How to develop an app from scratch—and why reporting isn’t optional

What separates a good application from a phenomenal one, particularly in OEM and enterprise software, is a factor that’s rarely considered: the app's ability to report data with clarity, precision, and flexibility every single time. 

These qualities are more than just mere technical virtues; they are what drive end-user engagement, empower confident decision-making, and turn data into actionable insights. When reporting is treated as a core capability rather than an add-on, it becomes a powerful engine for delivering real, measurable value.

This article delves into the stripped-down process of building reporting-centric applications that prioritize this impact from the very start. 

Time to flesh out your app’s reporting needs

Planning and requirements gathering: This is the make-or-break segment of your app creation journey, so give it the attention it deserves. 

• The scope: What kind of reports will the application serve? 

• The users: Who will be using these reports, and what are their technical skills and reporting needs? This dictates how the design and features will pan out.

• Data sources: Where will the data come from? Databases (SQL, NoSQL), APIs, spreadsheets, or other systems? Without a clear understanding of your data sources, connecting to them will be an uphill battle.

• Reporting requirements: What specific metrics, visualizations (charts, tables), and formats (PDF, CSV, on-screen) will you need?

• Security: How will you ensure data privacy and control access to reports?

• Performance: Exactly how much data will the app process and display? Ultimately, performance considerations will influence your technology choices and data handling strategies.

What's in and what’s out?

Selecting the Technology Stack: Keep in mind that the tools and technologies you’ll use to build your app will dictate its scalability, maintainability, and most importantly, the user experience. 

Here are some common categories that will require consideration:

Frontend

The frontend of your app is what the user sees and interacts with, and is intrinsic to the user experience. Some of the most common toolkits for the frontend include: 

• HTML, CSS, JavaScript: These are the foundational languages for web development.

• JavaScript frameworks/libraries: React, Angular, or Vue.js are the end-all, be-all for building interactive user interfaces. 

• Charting libraries: Chart.js, D3.js, and Plotly.js. are vital if you want to have different types of visualization for users.

• UI component libraries: Material UI, Bootstrap, and Tailwind CSS all fall under pre-built UI elements and are perfect for expediting development.

Backend

The backend of your app is where your server-side logic and data handling are processed. Backend toolkits include: 

• Programming languages: There are numerous languages to choose from, such as Python (with frameworks like Django or Flask), Node.js (with Express.js), Ruby on Rails, Java (with Spring), or PHP (with Laravel or Symfony), or Go.

• Web servers: Nginx and Apache provide a way to serve your applications to users. 

• Databases:

  • Relational (SQL): If you have structured data, consider PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQL Server. 
  • NoSQL: MongoDB and Cassandra are best for flexible or large-scale data.
  • Data Processing Libraries: It's a good idea to consider libraries specific to your backend language of choice, such as Pandas (Python).

Deployment

When deploying your app, you have two hosting options: 

• Cloud platforms: AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, Heroku, and Netlify are all worthwhile cloud platforms. 

• Traditional hosting: This entails setting up your own servers.

Prioritize data needs, not just features

Database design and data integration: An app that’s worth its weight in gold will typically have a solid, well-thought-out data model powering it. 

• Schema design: Contemplating using a relational database? Then you’ll need to design the tables and relationships to efficiently store and retrieve data for reporting.

• Data pipelines: How will data from your sources be extracted, transformed, and loaded (ETL) into your database or made accessible to your backend? This is where scheduled scripts, APIs, and dedicated ETL tools come into play.

• API integration: If your data comes from external APIs, you’ll want to implement logic to fetch and process that data.

Backend development

The backend is where you weave your reporting magic. 

• API development: When creating APIs (RESTful is the gold standard), make sure your frontend can seamlessly call to request data for specific reports. 

• Business logic: Building off of user requests and predefined requirements, the next step is to implement the logic for generating reports. 

• Security: Authentication (verifying user identity) matters just as much as authorization (regulating access to specific reports and data), so implement both to a tee.

Frontend development

Users live and breathe inside the frontend. It’s what they’ll see whenever they want to pull pixel-perfect reports. Make it count.

• UI: When building the user interface, ensure users can select reports, specify parameters (e.g., date ranges, filters), and view the results.

• Data visualization: Charting libraries are excellent at displaying data in an understandable and visually appealing way. 

• Data presentation: Present tabular data as clearly as possible while providing options for sorting, filtering, and exporting.

• User interaction: Add interactivity features, such as drill-down capabilities or the ability to customize views. 

Testing: It matters, a lot

Reporting applications demand more testing requirements than your regular app, and for obvious reasons. When planning your development timeline and budget, make sure you allot enough of your resources for multi-faceted tests, including: 

• Unit tests: Test individual components of your frontend and backend code, down to specific lines and iterations.

• Integration tests: Test how seamlessly the frontend and backend work together, as this is incredibly important for embedded analytics.

• User Acceptable Testing (UAT): Bring your target users on board. Are reports legible, usable, and exportable in the formats they want, need, and love?

• Performance testing: Assess how the app can handle different loads and data volumes. In short, stress test it at scale. 

Deployment: Getting your app into the real world

When it comes to rolling out your app, the whole process must be handled intelligently. It’s more than simply pushing out code. Your deployment will need to include: 

• Deployment platform: Select a suitable cloud provider or hosting solution.

• Environment setup: Configure the necessary servers and infrastructure for reliability purposes.

• Code deployment: Here comes the big moment. It’s time to upload your backend and frontend code to the server.

• Database setup: If your database isn’t accessible or correctly configured, that’s a problem.

• Domain name and SSL: Your final task in this round should be setting up a domain name and securing it with HTTPS.

Maintenance and iteration: Ship it but never forget it

Post-launch, your app’s reporting capabilities become a living, breathing product that must be taken good care of. 

• Monitoring: Make the most of observability tools to track usage, performance, and error lags. 

• Bug fixes: Should there be a bug or performance issue, address it immediately, as it can have dire compliance implications.

• Updates and enhances: What are users saying about the app? Are reports answering the right questions? Continuously fine-tune the app based on user feedback and evolving requirements.

Seamlessly embed the superpower of reporting with Jaspersoft

At Jaspersoft, we know that reporting drives engagement, and an app is only half as good as its reporting capabilities. That’s why we offer the ability to embed analytics and reporting directly into your app, faster (and better) than building it yourself. 

The impact? A richly immersive experience that offers pixel-perfect precision, ad hoc self-service reporting, and scalability to grow as you grow. 

Join us for a live demo. 

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