BI Publisher Reports and Analyses are backbone pieces to help meet a business’s BI needs. They are both very flexible for their respective purposes. Being able to combine these pieces on a dashboard in a clear concise manner will give the end users an effective report.
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- Requires no previous knowledge of the table structure because of predefined subject areas.
- Gives end users the ability to write ad-hoc reports
- Can create an analysis from scratch or modify an existing one on a dashboard.
- Users can save or share their customizations and export to various formats
- Can be changed dynamically
- Highly customizable but requires knowledge of table structure to create a data model
- Allows for precise formatting to create documents, checks, etc.
- Can create highly interactive reports
- Wide Range of formats such as PDF, Microsoft Office, XML, etc.
By using the intuitive dashboard editor, the users have the ability to combine the objects as they see fit by simply dragging and dropping they various parts together. Deciding whether to use an analysis or a BI Publisher Report depends on what the purpose of the data you are trying to deliver. Analyses will mainly be used to use the organization’s data to provide answers to business questions and can be used by anyone. It will let you explore and interact with the data. Whereas, a BI Publisher can create “pixel perfect” printer ready reports for the user but that is what it is a reporting tool. The data model for BI Publisher can consist of data sets from a wide range of sources; these sources include different subject areas from a BI Server or Analysis, SQL queries off of a relational database, HTTP feeds, XML files, and many more; meaning that development of these reports should be left to more technical users. They both tools are great for their intended purposes and can help a business with their reporting needs.