Report Output Formats

To meet user preferences and enable the best possible analysis, WebFOCUS delivers enterprise information in various formats such as HTML, Microsoft Excel^TM, Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)^TM, and Microsoft PowerPoint^TM. With all of its output options, WebFOCUS scales the most types of users in whichever format is best suited for the task at hand. Fully formatted WebFOCUS reports are displayed with all report elements – including field names, headers, subtotals, sort breaks, styling, conditional styling, drill-downs, and images – preserved within the report in the desired format. From HTML to PowerPoint, WebFOCUS now offers more output options than any other business intelligence solution in the market.

Examples of WebFOCUS Report Output

HTML		Microsoft Excel
Adobe PDF		Microsoft PowerPoint

HTML

WebFOCUS HTML reports offer:

• Multiple proactive report drill-down options – including automatic, conditional, or cross-contextual – to any other reports, program, or location, as well as multiple locations within enterprise reports
• On-demand paging that simplifies navigation through reports with a large number of pages by dividing them into multiple HTML pages, which can then be downloaded and/or printed individually
• Ad hoc report creation capabilities, including simple tabular reports or OLAP-enabled reports for advanced analytical functionality such as automatic drill-down, -up, -across, and -through and one-click resorting on measures; WebFOCUS enables filtering on all data categories
• Active Reports for analysis of data from any location, connected or disconnected from the enterprise

Excel

Many people spend hours each week re-keying data from paper documents or copying and pasting information into spreadsheets. This is problematic when one considers that recent audits of Excel spreadsheets found that 91 percent had errors.* WebFOCUS eliminates the need to re-key by providing seamless integration with Excel 2000 and XP that's unmatched by other leading business intelligence solutions.

Clicking on embedded hyperlinks in Excel produces the same drill-downs as those created in WebFOCUS HTML. Additionally, WebFOCUS automatically generates native Excel formulas and translates numeric values and dates into supported Excel formats. Once displayed, Excel reports can then be saved on local PCs, or e-mailed for further viewing and analysis.

These integration capabilities provide the following features and benefits:

• Ability to save a complex WebFOCUS report into Excel 2000 and XP while preserving report formatting and drill-downs to detail data via hyperlinks active in the spreadsheet
• Simple, automatic generation of Excel PivotTables from WebFOCUS reports – an easier way to create PivotTables than using the native Microsoft interface
• The creation of compound Excel reports that include data from varying sources as multiple, tabbed spreadsheets contained within one Microsoft Excel workbook
• The streaming of data to existing Excel templates
• Burst data to multiple Excel worksheets

PDF

WebFOCUS enables PDF output of WebFOCUS reports that include drill-downs for exploring summary and detail data. PDF is also the preferred format for printing and distributing outward-facing materials, such as annual reports, brochures, invoices, and billing statements. With WebFOCUS, users can save graphical dashboards to PDF, including compound PDF reports. With WebFOCUS you can create compound PDF reports. Drill-through and table-of-contents capabilities in compound PDF reports automate the process of quickly navigating from general to specific information in related reports that are packaged in a single compound PDF report.

Perfect for PDF output, WebFOCUS enables the creation of graphs in a scalable vector graphic (SVG) format. Vector-based graphics are fundamentally different from image formats, such as GIF or JPEG, because SVGs are not pixel-based and therefore allow perfectly smooth curves and angular image elements. WebFOCUS SVG capabilities offer graphics of the highest quality for clean, crisp illustrative charts and graphs for printing and distribution.

In addition to SVG, graphs in WebFOCUS can now be produced in portable network graphics (PNG) format. This is a pixel-based format that supports much greater color depth than GIF.

PowerPoint

WebFOCUS' visual business intelligence features include the capability to create an active dashboard as a PowerPoint slide. Organizations use business intelligence to illustrate how the business is meeting set goals and how to affect those goals. Often the most effective way to present this is through Microsoft PowerPoint. By building dashboards within PowerPoint, users can show critical business intelligence findings in a slide presentation.

Coming soon – insertion of WebFOCUS reports automatically to PowerPoint.

* Dr. Raymond R. Panko, Professor of Decision Sciences, College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii, "What We Know About Spreadsheet Errors" (Also published in the Journal of End User Computing's Special Issue on Scaling Up End User Development, Volume 10, No 2., Spring 1998, pp. 15-21).

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