Canned reports/dashboards aka custom reports or out of box reports are inevitable part of any BI ecosystem. It’s a good point of reference for conversations with business users especially at the start of a project when requirements are often a bit hazy. In many instances, business users see report layouts as an effective and convenient medium of communication with BI project teams. This however should not be considered as THE business requirement. Instead of dwelling on canned reports, the focus should be on building a well-designed DW/BI system that empowers users to perform analysis on a self-service basis. The quality and the range of analysis that a self-service BI platform provides far outweighs the benefits of just rolling out a set of canned reports. It empowers business users to do their own analysis while the BI team can work towards expanding and refining the analytical platform instead of operating as a “reporting team”. Continue Reading