Software Requirements Specification for Reports

Question

Reports, generally, have the following components:

• Report title
• Physical location (repository, network drive, or web server file system)
• Parameters (hidden and user-supplied)
• Query (SQL)
• Security (roles and authorization)
• Formatting and layout (column order, static text, and images)

Q.1. What else would you want to read in a technical specification before you can begin developing the report?

Q.2. What software would you use to draft the report's design?

Answer 1

On Q1 - what are you using your technical spec for? I'd add a report objective to the spec. The most important bit is what the report needs to convey: who is going to be using the report, and what information will help them make easier / quicker decisions.

On Q2 - Crystal is great for building reports - although recently I've been using the open-source birt plugin as I like the integration with eclipse. (I haven't used crystal's eclipse plug-in or SSRS).

Depends a bit on your requirements:

• Are you looking for a commercial package, or open-source?
• If you're selecting a new system, what will the people who will be creating the reports be most comfortable with?
• Do you need training or commercial support?
• What sort of data sources are you using?

You might refer to these for Q2:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/485901/what-reporting-platform-do-you-prefer

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/168427/compare-sql-server-reporting-services-to-crystal-reports

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/115283/which-reporting-technology