REPORTING & DATA ANALYTICS

REPORTING vs 
ANALYTICS

Reporting is the process of effectively translating and presenting the data generated by a business in a format that allows insight into performance. Tailored reporting for each audience within a company allows more-detailed analysis of activity within and between business areas.

The goal of data analytics is the interpretation of data to gain insight, which can then be used to improve business processes and performance.

Both work best if the data is firstly organised in a data warehouse.

REPORTING & 
DASHBOARDS

There are numerous categories against which reporting tools can be measured: (data connectivity, data management, the variety and quality of visualisations, publishing features, automation, training requirements and security).

At a high-level, reporting tools can be categorised as static or dynamic. Reports produced by the former category of tools are not enabled for any degree of user interactivity. They are standardised reports which will have tables or charts which can be viewed either on-screen or printed to form reporting packs.

Reports can represent data through different visuals, including tables, charts (bar, line, pie, histogram, scatter, bubble etc) or other visual widgets such as dials.

Dashboards are a category of reporting which consolidate key performance indicators (KPI) for a particular business operation or topic.

An HR dashboard may show a range of KPI’s to cover new starters, leavers, total staff by FTE. In short, all the pieces of information pertinent to that particular area can be viewed at a glance.

DATA 
ANALYTICS

Whilst reporting focuses on the presentation to help users gain understanding, data analytics focuses on mathematical techniques and processes to obtain insight from data.

Data analytics is fundamentally about numbers and therefore involves algebraic math and statistics. The more understanding you have of descriptive statistics and probability theory, the better equipped you will be to analyse and interpret data.

POPULAR REPORTING 
TOOLS

• Microsoft Excel (MS Excel)
• Power BI
• Tableau
• Oracle Reports
• QlikView
• SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
• SAP Business Objects
• IBM Cognos (formally Cognos BI)
• SAP Crystal Reports

POPULAR TOOLS FOR 
ANALYTICS

• Python
• Perl
• Matlab
• R
• Hadoop
• SQL
• Apache Spark
• SAS