A product-line approach to database reporting

Abstract

Reporting for analysis is a common demand to database programmers. Unlike dynamic data analysis, reporting tend to be foreseeable. Despite this fact, staff waste their time programming similar reports time and again, where reports are often built from scratch with little if any reuse at all. Based on the predictability and similarity among reports, this work presents a product-line approach to database reporting. The feature model, core assets and production plan of the product line are sketched, and the architecture discussed. The work was conducted under a main requirement: data warehouse technology was not available. Either the cost or the lack of appropriate staff makes small-and-medium companies reluctant to use these sophisticated tools while simple reporting is all they need. In this scenario, the product-line approach can be a cost-effective solution to achieve reuse.