Interactive Reporting Gets a Boost at mrc

September 23, 2014 Alex Woodie

One of the most common uses of mrc‘s m-Power development tool is creating Web-based business intelligence and reporting applications. With a recent enhancement, mrc is giving users even more options for interactive reporting.

Interactive reporting is one of a number of pre-built templates that m-Power users can use when they buy a subscription to the tool. The templates provide out-of-the-box capabilities for building interactive reporting applications that run on IBM i and other Java-enabled platforms.

Chicago-based mrc made three main improvements to template. The first gives users the capability to modify row dimensions. With static reports, users can’t change the order that rows appear in the report. With the update, users can now rearrange or even delete rows in their reports, thereby changing how the data appears in the report. It also changes how the drill-down capability behaves.

m-Power users can now rearrange or modify the rows that appear in their interactive reports.

The second enhancement gives users the capability to collapse or expand subtotal rows with a single click. This feature will make it easier for users to view all the data in a given report. Previously, opening all the subtotal rows was a tedious manual process.

The third significant enhancement is the capability to embed interactive reports inside user-defined dashboards. User-defined dashboards are popular among m-Power customers because they allow users to customize the look and layout of their BI environments. Now users can view interactive reports alongside graphs, charts, and other elements.

m-Power generates Java-based applications that run on a variety of operating systems and databases, including IBM i and its DB2/400 (DB2 for i) database. The software is often used for developing Web portals, dashboards, business intelligence programs, e-commerce websites, and other applications.

In other news, mrc this month announced it will be holding a series of webinars aimed at educating people about rapidly changing technology. The series, which is free, will cover topics such as creating mobile business applications, an introduction to pivot tables, and the potential of dashboards and business intelligence applications.

“With the speed at which technology evolves, we’re seeing more and more businesses fall behind the tech curve,” says Sal Stangarone, mrc’s senior product consultant. “Without proper education, this problem will only grow worse. We hope this new educational program will help these businesses better understand and capitalize on new technology.”

There are two events scheduled for this week, including an introduction to pivot tables and mobile business apps. To sign up for one of the events, check out the m-Power demo calendar.