Ad Hoc Reporting: Key Factors to Consider

Remaining competitive and efficient across various business functions requires each department to be able to identify areas of improvement on an ongoing basis. It requires access to real-time data and the ability to generate specific reports “on-demand”. 

Ad hoc reporting, as this is called, is a break away from the traditional approach to business analytics where business users depended on IT-generated managed reports for their analytics needs. Today, tools such as Orbit Reporting and Analytics empower business users with self-service capabilities and the ability to generate customized reports based on specific requirements. It allows them unify data from multiple sources and leverage multidimensional data to create reports on the fly. 

Advantages of Ad Hoc Reporting

Flexibility: Since users have access to real-time data, they can respond to the changing trends in real-time. The interactive reporting capabilities of ad hoc reporting also allow users to ask relevant questions to get actionable insights. Ad hoc reports are different from canned reports that are generated on a periodic basis for authorized users. 

Frees Up IT: With a solution like Orbit, ad hoc reports can be generated without the need for help from the IT team. 

Data From Multiple Sources enables Holistic Data Analysis: Next-gen tools such as Orbit enable users to get a unified view of data from different sources, thereby basing their decisions that are more holistic and therefore effective.

Interactive Dashboards: A good ad hoc reporting tool provides an interactive dashboard that enables instant decision-making.

Collaboration Made Easy: Different teams can collaborate in real-time to make decisions that impact the various operations by sharing reports. 

A Few Factors to Consider

There are many tools available for ad hoc reporting. But before investing in one, the factors to be considered include: 

• Easy and Intuitive: The tool must empower users to create ad hoc reports from scratch using well-groomed data.
• Granular Data: Users need granular control over data and so need access to tabular details.
• Leverage regular reports when needed: The ad hoc reports should be able to clone regular reports without modifying the original report
• Business user friendly: It should be user friendly and easy to use, with mobile friendly  features. Additionally, it should make it easy for the user to customize data visualization as per one’s unique preferences. 
• Analysis in Excel: Once a particular ad hoc report has been generated, it should be easy to pull it up in Excel for further drill-down and analysis. 

Orbit Reporting and Analytics for Ad Hoc Reporting

An ad hoc reporting tool that meets all the above criteria and offers more is Orbit’s Reporting and Analytics Solution. Some of its key features that make this an ideal ad hoc reporting solution include:

• Self-service Feature: One of the key requirements of ad hoc reporting is empowering users to generate their own reports. Orbit enables this and also allows users to schedule the report generation based on their needs. This way, they are responsive and can make informed decisions to improve their operations.

1. Easy Access to Multiple Sources of Data: The Orbit solution can work with data sources located on the cloud as well as on the premises. This provides a unified view of enterprise data for improved decision-making.
2. Data Grid: Orbit Data Reports are specifically designed for users to search, organize, and interpret data efficiently. 
3. Mobile-Ready: Being a cloud-based solution, the tool can be accessed from anywhere, any time. This also enables collaboration between remote teams for greater efficiency.
4. Customer Visualization: Users can customize their outputs using the available visualization options to be able to gather insights best suited to their needs.
5. Excel Integration: This is a key differentiator as Excel is a popular tool. Orbit allows data refresh within Excel that lets users pull in data into Excel and still have access to real-time data.
6. Direct Query: With Orbit SQL DirectQuery, users don’t have to save scripts on desktop but instead centrally maintain, share and reuse scripts as SQL Models. These can be used to create reports that cannot be produced by semantic data models and create data extracts, and much more.
7. Data Security: Orbit enforces row-level security and executes native database drivers by fetching data that users are authorized to see.
8. Reports in Word and Excel: Data can be output into documents that are ready for printing and sharing using design templates such as invoices or purchase orders in Word or Excel. 
9. Integration with ERP and Other Applications: Orbit integrates with multiple leading business applications including Oracle EBS, Oracle Cloud ERP (Fusion) Applications, NetSuite, PeopleSoft, Taleo, Salesforce, and many more allowing Orbit to extend your operational reporting and become the first choice for consolidated reporting.

To know how Orbit can help your employees with ad hoc reporting, Request a Demo.