Managed Reporting Interfaces and Tools

Managed Reporting offers you a selection of products and reporting tools that you use to create and edit portals and reports, manipulate data in an existing report, submit a report for background processing, and view a report.

WebFOCUS Business Intelligence Portal (BI Portal). The BI Portal enables you to build complete, modern websites, with multi-levels of navigation. You can have as many levels as you like.

Content is dynamic and end users experience the drag-and-drop behavior that they are familiar with in popular online portals. This is a key feature, as end users do not need to learn anything new.

While at work, people should have the same satisfying experiences that they have every day when reading news, reading email, and performing other activities. With the BI Portal, the result is zero product training and a high usage rate.

With this product, a portal is easy to build. The BI Portal uses the same familiar ribbon interface that the WebFOCUS InfoAssist report development tool uses. Building a portal is just a matter of a few clicks and drag-and-drop actions. With the BI Portal, anyone who can build a report using InfoAssist can develop an impressive portal without any knowledge of web design. For more information on the BI Portal, see the Business Intelligence Portal manual. For questions on licensing, contact your Information Builders branch representative.

WebFOCUS Business Intelligence Dashboard (BI Dashboard). The BI Dashboard is an HTML-based thin client that enables you to create a customized user interface to access WebFOCUS Managed Reporting. In WebFOCUS 8, the BI Portal is the successor to the WebFOCUS BI Dashboard. The BI Dashboard is available in WebFOCUS 8 to customers with active Managed Reporting licenses for earlier WebFOCUS releases who want to migrate their existing Dashboard views. For more information on the BI Dashboard, see the Business Intelligence Dashboard manual. For questions on licensing, contact your Information Builders branch representative.

There are several views in Dashboard:

With Dashboard, you can:

Developer Studio. Is a full client development tool, which can access remote WebFOCUS environments, including resources stored in the WebFOCUS Repository. The Developer Studio Report Developer and the Managed Reporting Developer Editions limit access to a remote WebFOCUS environment. For more information, see the Developer Studio Application Development Getting Started manual.

Both of these Developer Studio editions enable authorized developers to create and manage Managed Reporting content.

Important: Authorized Managed Reporting users can use this product, but user capabilities are limited to those permitted by WebFOCUS Client security.

InfoAssist. WebFOCUS InfoAssist is a reporting tool that extends the power of WebFOCUS Managed Reporting. InfoAssist provides business users with the most advanced, yet simple to use, ad hoc reporting features needed to create intricate reports, charts, and documents from any enterprise information source without IT intervention.

InfoAssist is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) that delivers cutting-edge functionality using a familiar Microsoft® Office-like interface. This highly intuitive environment shields users from the underlying technical complexities associated with ad hoc reporting features, while providing access to all the functionality needed to address mission-critical information requirements. This powerful ad hoc reporting tool enables rapid and efficient design and deployment of reports and charts. It uses an interactive and fully customizable WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) development environment. Users receive instant feedback throughout the development process to ensure that reports and charts are properly built. For more information, see the WebFOCUS InfoAssist User’s Manual.

Deferred Receipt. Deferred Receipt is a report request submission option that allows you to submit a report for background processing. Once you submit a report, you can continue working in Managed Reporting while WebFOCUS processes the report. You then use the Deferred Report Status Interface to view the report output and save the report as private content.

OLAP Selections Panel and OLAP Control Panel. The Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) Selections Panel and OLAP Control Panel enable you to view and manipulate data in your report. With these tools you can make changes on demand and immediately see the output that results from your selections. OLAP offers you many analytical features to help you interpret the data in your report.

WebFOCUS Viewer. The WebFOCUS Viewer displays report output one page at a time. This tool is useful for reports that contain a large number of pages. Only the first page is sent from the web server to your browser. The WebFOCUS Viewer enables you to page through the output, as well as search for a specific string of text.

Alert Reports. You are able to create an Alert report that will first apply test conditions (rules or events to be checked against a data source) that specify when to create a report. ReportCaster can then be used to specify how often you would like the conditions to be checked and distribute the report to users whenever the conditions are met (true).

For more information about Alert reports and scheduling Alert reports with ReportCaster, see the ReportCaster manual.

For more information about the Alert Assistant tool, see the Business Intelligence Portal manual.

Mobile Favorites. WebFOCUS Mobile Favorites presents a robust platform for information and application delivery to mobile devices, including:

For more information about Mobile Favorites, see the Active Technologies User's Guide and the Mobile Faves User's Manual.

ReportCaster. Is an optional product that provides a single point of management for report scheduling and distribution. ReportCaster enables you to provide essential, updated information directly to the people who need it, on time, automatically.

With ReportCaster, you can:

For more information about ReportCaster, see the ReportCaster manual.


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