Customizing your XBRL Cloud Environment

XBRL Cloud is quite powerful out of the box. What makes this system great is that you can customize the environment. Customization can be as simple as adding another XHTML report, or as complex as creating your own XBRL-based application.

Follow one of the quick links below to see how you can nuture your ultimate XBRL environment.

Quick Links:

• New Static Reports
• New Interactive Reports
• New API Methods
• Custom Applications
• DIY vs. Buy

Static reports are extremely easy to write. XBRL Cloud supports XBRL-aware XSL style sheets. Notably, there are myriad XSL extension functions designed to reach deep into the XBRL instance and taxonomy. In plain English, this means that you can easily write short style sheets that express complex reports. Because XSL is so flexible, you can easily create XHTML, Excel, PDF, or other XML-based output.

Please see Selecting the API Style to determine how to run your report. If your not sure which API to use, we highly recommend that you start with the Simple API.

You can transform your documents just by typing a URL into the browser!

Finally, If you want to write a new static report, please contact us. We may be able to locate a stylesheet that is similar to what you need (for free), thereby saving you some time.

In general, the XBRL Cloud services return XML documents. Furthermore, as mentioned above, if you don't like our XML, you can trivially build your own. The easiest way to create an interactive report is to use Adobe Flex (Flash), read XML off of the server, and then provide the user with a nice interactive way to view or analyze the data.

If you need to build complex XML, you can create your own New API Method.

Finally, you can call into XBRL Cloud using other great toolkits like AJAX or GWT.

Each user—or user community—has their own Virtual Private Server on XBRL Cloud. This means roughly that:

• You are given your own fully XBRL-enabled environment.
• You have full control of how your environment operates.

You can use our infrastructure to add your own Java servlets. Notably, you can make use of the REST or SOAP architecture, and the authentication. You have full control. If this is confusing, or you just want us to add functionality to the system for you, please contact us: we can customize your environment.

Everything above is fine and dandy: you can build custom reports (static or interactive) and custom methods. Using these features can get you some nice websites. However, maybe what you really want is a complete custom application. An "application" is at some level nothing more than connecting views together, and having the user move between these views. This movement might be as simple as a wizard, or as complex as, say, Microsoft Excel.

By tying disconnected pieces of XBRL Cloud functionality together (existing and custom), you can build some powerful applications.

Our suite of XBRL products provide you many of the tool you need for building everything from your own simple static HTML report to a complex XBRL application that collects XBRL, validates it, stores it in a database and reports on it. We encourage you to use the power of XBRL Cloud to solve your business problems, so feel free to start developing. You can always contact us for support if you have questions or need minor assistance.

We also provide development services, from just a little to get you started all the way to integrating custom XBRL processing into your tool chain and business processes. Contact us now to reach your goals quickly.