Читать книгу Excel Dashboards & Reports For Dummies - Michael Alexander - Страница 13

The report is probably the most common application of business intelligence. A report can be described as a document that contains data used for reading or viewing. It can be as simple as a data table or as complex as a subtotaled view with interactive drill-downs, similar to Excel’s Subtotal or Pivot Table functionality.

The key attribute of a report is that it doesn’t lead a reader to a predefined conclusion. Although reports can include analysis, aggregations, and even charts, reports often allow for the end users to apply their own judgment and analysis to the data.

To clarify this concept, Figure 1-1 shows an example of a report. This report shows the National Park overnight visitor statistics by period. Although this data can be useful, it’s clear this report isn’t steering the reader toward any predefined judgment or analysis; it’s simply presenting the aggregated data.

FIGURE 1-1: Reports present data for viewing but don’t lead readers to conclusions.