When it comes to BI business intelligence, many people are confused about how it differs from reporting. In fact, reporting and BI business intelligence differ in terms of development history, function, and purpose. Below, we will explain the differences between reporting tools and BI tools from three perspectives.
First of allLet's take a look back at the evolution of reporting and BI business intelligence. In the early days, reporting tools were mainly used to generate paper reports, and with the development of computer technology, electronic reports such as excel began to be popularized, allowing users to create data reports more flexibly.
Over time, professional web reporting tools such as VeryReport have emerged, which have more powerful report generation and layout capabilities. Today's reporting tools are able to support a variety of data sources and present report styles in a variety of ways, making report generation more flexible and personalized. The emergence of these tools has greatly improved the efficiency of report generation and the quality of reports, and provided more accurate and comprehensive data support for data analysts and enterprise decision-makers.
NextLet's take a look at the specific differences between reporting and BI business intelligence. The report mainly solves the problem of the display of fixed data, users usually know the report style and data they want, the data demand is relatively stable, and the interactivity of the report is low. BI tools, on the other hand, are more geared towards helping businesses solve specific problems or find growth possibilities, and are flexible enough to allow users to explore and analyze data. BI tools are dynamic, self-service, and data mining to provide deeper data analysis and decision support capabilities.
FinallyLet's take a look at the competency requirements for a report engineer and a BI engineer. Report engineers need to be proficient in SQL language and reporting tools, and have good data analysis and business understanding skills. BI engineers need to understand data warehouse design, ETL process and data model design, and have advanced data analysis skills and the ability to use a variety of BI tools. They need to be able to manage BI projects, work with stakeholders in different departments, and understand their needs.
To sum up, both reporting and BI business intelligence differ in terms of development history, functionality, and purpose. Reports are mainly used for the presentation of fixed data, while BI tools provide a wider range of data analysis and decision support functions. There are also differences in the competency requirements of report engineers and BI engineers, with the former focusing more on report production skills, while the latter requires more comprehensive data analysis and project management capabilities. With the continuous improvement of enterprises' demand for data, the application of BI tools will become more and more extensive, and their role in enterprise decision support will become more and more important.
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