Recovery: A good time to read, Pentaho Reporting (not just) for Java Developers

Well guys I just had some minor surgery. As I am relaxing in bed, I figured this would be a good time to catch up on some reading. No, I did not grab a Tom Clancy espionage thriller, but in fact a Will Gorman original. Will Gorman is an Engineering Team Lead at Pentaho, a fantastic talent, a friend and colleague as well as the author of Pentaho Reporting 3.5 for Java Developers. I received a complimentary copy of the book from PACKT Publishing and have been meaning to write some brief reviews. I will be expanding in more detail in future blog entries. (This is just a quick reminder for all those following me on Twitter and my blog. If you are evaluating or using Pentaho, you "need" to pick up this book, it covers almost anything and everything you wanted to know about Pentaho in the most desirable way possible.) It can be found here.

Now, keep in mind that this book is not only for Java Developers, but for information technologists and anyone who is interested in Business Intelligence and building reporting applications. The book is clearly written and steps you through setting up your examples, both from the Report Designer perspective (GUI) and from the Java Developer perspective (code).
Within a matter of minutes I was able to have my first Pentaho Reporting Java Swing Application running and then follow that up with a deployment to an enterprise web application. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment because it was so easy "even the technical sales guy could do it"! This only empowers me to speak and demonstrate with even more conviction on my sales calls in regards to the embedded capabilities of Pentaho.



To give you a bit more depth and breadth into the Pentaho Reporting Capabilities which can be called via the methods mentioned in this book, there is a Pentaho Reporting 3.5 Tutorial I created located on our Pre-Sales Tools page. This tutorial covers some of the fundamentals used when creating reports with the Pentaho 3.5 Report Designer. Give it a look in your spare time and I am sure you will be excited to engage with us and want to know more.

http://www.pentaho.com/products/demos/presales_tools.php

Great job Will and team..as I continue to read I will post additional comments. Thanks for creating such a valuable addition to the Pentaho documentation stack.

Now, off to sleep.

Pentaho: "Guided Ad hoc" , "Structured Ad hoc" , Parameterized Reporting...which one already!

(This is how it would be done in Pentaho 3.0. With the introduction of 3.5 and the new Pentaho Report Designer, there are even easier ways to achieve this. )

This blog entry is an introduction to a video which highlights the fundamentals of creating a Pentaho "Guided Ad hoc", "Structured Ad hoc" or parameterized report using the Pentaho Report Designer and Pentaho Design Studio. Here you will find a Pentaho Wiki entry which has a bit more detail and also demonstrates a slightly older example.



One of the biggest barriers in adopting a Business Intelligence tool is ease of use. It is possible that if the BI tools are too difficult to use, then most business users will not use them and may resort back to the way they used to do things, MS Access and Excel. ;-) No really...if the tools are not being used to the best of their abilities, then the organization is not leveraging their investment in BI. Therefore they are not going to realize a return on investment for that solution.

So...enters:

"Guided Ad hoc", "Structured Ad hoc", advanced parameterized reporting...whatever you want to name it, it is a simple way for non-technical business users to create numerous combinations of reports, without the need to involve the IT department. It not only provides the ability to limit the desired result set, but can have added functionality to re-structure sort groups, change measures and even add user defined drill down paths. Oh, and if you are using the Pentaho BI Suite, then you even have the ability to add components for on demand distribution, alerting, collaboration, scheduling and more. All this integrated under one platform, designed on open standards, reducing IT dependency and providing complete flexibility and end user empowerment.




I like the term "Guided Ad hoc". I used the term when demonstrating similar functionality with my old company's software. I believe the terminology accurately describes the meaning of the tool quite well. "Guided", because it "guides" the business user to the answer they are looking for. "Ad hoc", because the tool is usually used "for a purpose". It makes report generation easy without sacrificing functionality and again, without IT involvement.

"Guided Ad hoc" is really nothing more than a fancy term for parameterized reporting. The concept is to provide an easy to use, familiar user interface for users to interact with. If the business users are familiar with the web and have used eBay or either a banking or social networking web site; or better yet have shopped on-line, then they are already familiar with the concept of "Guided Ad hoc". They have seen the common form controls like text boxes and radio buttons, drop down lists, sliders, folder trees and pick lists. Using a combination of these form controls while providing them a simple navigation interface, allows them to simply pick what they want and how they want it. Almost 80% of reporting needs can be satisfied in this manner while at the same time requiring little to no training to use and understand.

The below video briefly demonstrates some simple fundamentals when creating a "Guided Ad hoc" report with the Pentaho Report Designer and Pentaho Design Studio. It also quickly demonstrates a completed version that I have built using the new Community Dashboard Framework which is now integrated with Pentaho 3.0

Just remember this, whether you call it "Guided Ad hoc", "Structured Ad hoc" or parameterized reporting, the result is always the same; it is easy to use and can be delivered using the Pentaho BI Suite.

Pentaho Open BI Suite Recognized as the Best

The Pentaho Open Business Intelligence Suite received recognition from the InfoWorld BOSSIE awards for having the Best Open Source Business Intelligence Suite under the "Best of open source enterprise applications" category. InfoWorld's annual BOSSIES recognize the best free and open source software the world has to offer to businesses, IT professionals, and productive individuals who rely on computers to get work done. The 2008 BOSSIE winners include 60 products in eight categories covering business and productivity applications, development tools, middleware, networking, security, and storage.











You can read more about it here: http://www.infoworld.com/slideshow/2008/08/168-best_of_open_so-9.html

Business Intelligence, in the heads of people, not the software

Many times I've been asked, whether it be at an event or on a call, "What skill sets are needed to use your tool?". These questions usually come from the IT departments of businesses as well as prospective partners. All within their rights, its understandable that they want to have a general idea of what talent they may need to hire or have to learn in order to deliver a successful BI implementation. (The following information, in general, can be used for most BI related topics but it will be positioned from the Pentaho Open Source BI angle.) The information within really does relate to the fact that Business Intelligence is in the heads of people, not the software. The software itself is a commodity, a bunch of 1's and 0's. However, without the proper skills or expertise a BI implementation is bound to fail no matter what software you use.

Usually in response before answering the question directly, I would delve in deeper to understand who asked it and why it was asked. It's important to understand the roles of the individuals. One person/department might be responsible for creating a data warehouse or using data integration/ETL tools; another may be responsible for creating reports, templates and dashboards; and another might be a casual user or a business analyst who will be the consumer of what is developed and offered. These are all very important roles in a BI implementation. Depending on the role, my initial response would be to ask what skill sets are currently available as well as what technologies are already being used and are familiar to the business.

Based off that response I am better prepared to position the software and services accordingly. For both development types and user types, the Pentaho Open BI suite has flexible development and deployment options that offer simple tools and interfaces that can accommodate the novice to the most advanced skill sets. Of course, it would be assumed that a general BI skill set is available. One that understands the terminology of metrics, measures, dimensions, reporting, ETL, etc. One that understands the concepts of BI and why it is important for a business.

At a minimum, for all user types, I would recommend taking the appropriate Pentaho on-site or web-based training. It is a great way to get familiar with the technology and understand the tools.

What is very compelling about the Pentaho Open Source BI suite and its modern architecture is that it is built with open standards such as Java, XML, AJAX, SQL, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc . It incorporates all the data integration and content delivery elements that you would see in a proprietary BI tool, without the monolithic stack of mess acquired from BI vendor consolidation. This allows even those with little or no web authoring skills to create flexible and extensible types of BI applications quickly and easily without any migration issues, from one software stack.
For those with more advanced skill sets, all or just pieces of the software can be embedded into your own web, desktop and even mobile based applications. The application programming interfaces (APIs) available are those that are familiar to developers already. There isn't any proprietary no-standard 4GL to learn and struggle with. (I speak from experience) Depending on the business application need, no matter what software you use, one way or another you will hit a wall with the provided GUI and will have to drop into the code. Cognos scripting language or even the older Powerhouse (Quasar Corporation) Axiant 4GL (IDE that helps "minimize" 4GL coding)- , SAP's ABAP, Oracle and PL/SQL, IBM and the Informix 4GL, SAS and Base SAS, SQR, and Information Builders FOCUS, all are some sort of 4GL to perform tasks that a GUI/IDE cannot do alone. So depending on the need of the BI initiative, would you rather learn another language, in addition to what you already know? Why not use a skill set that is based on an open standard and is widely available in the job market as opposed to some that may have experts (that are few and far between) that are approaching retiring age?

I think the bigger question here is not "what skill set is needed" but rather "what skill sets are 'in demand' in today's market, as well as, which are the skills to have for tomorrow"?

Let's not forget to point out that being there isn't any proprietary BI vendor software license and rising maintenance fees with Open Source software, more of your dollars can go towards the expertise and proper skill sets in the form of services, to ensure the success of your BI implementation.

As you can see, Business Intelligence will always be in the heads of people, not the software.