US Patent 7293031 Report specification generators and interfaces

Report specification generators, interfaces, and methods are provided. Existing specification objects are selected from a data store. New specification objects are created as shell specification objects. Moreover, computations are selected from the data store. The specification objects, the shell specification objects, and the computations are organized within a grid. In one embodiment, the grid is used to generate a template report schema. In another embodiment, a preview tool populates the grid with report data in order to present a preview.