A couple of months ago I found myself creating a PHP reporting system on a new project. It took a few weeks to finish it and I ended up not being entirely pleased with the output. But, as the saying goes, experience is the best teacher. So here you go, my friends: a complete tutorial on how to build your own reporting system from scratch, using PHP as the language of choice.
A reporting tool produces analytical reports that can be used to view and interpret data. A reporting tool or solution can provide different ways of visualizing the results like graphs, charts, and information tables. A-data provides a variety of database solutions such as web application development (PHP, MySQL, MSSQL), data warehousing (MySQL), open source development (Joomla) and support for Dynamics GP accounting software.
Seal Report
Sealed Report is an open-source reporting generator written entirely in C# for the Microsoft.net Framework. It provides a complete framework for generating daily reports and dashboards from any database. The product focuses on ease of installation and reports design. Once installed, reports can be created and published quickly. The component is entirely open-source and written in the C# language.
Seale Report is an open-source, web-based reporting generator that allows you to create, share, and distribute reports in a matter of minutes.
Seale Report makes it easy to create custom reports with no coding required. You can use the built-in editor to add text and images, or you can link your data to external sources like Google Sheets, Google Forms, and Excel files.
You can also use Seale Report as a public website by selecting “Website” from the target menu. This will allow you to share your report with anyone who has access to the internet.
It offers a complete package for producing every day reports and dashboards from any database. Seal Report focuses on an easy installation and reports design. Once set up, the reports can be built and published in a minute.
Key features include:
1. Dynamic SQL data sources: you can use SQL or have the Seal engine build dynamic SQL to query the database;
2. Local pivot tables: the elements can be directly displayed in pivot tables and reports via drag and drop. HTML5 charts are also supported.
Open Reports
Open Reports provide web reporting solutions that allow users to view dynamically created reports in PDF, HTML, or XLS format through a browser. OpenReports is developed in Java. It supports a variety of open-source reporting engines, including JasperReports, JFreeReport, JXLS, and Eclipse BIRT, to provide a wide range of reporting requirements.
Easy Report
EasyReport is an Excel plug-in written in c# and is an easy-to-use database reporting software that supports MS SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. Its main function is to convert the row and column structures found in SQL statements into HTML tables. It also supports RowSpan and ColSpan. The Easy Report supports the export of Excel reports, chart display, and fixed table header and left column functions.
Besides, it has the function of timing task, supports query engine (Hive, etc.) for the big data product, provides the REST API service interface. The new version adds the user and authority management module. Mybatis framework is used for data access to facilitate secondary development. It has a 15-day free trial.
SpagoBI
SpagoBI is the only 100% open source business intelligence suite developed and managed by the Engineering Group’s SpagoBI lab. It offers powerful analytics capabilities, from data reporting and charting capabilities to innovative solutions in emerging areas such as self-service analytics and reporting, geo-location analytics, what-if analytics, and social network analytics.
FineReport
FineReport is a business dashboard software that is free for personal use. It provides both on-premise and SaaS versions. The distinct advantage is that the dashboard can be displayed on the TV dashboard and other large screens smoothly. Besides, you can import the data from Excel into FineReport in batches. Therefore, it is easy to visualize excel into visually impressive elements.
FineReport software helps you manage your business, by providing you with a single place to store all of your data and to access it from anywhere.
It’s easy to use and has many features, such as the ability to create reports from scratch or from existing templates, export them in various formats (from PDF to Excel), set up tasks that will send you notifications when they’re complete, track time spent on projects and clients, create estimates for new customers, manage accounts receivable and payable, generate invoices and statements, track inventory levels, generate purchase orders for vendors (even if they aren’t on FineReport yet), and much more.
FineReport is a reporting tool that is free for personal use, without time and function limits.
The Excel-like interface is easy for users to generate, export, and print complex reports or irregular reports. Its capabilities of excel reporting tools, such as importing data from excel in batches, make creating reports from excel be incredibly convenient.
The data entry function makes this reporting software distinctive from others. Users can write the data back to the database via the web reports created by FineReport.
Besides, various open APIs make FineReport more flexible than open-source reporting tools to be integrated with other systems, and more efficiently to be customized.
The other stunning features of this software include,
- Open APIs for customization
- Dynamic Reports
- Query reports
- HTML Reports
- Automation Reports
- Adaptive display on mobile, tablet, TV screens
- Report Management
JasperReports
JasperReports is an open source reporting engine. It provides the ability to deliver rich content onto the printer, the screen, or into various formats such as PDF, HTML, XLS, RTF, ODT, CSV, TXT and XML files. It is a Java library and can be used in a variety of Java-enabled applications to generate dynamic content. Its main purpose is to help create page-oriented, ready-to-print documents in a simple and flexible manner.
JasperReports is an open source reporting engine that allows you to build reports in Java, XML, PDF and other formats. It can be used with any database, including Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.
JasperReports is designed for ease of use and flexibility. This means that it is simple to create reports with a wide variety of data sources and formats. You don’t need to know anything about SQL or Java programming because everything is done through an intuitive user interface.
JasperReports will save you time by doing the hard work for you. It provides a range of advanced features that allow you to create professional looking reports with minimal effort.
JasperReports Server Community Edition is Jaspersoft’s free version. It is one of the most popular open-source reporting tools. It is licensed under GPLv2 and is written in Java. This reporting tool supports multiple data sources, as well as supports various exporting formats such as PDF, HTML, CSV, and XML.
JasperReports also includes multiple components:
- JasperReports Library- an open-source reporting engine library
- JasperReports Server – a standalone, embeddable report server that analyzes data and provides scheduled task services.
- Jaspersoft Studio- an Eclipse-based report designer that creates complex reports, including charts, images, subreports, crossovers, and more.
- Jaspersoft ETL – an open-source ETL system that is easy to deploy and execute, creating a comprehensive data warehouse and data set.
iReport
iReport helps users to create very easy and sophisticated layouts containing charts, images, subreports, crosstabs and much more. The tool gives access to your data through JDBC, TableModels, JavaBeans, XML, Hibernate, CSV, and custom sources.
iReport is an open source reporting engine for data scientists and business analysts.
It provides a simple and intuitive platform for building reports that can be used in a variety of contexts, including internal business intelligence and analytics, or as a standalone product.
iReport is designed with simplicity in mind. With just a few clicks you can create a powerful report using all the data in your database. And even if you don’t know how to code, you can still build custom reports with ease!
iReport is a free and open-source report designer designed for the JasperReports Library and JasperReports Server. It can create complex reports such as charts, images, sub-reports, cross-tables, etc. The documents can be published and exported in a variety of document formats.
JFreeChart
JFreeChart is a 100% open-source Java programming drawing gallery that is easy to extend. It can generate line graphs, bar charts, pie charts, graphs, area charts, Gantt charts, dashboards, mixed graphs, and other charts. These charts can be exported as PNG, JPEG pictures.
JFreeChart is an open source Java charting library that offers users the maximum alternatives to represent their complex data in a simple manner. It enables the extensive use of X-Y charts, Pie charts, Bar graphs, Gantt charts, Pareto charts, combination charts, wafer map charts and other special types of charts. On a whole, JFreeChart is a comprehensive charting package.
- It is free, stable and lightweight, supporting multiple chart types
- It is a flexible design that is easily extensible and applied to both server-side and client-side applications
- It supports a variety of exporting types, including Swing components and JavaFX components, image files (including PNG and JPEG), and vector graphics file formats (including PDF, EPS, and SVG)
- JFreeChart is open source, which is under on the GNU general public license (LGPL) open source license
Pentaho
Pentaho reporting is a suite of open source reporting tool that enables the creation of relational and analytics reports from a wide range of data sources. The suite includes the Report Designer, Reporting Engine and Reporting SDK. Pentaho reporting is a part of the Pentaho BI Platform which has an analysis module comprised of an Analysis Engine (ROLAP) and advanced analytical views.
Pentaho is an open-source set of tools, including reporting designer, reporting engine, and the reporting SDK. The Community Edition is free, licensed under the Apache Software License.
It allows you to create reports that support the exporting reports to Excel, PDF, HTML, text, rich text, XML, and CSV. The generated reports can easily transform a variety of sources into readable data.
BIRT
BIRT is an eclipse-based open-source reporting tool for creating reports that can be embedded in rich clients and web applications, completely free for business use.
BIRT consists of two main components: a visual report designer for creating BIRT designs, and runtime components that can be deployed to any Java environment.
The BIRT project also includes a diagram engine that can be integrated into one of the BIRT application diagrams.
BIRT design templates are saved as XML and have access to many different data sources, including the JDO data store, jfire script objects, POJOs, SQL databases, Web services, and XML.
Honourable Mentions
KoolReport
KoolReport is an intuitive and flexible open source reporting tool used to analyze your data. It ultimately turns the data into visual reporting and dynamic dashboards. The open source reporting tool is able to connect and get data from databases such as MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB as well as from CSV and Excel files. KoolReport contains many processes to support data cleansing, data manipulation and data analysis.
ReportServer
ReportServer is an open source reporting tool that integrates various BI reporting engines into a single user interface with the goal of allowing people to use the right analytics tool for the right purpose at the right time. There is a free community tier as well as an enterprise one, and the software’s Dynamic List feature allows for the ad-hoc generation of list-like reports.
QueryTree
QueryTree is an open-source, web-based ad-hoc reporting tool that works with any Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL or PostgreSQL database. Users can build reports on a mobile, tablet or desktop device using a simple and responsive report building widget. Users can select any table or view in your application’s database, auto-join to related tables. Next users can add filters, grouping and calculated columns much like an Excel pivot table.
Conclusion
Software development is a dynamic process that requires changing requirements and solutions for new problems. And only the best PHP reporting tools can help in that to make the life of a developer easier.