Chapter 10. Reports and an API

A report is a common output of computer systems no matter what the application type, be it a business application or a game. Although alerts, dashboards, and widgets have been developed for decades, they do not seem able to compete with the effectiveness of a report, which has a defined scope (for example, the previous six weeks of data) and can be converted into and executed in many other document formats on other devices.

The digestion of data output from computer systems still has a human factor, even though computers have advanced a lot since the days of U.S. President Kennedy. You may wonder how long it will be before the insight of an expert is matched by a big data analysis or genuine Artificial Intelligence (AI).

An API is a common feature of applications, especially those that are in a cloud that expands the usefulness of a system and drives the integration.