Patent ID: 7805400

Claim:
A system for use in generating a report for a client application, the system comprising: a computer storage medium including a metadata store comprising: design-time metadata including metadata for use in designing a report, the design-time metadata related to properties of entity data structures formed from information located in a database of the client application and related to relationships between the entity data structures; run-time metadata including metadata for use in generating a report previously designed, the run-time metadata related to properties of the entity data structures and related to relationships between the entity data structures; a processor that implements: a report controller receiving relational entity queries and entity cube queries from the design-time metadata stored in the metadata store and the run-time metadata stored in the metadata store; a report definition language generator generating a report definition using metadata from one of the design-time metadata stored in the metadata store and the run-time metadata stored in the metadata store depending on whether a report is to be designed by a developer or a select report is to be generated for interaction with a user; a query services engine executing a query of the database of the client application using the relational entity queries and entity cube queries received by the report controller from the design-time metadata and the run-time metadata to uncover a data set; a preview module that receives an indication that the report is to be previewed, the preview module obtains a validating session key to allow the report controller to decrypt and access information from the run-time metadata to preview the report; and a design engine rendering the report based on the report definition, parameters defined by the query of the database and the data set.