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Excel-based Reporting
by LogiXML BIz Comm Editorial Staff
October 26, 2006
Many business users do not really think about the best way to present or build a report. They just know they want to view certain information and are comfortable using tools that they know. Based on unique spreadsheet features, Microsoft Excel is perfect fit for many reports particularly for budgeting and finance.
With LogiXML’s Excel-based reporting, you can generate spreadsheet reports based on real-time data that include charts, formulas, merged cells, and all the rich features a spreadsheet user expects.
What Is Excel-based Reporting?
At LogiXML, users can create reports in many different formats according to what tools they are comfortable with or what is the correct format for the information. We give users the freedom to choose.
We recognize that business users work with spreadsheets everyday to build complex reports. So, we give users the ability to use Microsoft Excel as the report designer for report development. With LogiXML’s Excel-based reporting, you can generate spreadsheet reports based on real-time data that include charts, formulas, merged cells, and all the rich formatting features a spreadsheet user expects.
How Excel-based Reporting Works
With this feature, those who know Excel can take control of the report layout. They design the report template in Excel, and a developer simply uses the LogiXML report development environment to connect to the data source(s). When the report is opened, LogiXML’s Reporting Server connects to the proper data source and fills the empty report template with the data in seconds.
In addition to using a standard tabular layout, users can also create charts, formulas and pivot tables, which are dynamically updated.
Templates can also contain multiple worksheets within a workbook. For example you could create 25 invoices for 25 of your customers automatically in seconds. Using Excel templates and reporting is also helpful if users already have a number of Excel files and they want to centralize/distribute reports to other users or populate data into them from a central database.
Benefits of Excel-Based Reporting
- Ease of use. You can offer end-user report template creation within a familiar Excel interface.
- Transformation of Excel into a real-time reporting tool. Users can continue to take advantage of Excel for what it does best: specialized features like formulas and advanced calculations, macros, spreadsheet formats, magazine quality layouts, ability to link spreadsheets together, and so on.
- Centralized data access. Populates data from your central corporate databases to ensure accurate information. If you have many existing spreadsheets from which you want to build reports, you don't have to retype the data you want to analyze in Excel. Users have access to report layout, but IT maintains control over the access to data.
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