[cloud native] can self-service reports and Bi do so many things?

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Self service reports and BI Its positioning is to enable business users to do flexible reports and data analysis , Through self-help Freedom of analysis , By the way, get rid of excessive dependence on developers or technicians , Although it would be nice to rely on them , Don't work by yourself , But with inefficiency and lack of freedom , Sometimes it's hard to bear ; Developers and technicians also want to get rid of endless reporting tasks by allowing users to help themselves , Realize the freedom of life , Business people can do everything by themselves , No more technical assistance , What a wonderful thing that should be

But when this beauty meets reality , It can only be turned into longing and desire , Because self-service reports and BI There are too few things that can be solved , Far from realizing the freedom that all parties want .

The current traditional self-service reports and BI I can only do some simple reports , such as ： Group cross report , But you can't do complex reports . There are also the following pain points ：

1. Reports with slightly more complex formats and calculations cannot be implemented
   For reports with slightly more complex formats and calculations , There are tedious data preparation processes , And report presentation process , This process is also a time-consuming and labor-intensive process .
2. Association analysis cannot be implemented
   For multi table and multi database associated query analysis , Traditional self-service reports are powerless .
3. Open source and poor integration
   Users generally integrate self-service reports and... In their own business systems BI function , Traditional self-service reports and BI Can only be deployed independently 、 Independent management , This will undoubtedly greatly increase the workload and later maintenance costs .

Simple reports can be made

Simple grouping cross report , It can be done . Some of the more powerful tools , For multi-layer grouping crossover , Year on year and month on month comparisons can also be made

Multi layer grouping crossover

Chain ratio

These styles and calculations are relatively simple reports , Business users can use self-service reports and BI, Made by dragging , Although this kind of simple report accounts for less in most applications , But it can be done by users themselves , It can not only give users a certain degree of freedom , It can also slightly reduce the burden on developers and technicians , It also has certain business significance

Complex statements cannot be made

As shown in the figure above ： After these formats and calculations are a little more complicated , Self service reports and BI There's nothing we can do , Users can't count on making their own reports ,

The production of such complex reports , It accounts for a large proportion in applications , And there will always be new demands , Or do something new , Or change the old one , The report task can not be described as endless , This burden can only be carried by developers or technicians themselves , You have to choose an efficient reporting tool to do these complex reports

But a lot of times , We found that even with the use of major reporting tools , It is not possible to lighten the burden . Because of the complexity of complex reports , It is not only the complexity of report presentation , But the data preparation stage is also very complicated , Even more complicated , For example, hundreds of lines are required before making a table SQL And stored procedures to prepare data , And data preparation does not belong to the scope of report capacity , Report tools can't solve , At this time, to really solve the burden of complex reports , We have to find another tool to solve the data preparation

The reason why it is very complicated to start a report after using the report tool , For details, please refer to this post ,

Why is report development still a headache after using famous tools

You can also have a look at RAQSOFT How does this kind of professional report manufacturer solve this problem

Poor correlation analysis

Self service reports and BI When doing analysis , Will encounter the situation of multi table and multi database association query analysis , Tools currently on the market , Dealing with this kind of problem , Basically, they are not handled well , Or make a wide table for users to make do with , As soon as we meet new analysis requirements, we have to change CUBE Or make a new one , As a result, it is still required to help the technicians . Or expose the relationships between tables that are difficult for engineers to clear to business users , Let users associate themselves , Famous for its name “ Self Service Association ”, Even the technical personnel are difficult to do, let the business personnel do , It's not realistic

Association query analysis is not good , That means that the analysis can only be based on a single table , This will lead to self-service reports and BI The use surface is narrower , Only by solving this problem , To expand self-service reports and BI Application scope of , Make the analysis more meaningful and valuable

About most of the market BI The reason why the tool association query analysis is not done well , And better solutions , You can refer to this post ：

Why? BI Software can't do correlation analysis

Open source and poor integration

Self service reports and BI Most of the functional users have their own business systems , If you use BI Can only be deployed independently 、 Independent management , It will undoubtedly increase the workload and later maintenance costs , There will also be risks and hidden dangers , This requires BI Can be integrated

After the integration , Functions and pages need to be able to move as needed , Otherwise the style doesn't match , The function is not easy , It is also awkward to use , therefore BI It's better to be open source

However, the current commercial self-service reports and BI, There is basically no open source , It is also very difficult to be integrated , This leads to no matter BI How many things can be solved , Very uncomfortable to use

At present, there are only... In the domestic mainstream products RAQSOFT Of BI It's open source. ,RAQSOFT It's a professional report maker , Reports rank first in the industry , Open source BI The function is perfect too

Foreign open source BI There are also a lot of software , The function is no worse than that of domestic commercial products , It's also a good choice , It's just that projects with high localization requirements can't be used , In addition, the interface is not in Chinese , It takes a lot of effort to transform ,BI And self-service report is a task with strong interface , The overall transformation of the interface is almost equivalent to redoing

Self service reports and BI, Although the heat has been high in recent years , But after many users' actual use and verification , People's understanding of it has gradually become more scientific and objective , It has progressive business implications , There are also real weaknesses , It is free, flexible, timely and simple , But it is difficult to control the complicated situation , It needs an efficient reporting tool that can solve the problem of data preparation to help it solve the problem of complex reporting , An engine that can solve association analysis is needed to support it to do more and more extensive analysis , You also need to make yourself open-source and Integrable to make yourself more tacit with the existing systems

On its way forward , It needs many partners to travel together to better reflect its value

Reference material

• RAQSOFT Report official website
• RAQSOFT Report Download