What is the “Reporting Process”

The Reporting Process in the context of Cinnamon Reporting software is the process to produce flexible, high-quality output about products or clients. An overall sample reporting process can be summarised in the following diagram:

A Cinnamon Reporting Solution will consist of multiple components that interact to control, monitor & automate the above shown overall reporting process:

Cinnamon Reporting & Portal Services

The Cinnamon Reporting & Portal services support the production & distribution of reports by supporting the following sub-processes:

Sub-Process

Description

Report ordering

Reports can be ordered from Cinnamon as

  • Ad-hoc orders: to be produced once and immediately from available data

  • Scheduled orders: to be produced periodically and triggered by the availability of data

  • Batch orders: produce multiple reports from a single order

A Report Order captures all information (parameters) needed for Cinnamon Reporting to start one (or multiple) Report Execution(s) that correctly produce(s) the desired output(s).

Read more under Report Ordering (Features)

Report scheduling & execution

Scheduling is the process of analysing all stored orders, to see if a Report Execution should be triggered. The preconditions for a report execution can be:

  • Data availability: is data available for the given reportingDate and minimumDataQuality?

  • Past executions: has the same data already been produced?

  • Validity period: Scheduled orders can have a scheduling start and end date.

  • Frequency:

    • Monthly, Quarterly, etc.

    • Once: Validity period set to a specific day.

When a Report Execution is triggered either by an ad-hoc order or by data availability matching a scheduled order, the following steps are executed

  • The Parameters from the order are read

  • The Report Type, defining the structure of the ordered report, is interpreted

  • All Building Blocks contained in a report type are interpreted using the selected data

  • An Abstract Report is produced

  • The abstract report is sent for rendering (if needed)

Read more under Report Production (Features)

Report rendering

Abstract Reports can be rendered to user-friendly formats as

  • Microsoft Word documents

  • PDF documents

  • Further document types on request (Powerpoint, Excel, etc.)

Online reports don’t need any server-side rendering, as the rendering typically is done by the web browser.

Read more under Report Rendering (Features)

Report delivery

  • Reports rendered as documents can be distributed by integration with

    • e-mail systems

    • archiving sytems

    • Cinnamon Portal services

  • Online reports can be distributed by

    • Cinnamon Portal services

    • Custom web portals (powered by Cinnamon React Web Components)

Read more under Report Delivery (Features)

Overview of Report Executions serving into the Monthly Reporting Workflows

The following overview shows the production process for a periodic order by usage of scheduled or ad-hoc executions within the context of monthly reporting workflows: