reporting+Community+Documentation - here is something like a bible for all Pentaho Reporting users. In a very few words, it's almost an encyclopedia devoted to Pentaho Reporting product, hence what one may find there is documentation of all the types, guides for users of different types, and additional tips and suggestions. It's a wide source of comprehensive knowledge which - in point of fact - a lot of beginning users wouldn't understand a single thing from. However, analyzing the source with what's presented on the computer screen should bring the expected results.

http://www.sherito.org/ - here is quite an interesting website shaped like a blog, which provides practical information about Pentaho Reporting. The tips and tricks there are very well described so that no one could happen to have any difficulties with using them in practice. Moreover, it's not just an ordinary set of widely known facts, there are over one hundred notes and each and every of them brings something new to the world of Pentaho Reporting.