I've been searching around for a few weeks now for a tool that either is fully built or a direction of something I could build for dynamically extracting data via a web interface. Basically, what I'm looking for is a way to give users a list of all available data objects from our database and then let them pick ones from the list they'd like to view and set parameters then export the results to an excel file.
Right now we're doing it purely with SQL statements but we have hundreds of objects so as you might imagine, those statements are really complex and prone to errors. It would be great if there was a tool available to do this or if someone had an idea of an easy way to organize this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
We've looked at BI tools like QlikView and Tableau but that is probably overkill for what we're trying to do. The open-source BI tools we've looked at seemed really primitive in their functionality. The other thing we looked at was MSAS (our DB is SQL Server) but I'd prefer something that was more database-agnostic and lived on a web server instead of on the database.
I think what you are describing is a typical BI reporting tool. I don't know what open-source BI tools you have been looking at but there are open source solutions which aren't "primitive" at all. The two main open-source reporting libraries are JasperReports and BIRT. You can design report templates within a graphical interface (NetBeans plugin called iReport for Jasper, Eclipse plugin for BIRT). A simple report template is basically an xml file which contains a parameterized SQL query and describes how to display the query results.
End-user typically connect to a web application (Java EE app which uses the reporting library) which executes the report templates : it asks the user to input parameters in a graphical way such as drop-down lists and checkboxes, and then retrieves the SQL query results from the database, and displays them according to the template (tables, charts, etc.). These results can then be exported in many formats including xls.
JasperReports developers provide a free open-source webapp designed to run Jasper reports, called JasperReports Server. Other open-source projects let you execute reports designed either with BIRT or Jasper, for instance ReportsServer which I haven't tested.
At my company we use SpagoBI, which is a fully-fledged free and open source Business Intelligence suite. This means that it has all the features of a commercial BI suite. The most useful is probably the ad-hoc query editor, which lets users with little technical knowledge design simple queries by dragging and dropping fields, and it performs the underlying table joins for them. It then lets users design simple reports such as pie charts or line charts from the data they just extracted. This sort of feature is part of the commercial editions of JasperReports Server and Actuate One (the BIRT equivalent of JasperReports Server which doesn't have a free version).
SpagoBI is a great, powerful tool and I recommend it, but it is also quite difficult to configure and to master. Maybe if your needs are only to execute pre-defined reports you had better go with one of the other solutions.
PowerPivot, Data Explorer, or Microsoft Query?
Sorry, didnt see that you wanted a web interface...
You can try get some export data functions from SQL Web Data Administrator - http://sqlwebadmin.codeplex.com/
Or you can install the web tool but restrict access for its web-page other then export data pages.
Cognos BI (specifically, the web-based Query Studio) fits this tab perfectly and is a great tool to deploy to non-technical web users.
It does require a pretty robust setup and is not cheap but it is an enterprise-class product. I've only worked with the full-scale deployment but they also have an Express product for small/midsize companies.
If you could clarify number of users, database size, expected query volume, and budget, we could refine the toolset further...
Related
Hey there fellow Stackoverflowers,
In our company we have several application stacks running on different types of databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, Azure SQL,..). For monitoring purposes we use some scripted queries on the databases of all these application stacks, with Nagios reporting back the results in an email.
Now, since our support team would also like easy access to these queries in order to manually run them or modify them, we were considering building an application specifically designed to be able to store, run and modify queries that can be executed on any of the above listed database types and offering both a user-friendly webinterface and a REST API with JSON output for our new reporting stack based on SENSU, to be deployed in a few months.
My personal belief is that a tool like this must already be out there, since the use case for it is so generic. However, googling did not yield any results even closely resembling what I am looking for.
So my question to you is: Do you know of such a tool? If you had to build it yourself: what would your approach be? We're mostly a Java/C++ team, but are open to all options.
Some or may be all of this stuff can be done by an existing API called NAGIRA. Look it up on Google. This will definitely give you all the results in JSON format. Also i think it would allow you to run checks manually. So you can may be build a little front end and call this API to achieve what you want.
A little late of a reply, but check out http://cloudmonix.com -- it offers ability to create metrics based on custom SQL queries, supports SQL Azure, SQL Server, MySQL, and Oracle. Also integrates with Nagios (and Zabbix)
Need a easy to set-up and flexible web front-end for a data warehouse built in SQL Server 2008. I'd like to be able to expose both SSRS reports and SSAS cubes for browsing.
Seems like Microsoft wants us all to use Sharepoint for this, but I want something I can expose to internal users as well as customers, so I don't think Sharepoint will work (right?).
The other big approach people take seems to be coding up a custom ASP.NET app, which I have no desire to do.
Basically just want something like Cognos or Business Objects, but as a front end to SSRS and SSAS, not some proprietary data structure.
Why is this so hard to find - seems like it would be a common need. Why doesn't Microsoft make this?
Only one I've found so far is Report Portal (www.reportportal.com), which seems pretty good, but not stellar. As far as the big guys go, it looks like MicroStrategy (microstrategy.com) can work with native SSAS cubes, but for general reporting has it's own structures. Graphs and interface look good though, so would appreciate hearing from anyone with experience integrating Microstrategy and SQL Server as well.
Thanks!
The Enterprise version of SharePoint does what you want and more. It is also able to handle external users, but that requires some serious thought to architecture etc. However Enterprise SharePoint is not cheap, nor is a SharePoint farm installation a minor exercise.
Having used SharePoint to do this, it is very powerful, but does not work well over SSL, so terminate your SSL at the F5 or other hardware.
For information on planning a SharePoint implementation, have a look at
Planning an architecture for SharePoint server 2010
also Extranet topologies for SharePoint 2010 Products
Running through the rather large amount of documentation here should give you a glimpse of what is involved in getting a SharePoint extranet working.
Would be really interested in a good "non-sharepoint, non-BI" answer. I see this question asked all over the place with people specifically saying "I don't want to use sharepoint, what are the alternatives." and invariably the next 200 answers are "Use sharepoint"
If you're a SQL/Asp shop that just does standard web, sharepoint and BI are both megatons of bloat just to get internet/intranet report delivery.
So the answer is "No there's not a "Front end in a box" other than the ones you've mentioned. Go kickstarter one as this is one of the most frequent searched on pain-points I've ever seen with the least amount of viable answers/solutions.
It's a pretty classic problem. The company I work for has numerous business reports that are used to track sales, data feeds, and various other metrics. Of course this also means that there is a conglomerate of disparate frameworks, ASP.net pages, and areas where these reports can be found. There have been some attempts at consolidating these into a single entity, but nothing has stuck yet.
Since this is a common problem, and I am sure solved innumerable times, I wanted to see what others have done. For the most part these can be boiled down to the following pieces:
A SQL query against our database to gather data
A presentation of data, generally in a data grid
Filtering that can vary based on data types and the business needs
Some way to organize the reports, a single drop down gets long and unmanageable quickly
A method to download data to alter further, perhaps a csv file
My first thought was to create a framework in Silverlight with Linq to Sql. Mainly just because I like it and want to play with it which probably is not the best reason. I also thought the controls grant a lot of functionality like sorting, dragging columns, etc. I was also curious about the printing in Silverlight 4.
Which brings me around to my original question, what is the best way to do this? Is there a package out there I can just buy that will do it for me? The Silverlight approach seems pretty easy, after it's setup and templated, but maybe it's a bad idea and I can learn from someone else?
It may sound contrived, but we just used SSRS. Once it is installed, the /ReportServer web site does a decent job of managing and organizing reports, permissions, etc. You can also make wrappers in front of SSRS via ASP.Net controls or via SharePoint, etc. Cost = free. It works nicely via SQL Developer edition too.
If your SQL service is MS SQL Server 2005+ then I would definitely recommend SQL Service Reporting Services. It covers all the cases you outlined very well and is very easy to get into for someone already familiar with SQL.
myDBR reporting tool might be suitable for you. With myDBR you can create reports quite easily using the built in Query Builder. Once your reports are done you can organize them in categories and also specify access rights for users and user groups.
You can fully concentrate on creating your report content (using SQL) and myDBR will take care of the data presentation. For example creating charts from data is just a matter of adding one extra line to your stored procedure.
myDBR also provides Single-Sign-On Integration so that your users can continue to log in with their already existing username/password.
The tool is also very affordable, community version is free of charge and premium version is only 129 EUR / year.
We use FastReport .NET. It supports SQL Query, presentation of data in datagrid, filtering, export in many popular formats (PDF, DOC, XLS, CSV, DBF, etc.).
I'm managing a very large data warehouse (>1 TB) based on MS SQL 2005. I would like to create a solution for the users to present data from the cubes on-line (web interface). Right now they are using Office Web Components, but it's not so good. I don't have any controls over the reports that they create. I googled, and there are some solution like Dundas or Analyzer.
Maybe someone has some experience with this (or other) packs and can share opinions? I have some basic requirements:
high performance and no unnecessary queries to the OLAP server
being able to store reports (for example: users creates filters, selects dates ranges and he must be able to store it)
ability to export to Excel
some charting engine built in would be nice.
Some ideas?
Devexpress has a really nice "PivotGrid" - a OLAP data mining component that can be used in ASP.NET apps:
http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/Controls/ASP/Pivot_Grid/
and its counterpart for Winforms applications:
http://www.devexpress.com/Products/NET/Controls/WinForms/Pivot_Grid/
RadarCube also is an ASP.NET component to present OLAP data:
http://www.radar-soft.com/products/aspnet.aspx
And here's a complete list of potential OLAP presentation tools - not that I really know any of them - but you can have a look!
http://www.download32.com/net-olap-software.html
Marc
Take a look at JPivot that is used by Pentaho Mondrian.
JPivot is an open source Java tag library for connecting to cubes exposed through Mondrian (Java OLAP server) or through XML/A (which I believe is used by Microsoft Analysis Services).
The JPivot control is pretty comprehensive although it could do with a little bit of a facelift. I believe that a new project Pentaho Analysis Tool (PAT) is in development as a replacement for JPivot this uses GWT to render a nicer looking UI (http://wiki.pentaho.com/display/COM/Pentaho+Analysis+Tool).
I use Pentaho Mondrian along with JPivot to present my multidimensional data on my intranet. I am using a ROLAP schema running on SQL Server 2000. It works ok and also supports generating charts with JFreechart.
Mondrian Java OLAP Server - http://mondrian.pentaho.org/
JPivot http://jpivot.sourceforge.net/ - Screenshots http://jpivot.sourceforge.net/temp-N101F1.html
It may also be worth looking at Eclipse BIRT I beleive that this possibly supports a sort of crosstab control but i've never tried it.
Do you use Sharepoint? You might find that you're already covered for a PerformancePoint/ProClarity server/components, due to recent licensing restructuring announced by Microsoft.
We'd like to see if we can get some improved performance for analysis and reporting by moving some of our key data into Analysis Services cubes. However, I haven't been able to find much in the way of good client front ends.
Our users have Office 2003. The move to 2007 is probably at least a year out and the Analysis Services add-in for Excel 2003 isn't great. I also considered just creating a winforms app, but I haven't had much luck finding robust controls for SSAS data. Meanwhile, Reporting Services seems to make you force your multi-dimensional data into a two dimensional dataset before it can be used in a report.
I hope that I'm missing something obvious and that there are some great client tools somewhere that will allow us to bring the multi-dimensional data from SSAS to a client application in a meaningful way. Performance Point seems like overkill, but maybe it's the best option.
Does anyone use SSAS data in line of business apps or is it primarily used for adhoc analysis? If you are using SSAS data for line of business apps, what technology(ies) are you using for the client front end?
I am on a project now that is using SSAS 2008. We were able to get all of our pilot users upgraded to Office 2007 and during the pilot of this project we used Excel 2007 as the front end tool. It turned out to be a great move (for us..YMMV) and I have been very impressed with how well the data features of Excel 2007 work. That being said it doesn't serve all our business needs and we're still going to use a reporting tool (MicroStrategy) as part of the client tool offerings to this project. This article (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2D779CD5-EEB2-43E9-BDFA-641ED89EDB6C&displaylang=en) was very helpful too.
Though you didn't ask directly I'll still say that the FE tools won't do much if the back-end design isn't right. I recommend googling Ralph Kimball and buying The Data Warehouse Toolkit book. There is even one tailored to SSAS 2005. Also search for the Microsoft Project Real whitepaper.
I've heard good things about this control.
http://www.datadynamics.com/Products/DDA/Default.aspx
I've used Dundas' control for OLAP. Very good and easy to use.
Also recommended is the DevExpress kit, the ASPxPivotGrid works directly against cubes, with some flexibility over what & how groups/dimensions/etc get shown via properties. Good prices and products. I don't work there :)
Take a look at some of the Demos:
http://demos.devexpress.com/ASPXPIVOTGRIDDEMOS/OLAP/Browser.aspx
Also nice integration with their charting stuff.