Chapter 2. Designing Reports for Embedding

As I approached this topic of embedded analytics, I was reminded that embedded analytics is not just a report development topic or a system administration topic, but is very much both. The primary focus of this book, by necessity, is on the mechanics of actually embedding reports throughout your Oracle CRM On Demand application. This is primarily an administrative task in most cases. But just as important is the design and development of the reports that you plan on embedding into your application. First, there is the report development skill set, which I cannot assume you have already mastered, but some competency in this area will make the rest a bit easier. Next is the ability to design a report that visually works as part of a screen in the application. Ideally, we want our embedded reports to not appear to have just been stuck on the screen. We will want to spend some time working with the layouts and formatting of the report views so that they appear as natural on the screen as other elements.

This chapter covers the basics of report development and contains some advice on formatting your reports for linking and embedding. This is not meant to be a complete instruction manual on report development. If you need more information on report development, I encourage you to invest in a copy of my earlier book, Oracle CRM On Demand Reporting (McGraw-Hill/Professional, 2008).