The disclosed embodiments include a technique to obtain search results from the application of transformation operations on partial search results obtained from across internal and/or external data sources. Examples of transformation operations include arithmetic operations such as an average, mean, count, or the like. Examples of reporting transformations include join operations, statistics, sort, top head. Hence, the search results of a search query can be derived from partial search result rather than include the actual partial search results. In this case, the ordering of the search results may be nonessential. An example of a search query that requires a transformation operation is a “batch” or “reporting” search query. The related disclosed techniques involve obtaining data stored in the bid data ecosystem, and returning that data or data derived from that data.