A report can generally be characterized as having these qualities:

·         Its layout is based on a set of “rules” and those rules are consistently applied to data pulled from a data store (such as a database, collection of business objects, XML files, etc.)

·         Its layout (or ”template”) is created first with no data, and then data is automatically added to the report at “run time” (or at the point the report is viewed)

·         Its data is pulled from a data store based on some type of query. That is, the data in the report is the result of a data query and it is not added manually by designers or users when the report is designed

·         Its layout is “paper oriented,” or designed with printing in mind. That means page breaks, page margins, and page sizes are all considered when design and rendering a report.

·         It can apply analytics (or “expressions”) to the data to make the data easier for business users to consume