Pentaho 5.0 Reporting by Example: Beginner's Guide: Learn to use the power of Pentaho for Business Intelligence reporting in a series of simple, logical stages. From installation in Windows or Linux right through to publishing your own Java web application, it's all here.

Transactional reports: Data for these reports comes from transactions and their objective is to present data at a very detailed and granular level. This type of report is usually used in an organization's day-to-day business. Examples of this kind of report are sales receipts, purchase orders, and so on.

Tactical reports: Data for these reports comes from summaries of transactional data. The level of summary is low, usually not more than daily or weekly. This type of report contains information to support short-term decision making. For example, a stock inventory allows us to place orders to replace merchandise.

Strategic reports: These reports commonly used data sources clean, reliable and stable, for example of a data warehouse, and their goal is to create business information. This kind of report supports medium and long-term decision making and is usually highly summarized; it allows for parameterization and includes charts and subreports. For example, a seasonal analysis of sales lets us determine what marketing campaigns should be carried out at given periods of time.

Helper reports: Data for these reports comes from diverse origins and contains information that may not be normalized, including photos, images, and bar codes. This kind of report is not aimed at supporting decision making but serves a variety of interests. Examples of this kind of report are technical product descriptions, letterheads, ID cards, and so on.

Reporting algorithm: PRD avoids compiling reports, a method that other reporting tools use, and combining the report layout with data as it is acquired. Initially, the algorithm calculates and determines how to separate the data into groups, subgroups, and so on, and calculates the height, width, position, and style of the elements (text, images, and so on); later, the data is placed where it belongs in order to obtain the desired output.

Diverse data sources: This includes JDBC (this allows access to most databases), Pentaho Metadata, Pentaho Data Integration, OLAP, XML, in-line table, Sequence Generator, Query Scripting, Java Method Invocation, Hibernate, Open ERP, CDA, and so on.

Diverse output formats: These are PDF, Excel, Excel 2007, HTML, RTF, CSV, XML, and Text. PRD renders reports with high image quality.

Insertable objects: PRD lets you add text fields, labels, images, charts, subreports, shapes, lines, sparklines, hyperlinks, bar codes, and other objects to your reports. Objects are inserted in the UI by simply dragging and dropping.

Charts: There are two categories of charts that can be added to reports in PRD; they are as follows:

Parameterization: PRD allows you to define parameters that can be used in different parts of the report; for example, as a filter for a SQL query, as the text of a label, as part of a formula, and as a style attribute, among others. Regarding the type of presentation, PRD provides the following widgets to supply parameter values: drop-down menus, simple-value lists, multivalue lists, radio buttons, checkboxes, single selection buttons, multiselection buttons, textboxes, text areas, and date pickers.

Formulas and style expressions: PRD allows you to assign a style property according to the value of a formula, expression, or fixed value. For example, if the value of the field "quantity" is greater than 50, you can make the background color of a given shape green. You can also use formulas to create new fields and calculate their values.

Crosstab report: PRD lets you create powerful reports based on cross tabs using a simple wizard.

Interactive reports: PRD lets you add interactivity to your reports, making it possible to expand/collapse groups, add hyperlinks to other reports, and so on.

Wizard: PRD includes a wizard that lets you create a report through simple and intuitive steps.

Publication: From the PRD UI, you can publish directly to the Pentaho BA Server.

Java API: PRD includes a very extensive API that lets you execute, create, and modify reports without using the UI.

Extendibility: PRD lets you add new functionality through the incorporation of plugins.

Stylesheet support: PRD supports internal storage or external access to CSS3 stylesheets.

Integration with the Pentaho suite: PRD is easily integrated with the other tools in the Pentaho suite, including Pentaho Data Integration (PDI) and C-Tools (CDF and CDA).

Pentaho Data Integration: PDI implements a transformation step that lets you execute and parameterize PRD reports; this allows you to implement mailing and report bursting, among many other possibilities.

Community Dashboard Framework (CDF): This implements a component for working with PRD reports. Community Data Access (CDA) can be added as a plugin PRD, with the goal that our reports can get their data from a CDA connection.

Abstraction layers: When an end user creates a report, they usually see the process as a whole. The process of creating a report in PRD can be separated into three parts: the selection of data source to use, the design/layout of the report, and the final presentation format. PRD defines two layers of abstraction between these three parties, allowing each party to become independent of the other and the report to be adapted to different contexts and needs. For example, if a report is created based on a data source developed in MySQL and is later published to a Pentaho BA Server connected to a PostgreSQL production database, the report will be adapted to this context and will be able to be executed without change.