1.3 Report vs. Dashboard

The end result of your development process is a generally a report or a dashboard. It is important to understand the similarities and differences between these two methods of data presentation. Both reports and dashboards present data, but they provide a very different user experience.

The most profound difference between reports and dashboards is the level of interactivity:

To create a highly interactive environment, use a dashboard. See Getting Started with Dashboards for more information.

To present static data in a multi-page format, use a report. See Getting Started with Reports for more information.

The table below compares some other features of reports and dashboards.

Report

Dashboard

Supports multiple pages.

Supports only a single screen, but allows tabbed interfaces.

Supports multiple data sources in a single report.

Allows only one data source per dashboard, but dashboards with different data sources can be nested.

Static, but can be made more interactive through parameterization.

Dynamic and interactive.

Does not support materialized views.

Supports materialized views.

Provides full desktop-based design tools and limited web-based design tools (Ad Hoc editing).

Provides full web-based design tools.

Supports reusability via beans, meta-templates, subreports, and parameter sheets.

Supports reusability via nesting.

Can be viewed under the Portal Report tab.

Can be viewed under the Portal Report tab and Dashboard tab.

Can be exported to a wide variety of formats.

Can be exported to Excel, PDF, or PowerPoint.

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