This section briefly describes some typical activities involved in using ACI, the components involved, and the types of users who perform them. Examples of possible user types are identified in italics; your business may have a different division of responsibilities.
In working with reports, the following steps are common:
In Framework Manager, the modeler ensures that metadata is presented in a manner that business users can understand. Modelers import metadata from one or more databases, and then add to the model to meet their users’ requirements.
A model structures, adds to, and manages data in ways that make sense to business users. Planning and creating a model is an important task that should be performed by people familiar with both the database structure and the needs of the business users.
For information about data modeling, see the Framework Manager User Guide.
The modeler then publishes the metadata to the Reporting Center in the form of packages.
A package contains all the data required to meet the needs of the intended users. For example, one package can contain human resources data, and another sales data. When users open an authoring studio, they must select which package to use.
Note: Each report can contain data from only one package.
Business users and report authors use the published packages to understand their business data, and to create reports in the Query Studio or Report Studio.
Note: When authors create a “report,” they are actually creating a report specification. The report specification is an XML representation of the queries and prompts that are used to retrieve data, as well as the layouts and styles used to present the data.
Report users run, view, and manage their content in the Reporting Center.
