Best Automated Reporting Tools
Buyer's Guide
It’s a cutthroat world, and companies constantly hustle to differentiate themselves. Business plans change at any moment, and strategies are made and unmade at the first sign of market trend changes. Automated reporting tools can be the proverbial lighthouse in a storm, providing enterprise reporting for critical decision support.
This buyer’s guide gives you the necessary information, resources and tips to start your software selection process. We discuss the most popular automated reporting tools to help fine tune your business requirements before approaching vendors.
Executive Summary
- Automated reporting involves using pre-coded workflows to set up and leverage report generation that doesn’t require manual intervention.
- Financial services, sales and marketing, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, procurement, customer service and workforce management utilize automated reporting.
- Automated reporting solutions are code or low/no-code systems, including BI, dashboard and data visualization tools.
- Automation ensures timely report delivery, reduces manual errors and lessens the task load on already overburdened teams.
- Asking the right questions helps internally evaluate your team’s requirements and get clarity from vendors during discussions.
What Are Automated Reporting Tools?
An automated reporting system is an enterprise tool that generates organizational reports at preset intervals without needing you to update the information manually every time. Physically checking for data exceeding threshold values, refreshing it and combining results from multiple sources is no longer productive.
The demand for automating routine reporting tasks to support business intelligence is growing, though automated reporting platforms are often more than that. They can be reporting tools, BI systems, dashboard platforms and data visualization solutions.
Dynamic, live connectivity is a primary feature of modern reporting software to include the latest insight with consistent, continuous data refreshes. Set the automation in place by defining the parameters, output schedule, file format and destination, and you’re all set.
It also removes daily to and fro between departments, saving time. Manufacturing companies use automation to generate periodic reports for monitoring KPIs like production volume, the number of functional machines and the top machines by production. Imagine collecting this information manually.
Similarly, healthcare, human resources (HR), enterprise resource planning (ERP), construction, supply chain management and project management leverage automation for daily and period-over-period insight.
Automated reporting tools come in all shapes and sizes, including cloud-based and software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms.
- Code-based reporting tools give you complete control with the option to hand-pick features and add custom functionality. But, it’s time-consuming and costly to develop, test and debug these solutions. Additionally, adoption can lag if most users aren’t technically skilled.
- Big Data Analytics
- Business Analytics
- Business Intelligence
- Cloud BI
- Data Analytics
- Data Cleaning
- Data Discovery
- Data Integration
- Data Management
- Data Preparation
- Data Warehouse
- Ecommerce Analytics
- Embedded Analytics
- Enterprise Reporting
- ETL
- HR Analytics
- OLAP Tools
- Predictive Analytics
- Qualitative Data Analysis
- Self-Service BI Tools
- Low/no-code tools are easy to deploy and a breeze to use — you can drag and drop fields into the report editor and establish source connections with intuitive drop-down menus and selection options. But customization isn’t easy as the system hides the code at the backend.
- You can use BI tools for report automation. Check with your vendor if your existing BI platform supports it — if yes, you might be able to acquire a reporting add-on. Conversely, many automated reporting platforms are BI solutions, and you can get two for the price of one.
- The same is true for many dashboard tools which let you schedule automatic reports with a few clicks.
Primary Benefits
Automation is like an elixir that promises to make everything better. But can you convince management to take the leap of faith? Knowing how it can benefit your business is an excellent way to prepare for any questions they might have.
Optimize Resources
Modern automated reporting tools are easy to deploy, requiring little technical expertise. Automation is an excellent time-saver, and live source connectivity keeps the data fresh and contextual. Instead of generating reports, you can focus on improving business processes by analyzing performance and other key metrics.
Boosting productivity by weeding out inefficiencies becomes straightforward as automation sets you free. Time-saving functionalities like creating and reusing report templates with white labeling allow you to work with multiple clients without losing yourself in prepping layouts and formats.
By pre-configuring user permissions, you can avoid heartache by limiting information access to only authorized persons. Like other modern software, automated reporting solutions come equipped with data security and governance guardrails to prevent tampering and data loss.
Boost Productivity
Self-service functionality primarily contributes to data literacy, enabling department-level users and managers to automate reports, provided the administrator assigns them permissions. Accurate, up-to-date insight gives you the confidence to conduct meaningful discussions and propose new ideas and suggestions.
Setting up department-specific reports ensures you view only the relevant information to get to the facts faster. Report-sharing and collaboration are standard data software features that speed up response times. Commenting upon and discussing the results within dashboards retains relevant comments for future reference.
With built-in analytics, these tools prove to be cost-effective.
Gain Live Insight
With manual reporting, you constantly race to catch up with live data coming in — by the time you generate the report, the information becomes outdated. Enter up-to-date reports generated on cue — business processes are impactful only if you refine and polish them consistently.
Not everyone like surprises, especially when they’re unpleasant. Tracking your KPIs in real time prepares you for future opportunities and potential pitfalls, like implementing strategies that won’t work anymore. And if you suffer a setback, staying ahead of the curve can help you recover faster.
Automatic report generation is better with live data refreshes, and shareability takes it up several notches with easily accessible URLs and reports viewers. Predefining filters and permissions lets you show the desired results to selected users.
Diversify
Automation in your corner means more time to focus on your business.
Having one less thing to worry about gives you the bandwidth to branch out into diverse ventures, including new product launches. You can fine-tune your offerings by tapping market sentiment pre and post-launch with automated updates keeping you informed.
Product development status reports help you clearly define timelines for the product launch and deal with issues as they arise. Setting up automated reporting on competitor products can help you differentiate your offerings before they hit the market.
Reduce Manual Errors
Automation eliminates ambiguities and inconsistencies, ensuring you don’t miss any updates. Manual errors can multiply in downstream reports, impacting plans and operations and upsetting delivery timelines.
You don’t need to remember report delivery schedules — the system works like a well-oiled machine — and your schedule clears up significantly.
Key Features & Functionality
Here are the key features to look for when seeking an automated reporting solution.
| Data Integration | The automated reporting tool should ingest simple and complex information from standard files, RDBMS, OLAP cubes, websites, social media, smart devices and machine sensors. Check with vendors if their product connects to these and more sources, letting you create new connections as more data sources become available. |
|---|---|
| Interactive Dashboards and Data Visualizations | Autonomous data exploration and analysis are necessary when considering an automated reporting tool. Though you can pre-configure automated reports to show desired metrics, data manipulation is essential to fine tune the results further. The best automated reporting tools let you point and select datasets, connectors, files and folders without coding. Can you link a dataset in one report to another report? Will downstream metrics update as the source report refreshes? Automation eases your burden only if report data refreshes in sync with the underlying database. |
| Report Types and Templates | Dashboard and report templates can be a differentiating factor when comparing software before buying. Reporting needs differ by role — departmental reports are more focused than high-level reports for top management, but both are essential and need interactivity with data manipulation capabilities. |
| Sharing and Collaboration | Reports should be shareable and downloadable, with easy access via email, embedding, messaging and chat platforms. Report versioning is an added plus. Embeddability is a must-have — switching applications to view reports is bad design. Brand personalization with custom themes, colors, logos and fonts helps establish your identity and gives a professional touch to reports. |
| Notifications and Alerts | Automatic reporting makes alerts and notifications essential. Getting notified of report delivery to teams and clients helps you monitor the automated reporting system and react when something goes wrong. These should be flexibly configurable, with the flexibility to define threshold values and the persons to notify in case values exceed preset ones. |
| Data Governance and Security | Compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) and other industry regulations is essential. The reporting solution should provide data encryption at rest and in motion with role-based permissions and authentication protocols. Activity logs and audit trails enhance accountability and prevent malicious intent. |
Software Comparison Strategy
A requirements analysis helps assess your organization’s reporting needs. List your must-have and nice-to-have features by creating a requirements checklist. Get a head start with our pre-populated requirements template.
Finalize the requirements in consultation with top management and teams using the solution. Convert them into questions and distribute them to potential vendors with a request for proposal (RFP).
Review vendor proposals, ranking their products on a scale of 1 to 100 based on how well they promise to address your requirements.
Our Jumpstart platform gives you a feature-by-feature analysis of leading automated reporting tools and a complete breakdown of the product scores.
Cost & Pricing Considerations
Product price is a deal-breaker when considering a significant investment. Factoring in the total cost of ownership (TCO) ahead of time helps avoid sticker shock later. Pricing will vary depending on the deployment model, user licenses, features and add-ons you choose, so factor them in while calculating the total cost.
Check the available pricing tiers and support options from the vendor’s website or contact them directly. Often, the product price includes basic support, but 24*7 technical assistance and dedicated services will cost you extra.
The Most Popular Automated Reporting Tools
Our analysts shortlisted the most popular automated reporting tools based on how well they address business needs. It should help you fine tune your ask list before approaching vendors.
JasperReports
The JasperReports Library is a reporting engine with a flexible, open-source architecture. Though it comes embedded within Jaspersoft Studio and the JasperReports Server, a standalone version also exists. Nested subreports are available — link to or directly use any report within other reports.
Internationalization lets you display reports in any language via Unicode and other native encodings. Its report scheduler wizard lets you set up jobs, report parameters and output options.
You can select the output file format and destination when configuring automated reports.
Crystal Reports
An offering from SAP, Crystal Reports provides flexible options to automate scheduled report sharing. Predefining a report delivery timeline ensures you don’t miss sharing business-critical insight. Additionally, it helps minimize repetitive queries against databases.
Versioning is available — the SAP Crystal Server retains all scheduled reports sent out, plus a recurring instance containing the scheduling details. The platform lets you define stored SQL procedures to auto-update databases, move files and send report bursts based on event triggers.
Add pre-defined objects to the report canvas by dragging them from the sidebar. Source
MicroStrategy
It offers fast reporting with Intelligent Cubes that reside in memory and are sharable among multiple reports, reducing query overload on underlying databases. It provides predictive analytics through automated data discovery with machine learning.
Role-based permissions and industry-standard authentication protocols secure data during automated report delivery.
Interactive options enable report formatting to show the desired datasets.
Questions To Ask
Though it’s tempting to jump into vendor outreach and discussions after readying the shortlist, it helps to pause and assess your business needs. Ask questions internally to confirm whether you’re on the right track with your requirements list.
- Do you need a dedicated platform or an add-on automated reporting module?
- Where does your existing reporting solution fall short?
- What is your budget?
- Who are the end users? What is their technical skill level?
- Which features are deal-breakers?
While finalizing the vendor shortlist, you may have concerns and queries about the product and vendor services. Making a list of questions to ask during vendor discussions will help you methodically convey your requirements.
- How long will deployment take?
- Does the software connect to your preferred data sources?
- Does it integrate with mobile devices? Is a mobile app available?
- Are email, chat and phone support available?
- Is training included?
To Conclude
Automated reporting tools are life savers, irrespective of the size of your organization. They reduce your task load by supporting delivery pipelines with on-time access to key metrics. The resources and software selection tips included here should help you select a solution that fits.
Our Managed Selection Services are with you every step of the way, from requirements gathering to signing on the dotted line.
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