There are various categories that reports can be grouped into. From our perspective, the following categories are the most important:
Transactional reports: Data for these reports comes from transactions and their objective is to present data at a very detailed and granular level. This type of report is usually used in an organization's day-to-day business. Examples of this kind of report are sales receipts, purchase orders, and so on.
Tactical reports: Data for these reports comes from summaries of transactional data. The level of summary is low, usually not more than daily or weekly. This type of report contains information to support short-term decision making. For example, a stock inventory allows us to place orders to replace merchandise.
Strategic reports: These reports commonly used data sources clean, reliable and stable, for example of a data warehouse, and their goal is to create business information. This kind of report supports medium and long-term decision making and is usually highly summarized; it allows for parameterization and includes charts and subreports. For example, a seasonal analysis of sales lets us determine what marketing campaigns should be carried out at given periods of time.
Helper reports: Data for these reports comes from diverse origins and contains information that may not be normalized, including photos, images, and bar codes. This kind of report is not aimed at supporting decision making but serves a variety of interests. Examples of this kind of report are technical product descriptions, letterheads, ID cards, and so on.
Note
Defining data
Data is an expression that describes some characteristic of an entity. For example, in saying that a box is black, we are specifying data (black) regarding a characteristic (color) of an entity (box).
Defining information
Information is obtained through data processing. Data can be processed through summary, classification, grouping, and ordering.