Creating Basic raports with Basic Business Intelligence (BABI)

Last June we published a blog presenting our Basic Business Intelligence module, a solution that enables the analysis of data in ERPs. This blog is focused on how to create a basic report using the templates provided and understand the utility of the different configuration fields. We leave for a future publication of the customization and configuration of the reports with new data and filters.

Initially the menu of Business Intelligence only shows two options:

• Configuration: shows the data for analysis (Expressions) and the filters applied in the basic reports (Filters).
• Reports: The list of 30 reports that are delivered with the module.

We start with the standard templates you can find in Reports, its characteristics are described briefly with the name, model (table of OpenERP with data analyzed), a brief description of report and the filter applied. We will use the report Year/Products/Month as an example of the blog, a report that shows the sales by product, year and month based on data of the invoices

First step is create the menu entries, we click Year/Products/Month and open the tab of the report. There you could find two tabs and several fields to define the parameters of the report, they will be explained below. At the moment we concentrate on the three buttons on the bottom.

• Update data.
• Create Menu Entries.
• Remove Menu Entries.

We create the report with a double click on Create Menu Entries and load the first data Data Update. Returning to the main menu and refreshing OpenERP you will find a new entry in Business Intelligence, the report Year/Products/Month, with information of the date and time of the last data update on brackets. One of the characteristics of the module is that it kept in memory the latest data analyzed so you can consult it immediately if don't need it completely updated.

We find two additional entries, one with the same name of the report with all the data analyzed in tabular format, and the action Update Date Year/Products/Month that allows update the data directly without entering in the setup of the report. The more interesting results are sorted in the main entrance.

Inside the report, the first column displays the information specified in Expression of the setup . These data are sorted and grouped sequentially by the sequence. In the example the order Products and Month shows first the products and inside them the month with sales. Please note that the line with the product name shows the aggregated total sales.

The other columns show data to analyze, these data are defined in measures on the setup of the report. The example specifies the cumulative quantities sold and as we are interested in the sales for different years, we find Year in Column dimension.

Before entering in the graph view, a comment of the two tables pending in the setup of Report:

• Order: The sequence indicates how are the data sorted. The example shows the products ordered first by amount sold, with the best selling product in the first place.
• Groups: Where define the user groups that can view the report.

An interesting data in the tab Internal Information: the fields Last Update Duration indicate the time taken to perform the last update, an interesting data to check before a new loading.

Let's finally to the display of the graph back to the table with the data in tree format, a double click on the main entry shows the graph of the internal entries. Please note that the graph only shows one level of information, if we select the main branch we will see the sales of all products grouped without information of the months, however if you select a specific product you will see the sales aggregated for each month.

Once the double-click is done, the wizard appears and you can select the type of graph, bar or pie, and the data in Measures.

Finally note that you can use the fields at the top of the chart to filter the information.

In a forthcoming publication we will explain how to configure basic reports and adjust them to the interests of the company.