Canned Reporting Introduction: Launch of Helical Insight version 6.0 Open Source BI
Helical Insight is an open source BI product built on java and react with flexible deployment options, support of embedding SSO and white labelling as well as support of lot of other features.
We are product to announce the launch of version 6.0 of our product i.e. Helical Insight 6.0.
With this version we are introducing a new module — Canned Reporting, this module can be used to create pixel perfect, multi pager document/form kind of reports with a lot of formatting, things like header, footer, summary, page header, page footer, calculations, images etc. This module can be used to create reports like invoices, bank statements, salary slips, P&L statements etc.
These built canned reports are also having a lot of different kind of exporting options which includes PDF, Excel, CSV, PPT, XML, HTML, JPG, PNG etc. These reports can also have filter’s like single select filter, multi select filter, date picker, date range picker, slider, search, input box etc. Further, there is proper data row level data security based on the session of the user (name of the user, his role, his organization, his profile attributed and profile values etc).
Also, these canned reports can also be directly embedded within a client’s product (whether is a webapp or mobile app etc) along with SSO. Hence a user can directly view these reports, interact with them etc directly from the client’s product itself. A common use case also is wherein these canned reports can also be email scheduled at a specific frequency to different set of people. Read more about when to use canned reports here.
🌍 Canned Reporting Tools and Options:-
There have been some very popular and strong tools which could be used for creating canned reports, however most of them have come to life.
(A) Crystal Reports: Crystal Reports is a long-standing business intelligence and reporting tool used by organizations to design and generate canned reports from various data sources. It has been widely adopted for its ability to create pixel-perfect, printable reports and integrate easily with enterprise applications like SAP.
However, Crystal Reports support is coming to an end December’2025. The implications of that means
· After support ends, no more bug fixes, security patches, or vendor help will be available, leaving you exposed to vulnerabilities.
· Compatibility issues may arise with modern databases, operating systems, or integration layers not tested against legacy Crystal versions.
· Migration under time pressure risks disruption — converting existing reports, retraining users, and verifying output consistency all require effort and careful validation.
· Licensing, infrastructure, and deployment of a new or upgraded reporting solution must be negotiated and procured quickly to avoid gaps.
· Parallel run and rollback strategies must be built in, because immediate cutover has a high risk if not thoroughly tested.
· Any delay beyond the end-of-support date multiplies exposure to operational, regulatory, or security risk.
The newly launched canned reporting module of Helical Insight can act as a good alternative for customers who are looking to migrate from crystal reports.
(B) Jasper Reports: Along with crystal reports, one of the most popular open source reporting tool has been Jasper reports. Jasper reports allowed to create pixel perfect canned reports kind of reports. Jaspersoft as a product has been popular for it’s canned reports and was having very poor functionalities on the dashboards and charts.
There has been certain changes like
· JasperReports has changed its licensing model, discontinuing support for the community edition and making enterprise pricing very high.
· The community edition download and support have been removed, and only the commercial edition with a paid 30-day trial is available.
· This has created a need among current JasperReports users to find alternative solutions with better cost-effectiveness and ongoing support
(C) SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services): SSRS is yet another very popular reporting tool provided by Microsoft. Microsoft has officially put SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) into maintenance mode and will no longer ship it with new versions. There would be no further features or functionalities or development on SSRS.
- Microsoft is directing SSRS customers to migrate reports to Power BI Report Server or Microsoft Fabric. Power BI Report Server is intended as the on-premises successor, but longer-term, the push is clear: adopt cloud solutions, modernize reporting, and leverage Power BI’s and Fabric’s AI capabilities
- Moving from SSRS to PowerBI is also not automated and smooth, especially for pixel perfect paginated reports and advanced customizations.
Concerns for customers
- PRICING: PowerBI with it’s per user pricing / capacity pricing, the cost can escalate quite quickly for larger deployments and that cost will keep on increasing only for every additional amount of data and users.
- Data Owernship: In many domains like Banking, Finance, Healthcare etc often there is need to keep the data with themselves. With Microsoft push towards cloud, it is going to be a concern to a lot of companies.
- Vendor lock in: Usage of PowerBI and Fabric works on Microsoft stack, thus resulting in long term vendor lock and no flexibility.
How Helical Insight Addresses these concerns
Helical Insight can act as a very good alternative to customers who are looking for alternative to Crystal report, or Jasper report, or SSRS. Helical Insight can very easily address the concerns which are listed above like
- Pricing: Helical Insight comes at flat price, which is not dependent on the number of users, or data size, or features.
- Flexible deployment: Helical Insight provides flexible deployment options i.e. you can get the installer/docker file and you can deploy on-premise, cloud, private cloud etc.
- Data Ownership: As the installation and deployment happens on customers own servers, hence customers have full control and ownership of the data.
- Complete BI Suite: Unlike many of the other canned reporting tools which only and only supports canned reports, Helical Insight offers a complete BI package. Helical Insight is one of the only tool which can provide canned reports, drag drop based charts/dashboards as well as AI/chat based analytics powered by LLMs.
- Canned Report: With version 6.0 support of pixel perfect document kind of canned reports.
- Dashboards: Tableau kind of dashboards with various visualizations and support drill down, drill through, interactivity and lot of other options.
- AI Integration: Helical Insight is also working on AI integration across various places, which can allow chat based analysis, prescriptive and descriptive analysis etc. (NOTE: this is work under progress and should be released shortly)
All these above features are supported by other modules like
- Embedding & SSO: Support of white labelling, embedding and SSO, which is useful for product based companies who would like to embed these analytics directly within their product.
- Exporting in various formats
- Email scheduling
- Row level data security and user role management
- Caching, HA LB etc for performance enhancement
- Docker support
Examples of Canned Reports across sectors:
Canned reporting module can be useful across sectors and geographies, like mentioned below
- Banking & Financial Institutions: Automatically generate Bank Statements, Account Summaries, and Loan Reports in PDF or Excel formats. These can be sent to clients or auditors without manual effort.
- Finance Teams: Produce Profit & Loss Statements, Balance Sheets, and Expense Reports in Excel for quick analysis or PDF for executive presentations.
- HR & Payroll Departments: Generate Salary Slips and Employee Appraisal Reports in bulk. Each report can be personalized and exported securely as PDFs.
- Sales & Operations Teams: Produce Invoices, Purchase Orders, and Sales Reports, exporting them as PDFs or PPT slides for client meetings or internal reviews.
- Education & Training Institutes: Create Certificates, Mark Sheets, or Training Completion Letters, exported instantly as PDFs for distribution.
This multi-format export ensures reports are ready for analysis, sharing, or presentation without extra work.
📢 Experience the Power of Helical Insight 6.0
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Take control of your analytics with the most flexible, open-source BI platform available today.
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📧 For inquiries: support@helicalinsight.com
