ADVERTISEMENT Feature Aspasia Cloud Informational Series – No.11 Revolutionary ‘Interactive Reporting’


IT COULD be argued that one of the main purposes of a database is not just the storage of data but the collation of information to support better decision making. The reports from systems should support the decisions you need to make rather than restrict that capability. Traditional reporting facilities in most software packages are often characterised by being rather flat and uninteresting leaving users at the mercy of the software developers to define what information they can see and how it is presented. In practice nearly all customers want slightly different information presented in slightly different ways which can be beyond the capability of many solutions. Where the software company is more accommodating, the net result is you can end up with many variations of very similar reports and the whole scenario can get very confusing.


transforming online reporting For most agents, their underlying database can


be very sophisticated and complex in structure meaning that it would probably be beyond the scope of any end user to intuitively understand it and use an ‘ad hoc’ reporting tool to extract meaningful and correct information. When the scope of the database, like Aspasia Cloud, integrates sales, lettings, accounts, property management and financial services, there is the potential for a large number of data tables (in our case well over 350) with very complex interrelationships. For web based applications there is the added complication that the database is very remote from the browser and, as clever as modern browsers are, their architecture means they cannot entirely mimic the sophistication available from within a desktop-based reporting tool. Add to this the manner in which information is presented for consumption by the user. Historically we have liked the tangibility of paper, printing off reports which are consulted once and then relegated to a filing cabinet never to be seen again. One beneficial side effect of the Internet is that more and more these days we are content and confident enough to realise the permanence and flexibility of data stored in a


different foreground and background colours and so on. Then, if you really want to go further, all the data can, in addition, be automatically represented in colourful charts and graphs as you wish.


sharing reports But this is not all. Having spent as much time


database and we are happy to recall information and review it on screen rather than constantly commit snapshots to paper which is very expensive and environmentally unfriendly. Perhaps online banking is a very good example of this change in thinking and practice. And of course it is always possible to print out information displayed within a browser if it is really necessary. So with the migration towards the greater use


of online reporting there comes a requirement for more sophistication in terms of how data is presented and one that can better accommodate all the idiosyncrasies of the many different users. It is for this reason that nearly all reporting output within Aspasia Cloud comes in the form of ‘Interactive Reports’ which will be explained in a fair amount of detail in future editions in this informational series. This month all we can realistically achieve is to give a broad overview of what we mean by Interactive Reports and how they can transform online reporting as we know it. The first element of Interactive Reporting is


the concept that the developer exposes to the user all the data fields related to the subject matter of the report and, whilst initially presenting it in a form he or she believes to be best, leaves the user to add, delete, modify or format the information as they see fit. For example, the user can re-sort all the columns, create unique or different data groupings, introduce their own calculated columns using their own formulae, add additional filters to the data and introduce highlighting options like


Aspasia Cloud is the first fully integrated cloud technology software solution for agents involved with residential sales, lettings and property management. This informational series has been designed to explain how the software differs from other solutions and what that means for agents who use it.


For further information and to read previous articles in the series, please go to www.aspasia.net.


PROPERTYdrum MARCH 2011 25


and effort as you like modifying the original report as laid out by the developer you then have the option of saving it alongside the original which will then be offered to you as an option next time you call the report so that you don’t have to expend all the effort again. Moreover you can distibute your own creation to other users as you see fit so that they too can benefit from your work. Furthermore, all the data on every report can be exported in ‘csv’ format to be easily imported into a spreadsheet for further analysis if so desired. Every report also has the option of it being presented in ‘pdf’ format so that you can store and distribute it externally as you wish.


Please remember that all these facilities for changing the supplied reports are optional and are there for you to use if you wish to do so. In reality we expect the majority of users will be perfectly happy to accept and use the reports as originally supplied either by us or as modified by another member of their organisation. The key point is that we as software developers can provide you with core reports as we have always done (albeit significantly more polished and presentable with optional graphics) but you now have the option to create the specific reports your business needs and then save them back into Aspasia Cloud for future use. As these features are so powerful and potentially beneficial to our customers we will be exploring them in more detail in the future editions of this series. Whilst much of this functionality might be readily expected in a traditional desktop based ‘ad hoc’ reporting tool the really impressive feature here is that all this is available to you online in any browser of your choice without the need for any local software whatsoever, further enhancing the flexibility of your business management.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68