Playing with POI (I)

Although the title sounds strange it has been a pleasure discovering POI!

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago on a post, POI is an Apache project for spreadsheets generation. I had the opportunity to know about this new tool while advising Microgenesis in some of their current projects. Their customers required them quite difficult dynamic reports, thus, they decided to use POI.

This two, showing below (click on the image if you do not see the animation), are some of the very interesting customized reports developed for their customers:

Accounting Report:

Generated dynamically with the posted document’s information, allows the user have a general view of the accounting information during the last 5 years and also drilling down to each account’s amount. It is also possible to include some accounting ratios (liquidity, profitability, activity, profit margin, etc.) for a financial statement analysis and facilitate a better understanding of the information.

Assets Report:

Generated dynamically with all assets and amortizations information. Gives a whole idea of an enterprise assets value and situation for the selected year.

Both examples are generated as spreadsheets with all its functionalities: the user can change the information managing different scenarios and situations, create charts or graphics, edit and include new formules, etc.

I will give some technical explanation and code examples on next posts.

P.D.: You can also find some more POI examples here.