One of the best features Jaspersoft offers is the virtual data source-based reports development, as well as virtual data source-based domain implementation. This has been available for almost more than ten years. I don't think any tool would have such a great functionality of writing a query from multiple data sources, bringing data from multiple data sources, and keeping it into one. Many warehousing tools might have it, but you still need to connect to a single data source for your reporting. However, in Jaspersoft, you can create virtual data sources directly in the server and you can have direct SQL queries on multiple databases and then develop reports. This is one of the very nice features that I see and also in terms of interactive dashboarding, with HTML5 charts compared to the heavy licensing costs of the on-demand tools, this licensing-wise is quite cheaper and the features that it offers are quite good compared to other tools.
I can tell you more about how I use the virtual data source feature. CLIP contains the pricing data, whereas the main RM for a portfolio has a relationship manager who handles that particular portfolio and pricing-related charges for the respective client. All the pricing data comes from CLIP application, whereas all the portfolio RM relation will be coming from a different application called CRM, where we have the customer data as well as the RM data, and the pricing data sits in CLIP. What we have done is create this logical layer with the combination of CRM and CLIP, wherein CLIP business can get to see who is the RM, who is the RM in charge of this particular portfolio and how the pricing strategies are being maintained, how the charges are being maintained can be viewed at a single place using this logical layer with the feature of virtual data sources.
Jaspersoft has positively impacted my organization. For the operations team inside the bank, they do a lot of MIS (Management Information System) reporting on all the transactions happening. One of the specific reports is a transactions payment report where they want to find out how the funds are being transferred, what are the charges made by the bank, and if the charges are happening correctly. All the calculations which are used by our internal teams for their analysis, and then they submit to the regulator based on their analysis on all the transactions related information.
I can share more about the impact. Earlier, when we didn't have Jaspersoft, even in the current world, there are teams, especially even in operations, that are implementing a lot of reports in Excel and doing all the calculations and after that doing their analysis using Excel itself. Once Jaspersoft is used, we have automated their manual activities and saved literally almost everything. Previously, they usually took one and a half weeks to prepare a report for their analysis. Now it takes less than two hours because we have automated everything and they get their report into their hands. They just use the data that we provide for further massaging and finish their analysis. This saves literally one week plus it saves additional time.