Microsoft® SQL Server® Reporting Services Recipes: for Designing Expert Reports

Chapter 1. Business Reporting Paradigms

In the world of business, we use a lot of different styles and types of reports. To appreciate how pervasive reports are in the world of business, in different organizations, and in our day-to-day lives, we must first define what a report is. Any formatted output of data from a database or any other type of data source could be called a report. Some types are obvious and may include sales reports, end-of-period summaries, trend analysis, and comparisons. These are some traditional report styles. Reports are used in all areas of business and practically every business function involves printing, displaying, browsing, or using some other method to present data to business leaders, workers, service providers, customers, inspectors, analysts, and others for a variety of reasons. Reports, in many different forms, are everywhere.

Less traditional report types that may be used in different business scenarios include things like product labels, name badges, routing tags, invoices, claim forms, request forms, government documents, and shipping manifests. You probably have types of reports that are unique to your specific business or industry that outsiders aren't even aware of. To provide a better understanding about the various functions that reports perform, this chapter explores different types of reports. Chapters 2 and 3 will review the basic building blocks of report design and development that you will need to know to apply the report design ...