BIRT: The Eclipse Reporting Framework: Krishna Venkatraman

BIRT: The Eclipse Reporting Framework
Krishna Venkatraman
Product Management, Actuate Corporation
© 2006 Actuate Corporation ; made available under the EPL v1.0 | Feb 17, 2006
Agenda
 BIRT Overview and Architecture
 BIRT Feature Set
 BIRT Integration and Customization
 Ways to get engaged
BIRT: The Eclipse Reporting Framework | © 2006 Actuate Corporation; made available under the EPL v1.0
BIRT Overview & Architecture
Report Development Strategy
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Reporting needs are widespread

 Typically report design an afterthought; hand coding/JSP coding
 In UAT or production, users demand more
 An extensible framework is required for handling reporting needs
 Relational & non-relational data sources
 Sorting, aggregation and calculations on data
 Professional presentation of information
 BIRT fits needs well
Example: Financial Web Site
Site Navigation
Print Report
News & Promotions Investment Report
Reporting in BIRT
Operational Reporting Ad hoc Query & Reporting Analytics/OLAP/Data Mining
In Reality, this is a Continuum:
Typical Characteristics:
• Operational reports • Simple ad hoc exploration of data • Complex “Slice and Dice” of data
• Developer creates reports • Business user creates reports • Business user creates reports
• Very easy end user access • Fairly easy to use • More complex to use
• Highly formatted • Typically limited formatting • Minimal formatting
• Multiple output formats • Interactive • Very interactive
• No end user training needed • Minimal training • Requires training
• Data access can be complex • Semantic layer hides complexity • Semantic layer/data cubes
BIRT Initial
Focus
BIRT Users & Benefits
 Minimizes Eclipse developer  Focused on $, developer productivity
training  End user satisfaction
 Increase dev. productivity
 Lower costs Managers
 Nice looking reports

 Nice looking reports  Content as HTML and PDF
End
Users
 Designs reports using Java Report  Uses report facilities provided
Eclipse-based designer by Java developer
 Embed pre-designed reports Dev Dev  Uses RCP based report
in application designer
 Creates report libraries &  Saves calories vs. JSP/Java  Creates & uses report libraries
templates  Minutes vs. days for HTML, & templates
vs. weeks for PDF
 Minutes to modify as user
requirements change
 Iterative development gets
the right reports quicker
High Level BIRT Architecture
Eclipse Custom Report Engine

Custom
Report Report
Services…
Designer Designer…
Data Transform. Charting
1 Services Services 3 HTML
2Generation Presentation PDF
Report Design Engine Services Services Print
RTF,
XML,
Excel…
XML Data Report
Report Document
Design
Data
BIRT Features
Report Designer Features
 Fully integrated with Eclipse  Palette of report components – Text &
 WYSIWYG Editor HTML, data, images, tables, grids, lists,
 Integrated Chart Wizard labels
 Styles  Sorting, grouping, filtering, conditional
 Wizards for guided highlighting, mapping
development  Scripting in JavaScript
 Report outline  Hyperlinking
 Preview within report designer  Data sources: POJO’s, JDBC, CSV
for iterative development
Report Designer Features – New in BIRT 2.0
 Report Component Libraries  Direct XML source editor for report design
 Report Templates  Multi-pass processing (top N/bottom N)
 Import CSS, themes  Data Sources: XML
 Handle CLOB & BLOB  Call stored procedures
 Scripting in Java  Runtime data source binding - switching
 Cascading & dynamic report from dev to test to production
parameters
 Bookmarks
 Table of Contents
 Report paging
Report Engine Features
 Engine API allows integration of BIRT runtime into Java app
 Java class libraries for generating reports from design
 Report output is HTML, PDF
 Interactive Viewer
 Context pass through to data source
New in BIRT 2.0
Chart Features
 Out-of-the-box integration with BIRT report designer
 Extensive types of charts: Bar, line, area, pie, scatter, stock, meters,
including 3D
 Output formats supported: Java: SWING, SWT; Images: PNG GIF, GIF,
JPG, BMP; Vector Graphics: SVG
 Formatting options for chart elements such as axes, series, and legends
 Scripting control using Java or JavaScript allows customization of chart
output
 Java library to allow Java developers to embed charting functionality into
their applications
New in BIRT 2.0

BIRT in Action!
BIRT Integration & Customization
API Overview
Report Designer Report Viewer

Design Report
Engine Engine
API API
XML
XML
HTML
Open Report
Report
PDF
Data Design
Design
Access
Chart UI Chart
API Engine
Report
API Doc
Extension Point Overview
 Extensibility is a key principle for the BIRT project
 Data source extensibility
 Application specific design-time query builders
 Custom design-time & run-time data access
 Custom business logic extensibility
 Incorporate complex business logic scripting
 Access existing and new Java code
 Visualization extensibility
 Build new visual data presentation ‘widgets’
 Extend charting with new chart types; new output formats
 Rendering reports for output
 Target report output for specific devices & formats
Deployment Options
Paginated HTML, PDF, TOC, Bookmarks, CSV
Eclipse Plugin J2EE AS
Web Viewer Web Viewer Java Application

ReportEngine ReportEngine ReportEngine
RptDesign
XML RptDocument
Design File Report
Document
A Real World Example – Ivis Technologies
 Ivis Technologies - leading

provider of operational
improvement software products
 xProcess - premier process
improvement and project
execution environment
 Capture & create processes
 Generate project plans
 Continuous process improve
 http://www.ivis.com
A Real World Example – Ivis Technologies
 xProcess embeds BIRT

 BIRT designer for built in reports
 Customer built wrap DE API
 Report lib => ~10 data sets
 Runtime launched from xProcess

 Project Summary Report
provides snapshot of a project at
any time
Ways to Get Engaged in BIRT
 As a user of BIRT technology

 Testing BIRT and providing feedback in the process of using it
 As an active member of the BIRT community
 Developing tutorials, examples, etc.
 Active in the BIRT newsgroup
 As a developer of extensions
 Extending BIRT through the standard extension points
 Data sources; new charts; new output formats; …
 Could be for the open source community, could be for internal use
 As a developer in existing BIRT code
 Need to get involved through the Eclipse development model
 Proposing/leading a new project under the BIRT umbrella
The BIRT Community
 Project Committers
 Actuate (http://www.actuate.com)
 Innovent Solutions (http://www.innoventsolutions.com)
 IBM (http://www.ibm.com)
 BIRT pages on Eclipse web site

 http://www.eclipse.org/birt
 Download BIRT and walk through a tutorial
 Active feedback and comments in the BIRT newsgroup

 news://news.eclipse.org/eclipse.birt
 Participate through the Eclipse development process

 See http://www.eclipse.org > Projects

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BIRT: The Eclipse Reporting Framework

 BIRT Overview and Architecture

 BIRT Feature Set

 BIRT Integration and Customization

 Ways to get engaged

Reporting needs are widespread

News & Promotions Investment Report

Operational Reporting Ad hoc Query & Reporting Analytics/OLAP/Data Mining

In Reality, this is a Continuum:

 Nice looking reports

Eclipse Custom Report Engine

 Engine API allows integration of BIRT runtime into Java app

 Java class libraries for generating reports from design

 Report output is HTML, PDF

 Context pass through to data source

New in BIRT 2.0

New in BIRT 2.0

Report Designer Report Viewer

Eclipse Plugin J2EE AS

Web Viewer Web Viewer Java Application

 Ivis Technologies - leading

 xProcess embeds BIRT

 Customer built wrap DE API

 Report lib => ~10 data sets

 Runtime launched from xProcess

 As a user of BIRT technology

 BIRT pages on Eclipse web site

 Active feedback and comments in the BIRT newsgroup

 Participate through the Eclipse development process

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