2. Integrating BIRT Reporting into Applications
Virgil Dodson
Evangelist
Actuate – BIRT Exchange

3. Overall Presentation Goal
Understand some of the reporting requirements you may encounter as you integrate BIRT Reports into Java Applications

4. Speaker’s qualifications
Virgil Dodson is a Developer Evangelist at Actuate Corporation
…and Forum Moderator, Blogger at BIRT Exchange community site
…and has presented BIRT technology at many conferences including Dr.Dobbs, EclipseCon, EclipseWorld, JAX, JFS, Rational, WJAX, MySQL, User Groups

5. Agenda BIRT Project Overview BIRT Report Integration Options
BIRT Designer
BIRT Runtime
BIRT Report Integration Options
Reporting Requirements to Consider
Actuate BIRT Product Line
Resources for Integrating BIRT into Applications

6. Open Source Reporting: Eclipse BIRT
Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools
Open source initiative as part of the Eclipse Foundation
Founded, organized and led by Actuate Corporation
Project launched in October, 2004
Project Goals
Next generation reporting technology
Eclipse-based Report Designer
Web-centric design metaphor
Open Source with rapid adoption
Standards based & highly extensible
Open XML design format
Build community and ecosystem
Over 5 Million Downloads
Downloads (1,000s)

7. BIRT Project Users Audience Features Easy Complex
Report Developers Drag & Drop authoring, charting
Advanced Report Developers Scripting, Script API
Runtime Integration Developers BIRT Viewer and Engine APIs
Report Design Integration Design Engine API
Extension Developers BIRT Extension Points
Core Development Eclipse Development, Open Source 7

8. High Level BIRT Architecture
Report Designer
Report Engine
Eclipse Report Designer
Eclipse
DTP,
WTP,…
Chart
Designer
Custom
Designer
Data
Transform.
Services
Charting
Engine
HTML
PDF
Excel
Word
PowerPoint
PostScript …
Generation
Services
Presentation
Services
Report Design Engine
Data
XML Report Design
Report Document
Data

9. BIRT Report Designer What is the BIRT Report Designer?
Eclipse plug-in or standalone designer (RCP)
What is the BIRT Report Designer?
Open source based and highly extensible
Modern, web-page design metaphor
Easy to use and powerful
Library and template components
Scripting in Java and JavaScript
Leverages the powerful Eclipse IDE

10. Report Gallery
Product Catalog
Employee Directory

11. Report Gallery
Crosstab/Matrix Report
Form Letter

12. Report Gallery
Sales Invoice
Sales Dashboard

13. Chart Gallery

14. Chart Gallery

15. Chart Gallery

16. BIRT/Google Maps Mashup at EclipseCon

17. DEMO
Quick Look at the BIRT Designer

18. BIRT Runtime

19. BIRT Report Engine
The BIRT Report Engine allows you to write Java code to read in report designs, apply any parameters etc, and output a report.
Used in standalone Java applications
RCP applications
Batch applications
Used in web applications
Sample code at BIRT Exchange

20. Report Engine API Overview
REAPI supports the following operations:
Discover report parameters
Get default parameter values
Generate report documents. (rptdocument)
Generate report output (PDF, HTML, paginated HTML, DOC, XLS, PPT, Postscript)
Fetch images and charts for a report
Export report data as CSV
Retrieve Table Of Contents, Bookmarks
Standalone,servlet, RCP

21. Engine Task Processes
3 tasks related to report execution and rendering
RunTask
RenderTask
RunAndRenderTask
Using RunTask and then RenderTask means multiple processes to generate and view a report.
RunAndRenderTask happens in single process so event firing order is different
Report Engine can be used in different ways

22. Engine Task Processes (cont.)
Engine Tasks used with the Example Web Viewer
‘frameset’ mapping uses RunTask and RenderTask… export from Viewer uses RenderTask
‘run’, ‘preview’ mapping uses RunAndRender Task
Engine Tasks used with the BIRT Designer
Web Viewer Preview uses RunTask and then RenderTask
Preview tab, plus rest of Preview icons use RunAndRenderTask

23. BIRT Pipeline with respect to the APIs
Report
Designer
Chart Builder
Report Engine
Optional Java Events
Design
Engine
Chart
Engine
Paginated HTML
PDF
CSV
WORD
XLS
PostScript
PPT
JavaScript Events
RptDesign
XML
Design File
Generation Phase
Presentation Phase
Report Engine
RptDocument
Report
Document
optional

24. DEMO
Quick Look at REAPI example

25. BIRT WebViewerExample
The BIRT Web Viewer is an open source example implementation of a web application for running and viewing BIRT reports and uses the Report Engine API
To view the report in the viewer complete with toolbar, navigation bar and table of contents features, use:
To view the report without the toolbar, navigation bar and table of contents features, use:
Other included Servlets are preview, document, output, extract
Deploy as WAR file, talk about toolbar features

26. BIRT WebViewerExample (cont.)
To go directly to an output format like PDF, use:
To get only a chart or table displayed as a reportlet, use:
ark=birtchart&__isreportlet=true
Deploy as WAR file

27. with toolbar
without toolbar

28. as reportlet
as PDF

30. Evolution of an Application
“Just give me a list of customer sales and the best performing city and state.” 1

31. Evolution of an Application
“We also need to dynamically link the customers’ to another report” 2 1

32. Evolution of an Application
“We’d like to slice this by sales rep, too, grouped alphabetically.” 3 2 1

33. Evolution of an Application3 4 2 1
“Actually, we’d like to be able to produce a completely separate report for each rep.”

34. Evolution of an Application3 4 2 1
“Maybe they should be able to change their view by themselves.” 5

35. Evolution of an Application
“We have quite a few users using this system now and there’s some fairly sensitive data in there...” 3 4 2 1 6 5

36. Evolution of an Application
“We need to schedule these reports to run every other week.” 7 3 4 2 1 6 5

37. Evolution of an Application8
“We need to track which users have used the system.” 7 3 4 2 1 6 5

38. Evolution of an Application8 7 3 9 4
“They need to set up their own reports with new data.” 2 1 6 5

39. Evolution of an Application8
“We need a single version of the truth”
“We need these dashboards linked to our business process”
“We don’t want to be re-typing information from these dashboards into our other applications…can we export?”
“We need to easily find stuff within the dashboard”
“We need the output as Excel” 7
“We need to be able to approve or reject the changes” 3
“We need to be able to see the underlying detail” 9
“We don’t want to be waiting around for the results” 4
“We need to analyze the information in Excel”
“We need Flash charts” 2 1
“We need a simple way to see the entire contents of the detail report” 6
“We need to know who’s looked at the information”
“We need these dashboards in multiple languages”
“We need a view that looks like an existing flow chart”
“We need to print the dashboard out to take into meetings” 5

40. Report Integration and Deployment User Requirements
Report browsing and management
Easily add additional reports
Folder based storage and management of reports
Search and filtering lists of reports
Report versioning and automated deletion
Report descriptions and “headlines”
Report generation and scheduling
On-demand, “run now and I’ll wait” report generation
On-demand, “run now in background” report generation
Scheduled report generation (one-time, recurring…)
Event-based scheduled report generation
Sequenced (daisy-chained) scheduled report generation
Easy to use parameter collection
Report sharing, distribution and notification
Automatic notification when report is completed
Attached report to notification
Share reports in any folder with other users
Notification subscriptions (channels)

41. Report Integration and Deployment Integration Requirements
Report browsing, generation and scheduling
User interface integrated into application experience
Reports and integration are branded with application
Parameter collection and management
Security
Secure reports individually or in folders
User and role-based security support
Integration with application single-signon
Integration with application security model
Scalability and high availability
Scalable for large reports (many pages)
Scalable for large numbers of reports
Scalable for large numbers of users
Clustering support
High availability and failover

42. Actuate BIRT Product Line
Actuate BIRT Designer
Desktop tools for professional IT developers and power users
Open Source BIRT plus Flash charts and gadgets, one-click installer and data adapters
Actuate Java Components
Components that provide end user interactivity, ad-hoc BIRT reporting, report browsing, etc.
iServer Express
Ready-to-go deployment servers for BIRT Reports
Scheduling, security, notifications, report management, …

43. Actuate BIRT Designer

44. Actuate Java Components
A Web Application (WAR file) that contains:
Actuate BIRT Viewer – enables end users to view BIRT reports (**included with Actuate BIRT Designer License)
Interactive Viewer – enables end users to view BIRT reports, as well as analyze and personalize a BIRT report to meet their own needs
BIRT Report Studio – empower business users to use a browser to design ad-hoc reports and view BIRT reports
Actuate BIRT Deployment Kit – enables end users to view BIRT reports and provides file/folder browsing, configurable caching

45. Actuate BIRT Viewer
Runtime support for BIRT reports with Flash content, Report documents as data sources
Repository authorization integration, Authentication (IPSE based) integration,
Client side scripting
Progressive Viewing,
Temp file/transient store
management

46. Actuate Interactive Viewer
Simple and advanced filters
Modify labels
Toolbar
Table of contents
Page navigation
Printing
Export data
Save
Grouping
Sorting
JSAPI integration
Custom calculations
Show/hide columns
Hide/show elements
Formatting text and currencies
Conditional formatting

47. Actuate BIRT Report Studio
Easy to use… end-users do not know SQL… iterative development
Toolbar
Cut/Copy/Paste
Delete
Undo/Redo
Chart
Table
Insert
Group
Filter
Prompt
Format
Run
Print
Export
User-selected Information Object
Drag- and-drop palette
Data styles
Template objects
Grouping
and sorting
Format text and currencies
Calculated column

48. Actuate iServer Express
Deploy, Manage, Schedule, Run and Share
BIRT Reports
Quickly and Easily
Web-based user interface to run, view and share reports
On-demand, time and event based scheduling
Automated distribution of reports
User interface to collect report parameters
Secure reports with User and Role security
Report management, versioning and control
Variety of application integration options
Web Services Interface

49. Report and Chart Examples View
Windows  Show View  Other…
Report and Chart Design  Report Examples

50. New and Updated Publications
Second Edition Revised and Updated
Second Edition Revised and Updated
New Book

52. BIRT Exchange Community Site
Centralized Knowledge Hub for BIRT Developers
Access Downloads, Demos, Tutorials, Tips & Techniques, Webinars
Easy for users to contribute content, share knowledge
Enables developers to be more productive and build applications faster
Download
Documentation
Software
Share Knowledge
Reports, Code, Tips
Forums
Find
Search, Sort
Rate, Comment

53. BIRT Exchange DevShare
Data Integration
BIRT Scripted Data Source Example
BIRT Connection Pooling
Web Services Data
Application Integration
Java Event Handler
Placing Java Classes
Run BIRT Reports at Command Line
Batch Files to Schedule BIRT Reports
Please contribute examples you think will be helpful for others

54. BIRT Exchange DevShare (cont.)
Report Engine API
Using the BIRT Report Engine API
Calling the BIRT REAPI
Execute BIRT Reports from Java class
API – Examples
Web Viewer
Exploring BIRT Deployment Options
Deploying BIRT WebViewerExample in Tomcat
Birt Viewer 2.3 User Reference
BIRT URL Security
Custom Parameter page
Please contribute examples you think will be helpful for others

55. BIRT Exchange DevShare (cont.)
Additional Integration Examples
JBoss BIRT Portlet
Integrating BIRT with Hibernate and Struts
BIRT and Stripes 1.5
Using BIRT with JBoss Seam
Integrating BIRT with Spring
Deploying BIRT RCP App through Java Web Start
Deploy BIRT on GlassFish
Please contribute examples you think will be helpful for others

56. BIRT Exchange DevShare (cont.)
Actuate Viewer
JSAPI
Customizing Security in Deployment Kit
iServer Express
iServer Express Integration Technology download
Java client for the IDAPI
Implementing iServer Express security with Java Report Server Secruity Extension
Please contribute examples you think will be helpful for others

57. Q&A

58. Thanks for your attention!
Virgil Dodson