Ad hoc Reporting Tutorial

You must be logged into the Pentaho User Console before continuing.

This walkthrough shows you how to create a simple, template-based report that shows which territory generates the most sales.

  1. Click the Create New Report button in the middle of the Pentaho User Console screen. The ad hoc query wizard will start.
  2. In the first step of the wizard, select Orders in the Select a Data Source pane. As you become more familiar with Ad Hoc Reports features, you can add your own relational or flat file (CSV) data sources to ad hoc reports. See the Getting Started with Pentaho Guide for details.
  3. In the Apply a Template field, select a predefined report template that appeals to you. A thumbnail preview of the template will appear in the Template Details field. A template specifies a variety of properties in the report that affect its appearance, like font size and background colors for various report elements.
  4. Click Next.
  5. In the Available Items list, click the Territory business column and drag it to the upper right into the Level 1 box. This will determine how the data is grouped.
  6. Drag and drop the Amount and Buy Price into the Details box on the right. This determines which fields to display for the given groups.
  7. Click Go to preview how these new items have affected the report, then close the preview tab when you're done.
  8. Click Next.
  9. Click the Territory item in the Groups list. A list of general options will appear on the right.
  10. Click Center. This will center the territory name above each table, making it easier to read.
  11. Click Amount, then click Add in the Sort Detail Columns area on the right. This will sort the sales amounts from lowest to highest.
  12. Click Go to test the new change, or Next to continue to the next part of the wizard.
  13. To set the header, footer, description, paper type, and page orientation, change the on-screen values for these elements accordingly. PDF is the only output type that has a concept of a page, so the Page portion of the Header and Footer sections only applies to PDFs.
  14. Click the blue Save button in the top toolbar to save your report. In the ensuing file dialog, navigate to the location you want to save the report to, and type in a filename for the report. You can continue to modify your report after it's been saved; just click Save to update the report file after you've made changes.
You now have a report that shows how much revenue is coming from each sales territory, and the itemized price of each purchased product. As you can see, ad hoc reporting is quicker and simpler than Report Designer, but doesn't offer nearly the same level of design detail, nor does it have advanced reporting features like conditional formatting or parameterization.