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Ask Slashdot: Is Reporting Still Relevant?
New submitter MrWHO (68268) writes A while ago we switched for monitoring our systems to the ELK (ElasticSearch, LogStash and Kibana) stack. Our management wanted to keep the reports they got — and possibly never read — flowing in at the beginning of every week with statistics like sites traffic, servers downtime, security alerts and the works. As we migrated some of our clients to the same stack they kept all asking for the same thing: reporting.
There was no way for us to create and schedule reports from ElasticSearch — searches for ElasticSearch and Jasper Reports returned nothing apart from people asking how to do it — so we created our own Jasper Reports plugin to create reports from ElasticSearch data, which we released on GitHub a while ago, and we promptly moved along.
None of our clients were easily convinced that a dashboard — Kibana — was a substitute for mail delivered PDFs, even if all the information was there, with custom created panels and selectable date ranges. On the other hand, on the ElasticSearch mailing list when questions were asked about "how do I do reports?" the answer was, and I sum it up here, "Why would you want reports when you have a dashboard?" Are reports still relevant — the PDF, templated, straight in to your mail kind — or the subset of my clients — we operate mainly in Italy — is a skewed sample of what's the actual reality of access to summary data? Are dashboards — management targeted ones — the current accepted solution or — in your experience — reports are still a hot item for management?
None of our clients were easily convinced that a dashboard — Kibana — was a substitute for mail delivered PDFs, even if all the information was there, with custom created panels and selectable date ranges. On the other hand, on the ElasticSearch mailing list when questions were asked about "how do I do reports?" the answer was, and I sum it up here, "Why would you want reports when you have a dashboard?" Are reports still relevant — the PDF, templated, straight in to your mail kind — or the subset of my clients — we operate mainly in Italy — is a skewed sample of what's the actual reality of access to summary data? Are dashboards — management targeted ones — the current accepted solution or — in your experience — reports are still a hot item for management?
People who have to read reports don't want to have to run them. They want them already done in PDF format so they just have to open and read them. The process of creating/searching/saving search in a dashboard is more work than people want to do (especially since they barely read the PDF's).
Because a dashboard is a transient thing, which is a snapshot in time and which you can't look back for historical records.
Corporations want things they can file and hold onto, and a PDF can do that much better than a dashboard. You can submit a report to an external entity ... a snapshot of your dashboard? Give me a break.
This is stupid, because it sounds like "why would you need your paystub when you can look at your bank balance". They're different things, and you can glean more information from looking at a series of reports, than an instantaneous dashboard.
If you think a dashboard does the same thing, then maybe your understanding of what they get used for is lacking?
There is a reason why management is asking for it. And your inability/unwillingness to deliver it means that you're either acting thick, or thinking that you are the most important aspect of your business.
God, it's like IT in the 90s all over again ... we don't care what you want, this is what we're giving you because we think it's cool.
This whole article reads like "we in IT are too uninterested in giving management what they want, so I need someone to help me phrase it better".
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It all comes down to movie psychology: A 'dashboard' is basically just a boring web based equivalent to the rows of screens and blinking lights and things that the jumpsuited minions hunch over, monitoring feverishly. A 'report' is the thing (piece of paper, datapad, etc. depending on era) that an obsequious yoeman hands to The Leader while he stands in a super-decisive Master and Commander pose in a suitably dramatic part of the set. The Leader then glances at the report and, thanks to the powers of decisive leadership, immediately gleans the relevant information and issues an order to rally his underlings.
'Dashboard' (while more useful) is basically a giant blinking signal that you are a peon, a cog in the machine. 'Report' is the executive summary with all the tedious detail drained out so that you can focus on being a big picture thinker and indispensable idea guy. It's like the difference between the giant bundle of keys that the janitor has (which can get you anywhere in the building; but show you to be a blue collar lackey) and the single RFID card that opens the suites on the top floor.
Neither law nor easily used technology has caught up with the "digital signature" in an open environment. Yes, I know PGP, but using it isn't automated widely.
For dashboards, email is far easier than the PITA of logging into yet-another-system and navigating who-knows-where-and-changes-often. Seriously... automate! Quit relying on people to do things manually.
The middle manager's job is to prove to his boss that all of his employees are actually doing something. The Emailed pdf serves as a daily reminder that "we are doing stuff."
Emailed PDF: "Just a quick reminder from the server that your employees are busy working hard, feel free to not read this."
vs
Dashboard: "Do my employees even do anything?? I guess I will go look that up."
strip everything down to "why do I still get a paycheck" and you will get to the answer, you never want to allow the big boss to think "do they even do anything?" Email is a preemptive strike against your boss's boss having to seek out that answer
reports will still linger around, strutting proud its cloak of obsolescence.
Reports are not obsolete. As a manager, my "to do" checklist is long enough. Logging in to a dashboard is something that takes time, and more importantly, is something I need to add to my checklist so I remember to do it. A report, on the other hand, is sitting patiently in my email inbox, until I open it with a single click as I process the rest of my email. If you work for me, it is your job to keep me informed. It is not my job to pull information out of you.
Not to mention, once it's in your inbox, you are no longer at the mercy of their downtime.