Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Power View - Self-service
Reporting
Self-service reporting is when business users have the ability to create personalized
reports and analytical queries without requiring the IT department to get involved.
There will be some basic work that the IT department must do, namely creating
the various data marts that the reporting tools will use as well as deploying those
reporting tools. However, once that is done, IT will be freed of creating reports so
that they can work on other tasks. Instead, the people who know the data best—the
business users—will be able to build the reports.
Here is a typical scenario that occurs when a self-service reporting solution is not
in place: a business user wants a report created, so they fill out a report request that
gets routed to IT. The IT department is backlogged with report requests, so it takes
them weeks to get back to the user. When they do, they interview the user to get
more details about exactly what data the user wants on the report and the look of the
report (the business requirements). The IT person may not know the data that well,
so they will have to get educated by the user on what the data means. This leads to
mistakes in understanding what the user is requesting. The IT person may take away
an incorrect assumption of what data the report should contain or how it should
look. Then, the IT person goes back and creates the report. A week or so goes by and
he shows the user the report. Then, they hear things from the user such as "that is not
correct" or "that is not what I meant". The IT person fixes the report and presents it
to the user once again. More problems are noticed, fixes are made, and this cycle is
repeated four to five times before the report is finally up to the user's satisfaction. In
the end, a lot of time has been wasted by the business user and the IT person, and the
finished version of the report took way longer that it should have.
