Modern Business Intelligence (BI) platforms like SAP BusinessObjects, SQL Server Reporting Services and Yellowfin BI give organizations a wealth of reporting tools. Tools like Web Intelligence, Crystal Reports and SSRS make it easy to create attractive and valuable BI reports. Getting those reports into the hands of consumers and decision makers is not so easy.
These BI platforms offer basic report delivery tools. A user can schedule a report to be published in a particular format and delivered to a particular destination. Such tools, while functional, can be difficult to use. Organizations I work with have hundreds and sometimes thousands of BI reports. Creating and maintaining publications and schedules for so many reports can be extremely time and resource intensive.
InfoBurst has long been a viable alternative for organizations that have more demanding report scheduling and delivery requirements. Users take advantage of features like Content Grouping to deliver highly customized BI report content. They use features like Document Source and Parallel Processing to control and burst tens of thousands of BI reports daily. However, such features do not address the basic challenge of building and maintaining report publications and schedules.
Enter the ‘Quick Burst’. With InfoBurst, you can quickly and easily build ‘Bursts’ using the drag-and-drop method. Drag and drop BI reports, data sources and delivery templates to build bursts. The Data Source allows you to dynamically control report bursting inputs (i.e., prompts and filters). The Delivery Template allows you to pre-define a myriad of publication formats and delivery destinations. Then drag and drop bursts to build schedules. Use the Quick Burst to build an entire report delivery package in under a minute.
See more about building a Quick Burst and my 47-second Quick Burst in action.
Stopwatch image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons