Reporting tools – a comparison – part 2

Nowadays, there are many reporting tools available for free or in the form of an open source document. Companies have a wide array of business intelligence tools to choose from. However, most of these applications do not provide hard core corporate features such as multiple user support, integration with existing security mechanisms, ad hoc visual reporting tools or scheduling facilities.  The Part 2 of our comparison will examine some of the most popular contenders for enterprise deployment.

The criteria will include:

• Ease of use:  the need for training should be minimal and the interface should be pleasurable to use
• Ease of deployment:  business users should need only a standard web browser to access the tool
• Security:  the application should work with established security mechanisms (e.g., LDAP)
• Distribution:  it should be easy for users to have reports emailed to themselves and to others
• Scheduling:  end users should be able to schedule future report runs (e.g., first Monday of each month)
• Multiple formats:  users like to have options when exporting report data (e.g., XLS, PDF, CSV)
• Availability:  users want the reporting system available 24x7 (i.e., clusterability, scalability)
• Ease of administration:  it should be straightforward to set up and maintain the solution
• Viability:  the tool should have a well-structured and thriving community with a reasonable license.

In the Part 1 of our comparison we have talked about another 2 promising candidates: OpenReports and Next Reports. Make sure to check out our previous article.

But now let’s get down to business with our other two candidates:

1.  Pentaho
2. JasperReports

Pentaho

One of the two primary enterprise-ready open source reporting tools with significant commercial backing, Pentaho focuses on data integration and workflow automation.

The Pentaho Business Intelligence suite includes reporting (a report designer and viewer), analysis (OLAP), dashboards (portal, metrics, alerts) and data mining (relationship and trend discovery)

In terms of features, Pentaho offers what seems to be the "standard" set of open source reporting features, such as a visual report designer and editor, a web-based interface for business users to see, run, and export reports with and several reporting formats, including HTML, PDF, XLS, and CSV. The administrative functions include scheduling reports to run at certain times and the ability to email reports to a number of users.

Pentaho also offers a web-based ad hoc reporting wizard that lets technically-inclined business users point, click, drag, and drop their way to nice looking on-the-fly reports. The conditional report distribution allows users to email reports when certain conditions are met (E.g. sales are 25% below the set limit). There is also a task bar notification that notifies Windows users when a new report is ready to view.

The commercial version of the package, called Pentaho Professional, includes these additional features:

Single Sign-On (SSO) support;

LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory (MSAD) integration;

Clustering support;

Report versioning;

Audit trail collection.

However, in terms of usability, the web interface is the area in which Pentaho has the most room for improvement.  It is certainly powerful with report retrieval, parameter passing, drill-through charts, text linking, and administrative capabilities.  Unfortunately, it's not always intuitive.  Due to the partial integration of JBoss Portal, it often feels like the user has to jump between two entirely different user interfaces.  That makes it difficult for first-time users to understand where to look for certain features, how to navigate through common screens, and how to get back to places they have already been.

The visual report designer and editor is good, but a little bit quirky.  As with its competition, it will take some time to get used to the occasional strange behavior and bake the workarounds into the standard workflow.

In general, Pentaho's web interface is usable with some training and familiarization, but it leaves a lot to be desired.

Jasper Reports

Jasper Reports was created as an open source project by Teodor Danciu in 2001.  Its feature set revolves around reporting and analysis with an overall emphasis on ease of use.

The Jasper Business Intelligence suite includes: JasperReports (a report designer and viewer), JasperServer (it includes a scheduler, as well as ad hoc queries), JasperAnalysis (OLAP) and JasperETL (data integration).

In terms of technology, Jasper has a Java foundation that is based on Tomcat, Spring, and Hibernate.  It supports the standard Acegi open source package to facilitate integration with existing authentication and authorization mechanisms.  As such, it can work in a single sign-on environment with other enterprise systems.

Jasper has the "standard" set of open source reporting features, such as a visual report designer and editor, a web-based interface for business users to see, run, and export reports. You can also chose from several reporting formats, including HTML, PDF, XLS, and CSV and there are a number of administrative functions available, such as scheduling reports to run at certain times and the ability to email reports to a number of users.

Jasper's web interface is not perfect, but it's very good relative to its competition.  Most of it is a modern web 2.0 application with a clean and appealing look and feel.  It provides easy report retrieval, parameter passing, drill-through charts, text linking, and administrative capabilities.  It also allows users to export their reports in a multitude of formats, including XML and Flash in addition to the standard set (HTML, PDF, XLS, and CSV).  Jasper makes it easy for business users to schedule their own reports to run at certain times, such as the first Monday of each month.

The commercial version of the package, called JasperReport Professional, includes these additional features: end-user ad hoc querying and reporting and easy end-user created dashboards and mashups.

For developers creating reports, the Jasper report designer can be used in either stand-alone mode or as a NetBeans plug-in.  As with other open source report designers, there are quirks that need to be worked around until they become habit. For example, the hibernate queries are powerful, but they can lead to performance issues unless special care is paid to optimization.

Final thoughts:

Open source reporting tools have made great strides in the last two years and they will no doubt continue to get stronger every day.  Competition continues to drive the business intelligence developers very hard.  Our competitor’s capabilities have evolved over the years and they will continue to do so. And when it comes to the business intelligence client, whether it’s about greater data integration abilities or a better user interface, be sure to pick the reporting tool according to your business’s needs.