Introduction to the new approach in ActiveReports Server for creating a business view of the underlying data to allow business users to avoid the complexity involved in self-service reporting while jump-starting productivity.

1. New approach to generating
business-friendly data for
self-service reporting
In the previous article, we concluded that the end-user reporting
capabilities of most data-reporting tools today have their origins in
solving the needs of software developers and IT teams. As a result,
we set out to design reporting tools from the ground up with a focus
on the business user rather than re-packaging existing solutions
designed for technical users.
How do we get our data today?
When we set out to design ActiveReports Server, the next-generation
business reporting solution, our first task was to take a look at the
competition - there are a number of self-service reporting solutions on
the market today. We began to see a pattern in how these programs
handle design of reports and how data is selected. It turns out that
most of them employ one of two approaches to report design -
wizards or diagrams - and neither is ideal.
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