If end-user reporting is a burden on your IT department, you’re certainly not alone. The question is…how can you reduce the amount of time your IT department spends creating end-user reports?
One way to fix the problem: Create canned reports with run-time options for end users. This lets your users quickly access the data they need, while reducing the time your IT department spends creating reports.
Here’s how it works: Your IT department creates the initial reports with run-time filters for the users. The users can select which data to display, or filter their data however they wish when they run the report. With the right run-time filters, users can use a single report in many different ways.
The best part: If you give end users a good variety of canned reports, it will significantly reduce the reporting burden on your IT department. So, what types of canned reports should you build? Here’s a list of 6 reports that will let your end users access and analyze data in a number of different ways:
Prompted report
This is a pretty straightforward report with a ton of options. It lets users select from a number of different criteria at run-time, and even lets them export or email the reports straight from the browser.
Drill Down Report
This is a business analytics tool that gives users a summary of their data (complete with graphs) and lets them drill down into more information. The great thing about the graphs: They are interactive. Users can also drill down to more information when they click on graph values.
Ranking Report
This lets users create top/bottom rankings over any aspect of your data. They choose from a number of different criteria at run-time, and the report delivers top/bottom rankings complete with a graph. It’s a great way to see the best or worst of any aspect of your business.
Interactive Report
Interactive reports are great for data analysis. It starts out with a high level view of business data and lets users filter/sort/drill down to the most minute details within the same report. Interactive reports let end users analyze any aspect of your data within the same report.
Web-based Pivot Table
This gives your users a great alternative to the ever popular spreadsheet-based pivot table. The best part: Web-based pivot tables are more accessible, more secure, and provide more options than the spreadsheet version.
Cross-Tab Reports
Cross-tab reports are great for summarizing and comparing data. They cross reference row data with user-selected column data in a simple matrix format. Once users select the column data, the cross-tab report summarizes the data, displaying each unique value across the page in separate columns.
Joe Stangarone is a 30+ year veteran of the IT industry and president of mrc—the software company behind the award winning development platform, 
