Generating reports using distributed workstations

The invention features methods of, and systems for generating a report that depends on data stored in a plurality of remote workstations. The methods and systems involve at least some of the following steps: sending a request from a master workstation to the remote workstations specifying a group name and a named function; identifying data stored within each of the remote workstations belonging to a group specified by the group name; operating on the identified data within each of the remote workstations according to an algorithm specified by the named function to generate an output for each remote workstation; returning the output from each remote workstation to the master workstation; and consolidating the outputs at the master workstations to generate the report.