Is there a generic open-source reporting system out there?

Question

I recently started a position at a new company, and one of the first projects they want is an internal reporting system that points at database A, B, C and reports various metrics/statistics/predictions. Basically, the same thing I've done or worked on and every company I've ever been hired by.

Since this gets a bit boring after a while, I was wondering if there already exists some sort of open-source package that accomplishes this goal. Ideally, it would

1. work with multiple databases out-of-box (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MSSQL, Oracle minimally),
2. determine relationships between tables (either automatically from their schemas, or allow you to manually set them up after pooling all the tables),
3. allow you to create reports based on a subset of tables, customizing what data you wanted to be displayed/calculated (I suppose this would be challenging since you've no idea what every audience wants, and would need to make this flexible)

I'm debating making something like this in my spare time if one does not already exist. Just curious.

Answer 1

I am hearing good things about pentaho, but I don't think you are looking for generic BI tool, or maybe you are?

I would suggest you update your question, I would contend that 'various metrics/statistics/predicitons' are not 'basically, the same thing' for all (to the point that it is really not clear what are you after).

Still I can also recognize (even from my own experience) that there is a niche of repetitive tasks when dealing with reporting and analysis.

I do recommend that you work out what exactly is 'this goal' that you mention and slightly describe through the 3 requirements listed above.

Also, regarding requirements:
2. what sort of relationships would you like to recognize
3. 'create reports' in a 'flexible' way might be a bit complicated and is a sizeable project in its own right

Answer 2

I guess Jasper has all the things you need http://www.jaspersoft.com/