Users requesting a report are given the option of generating a live report or viewing a previous generated “report snapshot”, which may be a version of the report that was previously generated and stored. The report snapshot may have been generated in response to a previous request for the report, or it may have been generated automatically in response to some trigger event or on a period basis. In response to the user's selection of a live report, the report is generated from data stored in a database, and provided to the user when ready. In addition, the live report is stored as a report snapshot in a storage device. In response to the user's selection of a snapshot, the previously generated report snapshot is retrieved from the storage device and provided to the user. Multiple snapshots for the same report can be made available.