While creating a report the most common drill directions (beyond new BI tools, are programmed which use e.g. associative logic; see more: associative logic). Report drilling is one of the ways of effective data binding in BI system (achieving detailed data – drill down, more general data – drill up or analyzed in different way).
It depends on data quantity. Report generation can last from fractions of a second to several minutes (when generating detailed report on a long period). BI tools are based on the fact that the source data, downloaded from the source system, are prepared especially for the reports. Therefore “best practices” minimize report generating time. On the other hand, if no of these practices can be used (what happen extremely rare), it is possible to generate report in advance using the tools for scheduling. The final user can receive the most recent report when needed.
Reports created through Business Intelligence systems create a possiblity to analyze trends. Advanced BI tools, apart from historical trends presentation, provide predictioning which is based on more or less complex mathematical models.
The majority of delivered solutions give opportunity of exporting reports to PDF.
Using Business Intelligence it is possible to analyze a lot of company areas, e.g.: