Business Intelligence: Reporting (Definitions)

"An automated business process or related functionality that provides a detailed, formal account of relevant or requested information." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

[enterprise reporting:] "1.The process of producing reports using unified views of enterprise data. 2.A category of software tools used to produce reports; a term for what were simply known as reporting tools." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

[ad hoc reporting:] "A reporting system that enables end users to run queries and create custom reports without having to know the technicalities of the underlying database schema and query syntax." (Microsoft, "SQL Server 2012 Glossary", 2012)

"A process by which insight is presented in a visually appealing and informative manner." (Evan Stubbs, "Delivering Business Analytics: Practical Guidelines for Best Practice", 2013)

"The practice of reporting what has happened, analyzing contributing data to determine why it happened, and monitoring new data to determine what is happening now. Also known as descriptive analytics and business intelligence." (Brenda L Dietrich et al, "Analytics Across the Enterprise", 2014)

"The process of collecting data from various sources and presenting it to business people in an understandable way." (Daniel Linstedt & W H Inmon, "Data Architecture: A Primer for the Data Scientist", 2014)

"A common interaction with an organizing system." (Robert J Glushko, "The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition" 4th Ed., 2016)

"The function or activity for generating documents that contain information organized in a narrative, graphic, or tabular form, often in a repeatable and regular fashion." (Jonathan Ferrar et al., 2017)

"Business intelligence reporting, or BI reporting, is the process of gathering data by utilizing different software and tools to extract relevant insights. Ultimately, it provides suggestions and observations about business trends, empowering decision-makers to act." (Data Pine) [source] 

"When we talk about reporting in business intelligence (BI), we are talking about two things. One is reporting strictly defined. The other is 'reporting' taken in a more general meaning. In the first case, reporting is the art of collecting data from various data sources and presenting it to end-users in a way that is understandable and ready to be analyzed. In the second sense, reporting means presenting data and information, so it also includes analysis–in other words, allowing end-users to both see and understand the data, as well as act on it." (Logi Analytics) [source]