In most organizations,
many information consumers need reports from business data, but relatively
few people understand the data structures necessary to build the reports.
SAS Web Report Studio bypasses the need to understand complex data
structures. SAS Web Report Studio provides an intuitive user interface
that enables users at all technical skill levels to create, view,
and explore centrally stored reports.
Easy querying
Specially prepared information
maps (which are data sources in SAS Web Report Studio)
provide a metadata (information) layer between the nontechnical business
user and the complexities of database structure and query languages.
Authorized users that might be more advanced can access tables and
cubes directly. All data sources contain
data items, which can refer to calculations or physical data (tables
or cubes). Data items in information maps
are described in common business terms that enable both casual and
professional report authors to easily build queries that return consistent
results. Reports can include query results from more than one data
source.
Easy report design
The casual report author
can use the five-step Report Wizard to design a basic report layout
with one table and one graph. More advanced report authors can use
the full-featured report editor to design more complex layouts, choosing
from two different types of tables and eight different types of graphs.
In addition, headers, footers, images, and text can be used to include
corporate standards, confidentiality messages, and even hyperlinks
in the report. Reports can contain multiple sections. Reports can
be rendered as needed for one-time use or stored in a common repository
for personal or shared access.
Easy analysis
Report authors can
design reports that, by default, filter, rank, and highlight the query
results based on specified conditions. These features and others are
available to report viewers, who can select options from menus and
toolbars to customize the default output. Additional options that
can help you analyze report data include drilling and expanding, sorting,
and creating percent of total calculations.
Other basic reporting
tasks include printing, copying, moving, and exporting. Advanced tasks
include scheduling reports to run at a specified time (or times) and
distributing reports via e-mail as a PDF attachment or as an embedded
HTML file.