Best

Practices for Choosing Content

Reporting Tools and Datasources
Andrew Grohe
Pentaho Director of Services Delivery, Hitachi Vantara
Agenda
Discuss best practices for choosing content with Pentaho Business Analytics
Platform. This session will also cover the various datasource options for
Pentaho content.
Pentaho Content Creation Options
Tool Review
Tool Option Decision Tree
Pentaho Content Datasource Options
Reporting Content Creation Options
Browser-Self Service
Client-Workstation
Browser Authoring Tools
Pentaho Analyzer
Analyzer creates cross tabular reports or charts
Exclusive datasource is Mondrian metadata model
Analyzer is highly interactive with drill-down, drag
and drop
Color schemes can be customized to match your style
Only one table or a chart can be shown at once
(multi-chart)
Formatting is limited to field names, width and
numeric
Prompts can only be achieved via inclusion in a
dashboard
Interactive Reporting
Only tabular reports can be created. No Charts
Best used on detail row-level data
Exclusive datasource is Pentaho metadata model
PIR is highly interactive with drag and drop and
filtering
Color schemes can be customized to match your
style
Only one tabular dataset can be shown at once
Formatting is limited to column headers, width
and numeric
Dashboard Designer
Dashboard designer can create tabular reports or charts
Exclusive datasource is Mondrian metadata model
Recommended to used other reports vs creating in dashboard
Allows many tables or charts can be shown at once
PDD is highly interactive with drag and drop and prompting
Formatting is limited to widget titles and sizing
Color schemes can be customized to match your style
Prompts are available to send parameters to reports
Dashboard Editor
Dashboard Editor can create tabular reports, charts and maps
Datasources can be Mondrian, Metadata, PDI, SQL or custom
Recommended to use when highly interactive or a specific
style is required
Allows many tables or charts to be shown at once
CDE can be built to do a lot or little interactivity
Formatting is unlimited and can use CSS
Color schemes can be customized to match your style
Prompts are available to send parameters to reports
Client Authoring Tools
Report Designer
Banded report designer that can also create charts
Can include many widgets over many pages
Datasources include MDX, MQL, PDI and SQL
Charts and tables can be placed side-by-side and top bottom
Interactivity is limited to hyperlinks and can be extended via
JavaScript
Formatting is nearly unlimited to all field properties
Color schemes can be customized to match your style
Prompts can be automatically generated based on metadata
Pre-defined output formatting for PDF, XLS, HTML, CSV, RTF
Pentaho Data Integration
PDI is not a report writer but can output data
Output formats include XLS, CSV and TXT
Excel templates can be used during output
PDI can also run Report Designer or other content reports and email results
PDI transformations can be called via the Pentaho server REST API
Typical use cases involve producing large datasets and/or multi-tab excel sheets
Content Authoring
Decision Tree
Reporting Decision Tree
Only one table or visualization
PIR, PAZ, PRD
PIR and PAZ do not support multiple visualizations
Is charting required?
PAZ, PRD, CDE, PDD
PIR does not have charting
Is interactivity required?
PAZ, PIR, CDE
PRD is static with interactivity limited to hyperlinks
Is self-service required?
PAZ, PIR and PDD
PRD requires local installation and is not self-service
Pentaho Content
Datasource Options
Content Datasources
Pentaho Metadata
Mondrian Schema
Structured Query Language (SQL)
Pentaho Data Integration
Pentaho Metadata
Provide an abstraction layer between the database and consumer of the model
Generally used for detail oriented reports
Metadata models can be placed on relational or dimensional database schemas
Database columns exposed via the model should only be those useful in reports
Models should be kept as small as possible and under 10MB
Models can be used in PIR, PRD, PDD and CDA
Security can be defined centrally in the model or in a custom java SQL Generator implementation
Reporting tools express queries in terms of MQL. MQL is sent to server where it is translated into
one SQL statement by a SQL Generator. Result sets are streamed back to the client
Mondrian
Provide an abstraction layer between the database and consumer of the model
Exclusively used with summary/aggregate data (sum, avg, min, max, etc..)
Mondrian allows for complex calculations to be performed on top of aggregates
Mondrian schema work best on dimensional models
Mondrian schemas can be used in PAZ, PRD, CDE, CDF
Security can be defined centrally via Grants or in a Custom Role Delegate (CRD) or
Dynamic Schema Processor (DSP)
Reporting tools express queries in terms of MDX. MDX is sent to server where it is
translated into one or more SQL statements. SQL is optional if the result data
resides in cache. Result sets are streamed back to the client.
SQL
Direct access to underlying data structures
Generally used other layers do not satisfy requirements
SQL can be used to provide advanced queries for reports
It is typically best used for operational schemas
Security has to be implemented for each report
Report Designer is the only reporting tool that allows SQL
No caching is provided for SQL datasources
SQL can provide detail and summary reports
Pentaho Data Integration (PDI)
Provides GUI for advanced transformations and blending of data in realtime
Those transformations can be provide data for reports
It is typically used to join multiple data sets
Security has to be implemented for each report
Report Designer and CDA allow for PDI datasources
Caching is provided for PDI datasources used in Data Services
PDI can provide detail and summary reports
Community Data Access (CDA)
CDA queries are defined and executed on the server
CDA can provide an additional caching layer for reports
CDA can tie into Pentaho Security for report
The same CDA file/query can be used in CDF/CDE and PRD
CDA can join together disparate datasets
Reporting Tools and Database Access

SQL Metadata MQL Report Viewer

Interactive Reports
SQL Mondrian MDX Dashboard Designer
DB
Analyzer
SQL KTR

SQL CDA Dashboard Editor

Security
Summary
Summary
What we covered today:
Discussed the variety of tools Pentaho provides to create content
Reviewed a Decision Tree to help in making a decision
Outlined the options for providing data in Pentaho Business Analytics
Next Steps
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