Traditional reports
Pega Platform™ provides two ways to access and work with application data: Insights and traditional reports (Report Definitions). Although both use columns and filters to define what data is returned, they serve different purposes.
Insights for user facing analysis
In Constellation applications, Insights are the primary reporting experience. Insights enable business users and developers to analyze application data through the Explore Data landing page.
With Insights, users can:
- Create visualizations such as charts and tables
- Explore and analyze operational data
- Interact with report results
- Drill down into data to investigate trends and business outcomes
- Build reporting views without creating Report Definition Rules
Insights are designed for data analysis and visualization within the Constellation user experience, making them the preferred option when users need to monitor performance, track business metrics, or investigate operational data.
Traditional reports for data retrieval
Traditional reports are created by configuring Report Definition Rules. A Report Definition defines:
- The data source
- The columns to return
- The filters used to limit results
- Sorting and formatting options
While Report Definitions can still display data in tabular, summary, or chart formats, they are not surfaced through the Constellation reporting experience or Report Browser. Instead, they are commonly used behind the scenes to retrieve and structure data for application functionality.
Common uses for Report Definitions include:
- Populating Data Pages
- Retrieving filtered, real time application data
- Centralizing query logic for reuse across the application
- Supporting offline mobile solutions
- Providing data for business processes and user interfaces
Using traditional reports
Columns and filters
Both Insights and Report Definitions rely on columns and filters to determine which data is returned.
Columns define the data that is included in the result set, such as properties, calculations, labels, and formatting.
Filters limit the data that is returned by applying conditions such as:
- Property values
- Date ranges
- Assignment criteria
- User supplied parameters
The key difference is how the data is used:
- Insights focus on helping users explore, analyze, and visualize data.
- Traditional reports focus on retrieving and structuring data for application processing and reuse.
Report Definitions as Data Page sources
A common use of Report Definitions is as a data source for Data Pages. When a Data Page references a Report Definition, Pega Platform runs the report query and populates the Data Page with the returned results.
Using a Report Definition as a Data Page source helps you:
- Reuse existing query logic
- Avoid duplicating filtering and sorting definitions
- Centralize data access in a single rule
- Provide filtered, real time data to application features
Offline mobile support
For offline enabled mobile applications, Report Definitions can supply data to large Data Pages. Pega Platform generates a populator function based on the Report Definition logic and uses it during synchronization to make current data available when the device is offline.
Choosing the right option
Use Insights when users need to analyze, visualize, and interact with business data.
Use traditional reports (Report Definitions) when the application needs a technical mechanism to retrieve and structure data, such as sourcing a Data Page or providing data for application processing.
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