SQL Server Ad hoc reporting and self-service BI tools are usually underrated as report authoring and business intelligence platforms. Their simplicity and ease of use make them beneficial to businesses in terms of generating reports from various data sources and presenting the aggregated data in visually enticing and highly effective forms. Ad hoc reporting gives way to dynamic report generation and development, helping and enabling business decision makers, who are likely non-technical end users to create and run data-rich reports with accuracy and with a good degree of creative freedom.
Ad hoc reporting platforms are powerful BI tools offering a wide range of benefits to business users, including in-depth and comprehensive datasets, support for rich formatting of tables, charts, graphs, maps, etc., and report generation and data digging from and through common data sources. You can also expect:
- The availability of robust report building tools –
This not only allows for comprehensive and precise report generation from multiple, client-specified locations but also offers a highly visual and intuitive authoring environment where users can intuitively and dynamically create and modify reports simply by dragging and dropping database tables, fields, and report elements or items onto a customizable report template.
- Contextual viewing of report data in relation to database tables and fields –
For instance, users can create reports that use data from a variety of customer tables in the context of an Accounts Receivable module, among other report modules.
- Data security according to pre-configured user group permissions and restrictions –
If a particular end user doesn’t have the authorization to view a particular data set, the report will return null or zero values.
What’s more, users get access to robust SQL server ad hoc reporting tools and serve service BI platforms also offer support for multiple-currency reporting. Reports and report assets can be stored in the cloud for easy viewing, access, and reusing by authorized users.
