REP - Reporting

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Versione del 12 giu 2018 alle 10:56 di Luca.pandolfo (discussione | contributi) (Birt Report Creation)

REP is an optional itmSUITE® module that defines functionality to manage and excute reports created by Eclipse BIRT Designer tool.
It allows to load one or more report templates (BIRT.rptdesign file) and to create and to execute report instances through the BIRT Viewer integrated on itmSUITE®.

BIRT Architecture

BIRT (Business Intelligence Reporting Tool)is an open source tool installed as Eclipse IDE plug-in for report developing. It has origin from collaboration between Actuate (along with IBM) and Eclipse.org open source community.
BIRT is a Java based tool that allows to extract data from many data source types for report generation in several output format (pdf, xlsx, docx, etc.).

Birt Architecture

BIRT architecture includes two main components:

  1. Report Designer: a UI component to create report template (.rptdesign file)
  2. Report Engine: runtime component for report rendering

The Design Engine generates a .rptdesign file(in XML format) structured according to configurations applied by user (by BIRT Designer) and the Report Engine, through BIRT Viewer, parses it and renders it as report in html (or other formats).


BIRT Designer

BIRT Designer is a tool (plug-in) integrated to the Eclipse IDE that defines a user friendly interface to create BIRT report. It can be enabled from toolbar on Windows > Open Perspective > Report Design. BIRT Designer is composed of several Eclipse views to create/configure a report:

View Meaning
Data Explorer
DataExplorer.png
Allows the data management extracted from a specific data source (i.e. database, xlsx file, cvs file, etc.) in order to define data sets and parameters report
Navigator
Navigator.png
A projects management view. Every project contains one or more report template.
Layout
Layout.png
Main editor in which user can drag/drops and manages report items to define output report layout
Palette
Palette.png
Contains all graphic report items (label, table, chart, etc...) to add to report layout
Property Editor
PropertyEditor.png
Menu from which user can configure report items properties
Scripting Editor
ScriptEditor.png
Editor available for each report items in which insert event drivern JavaScript/Java code
Report Preview
Preview.PNG
View on which launch a report preview with a limited extracted data


Birt Report Creation

A report can be outlined in a bottom-up 4-levels structure:

  1. Data: data extracted from data source (database, raw file, cvs, etc...)
  2. User Data: extracted data modified by user (e.g., data type changing)
  3. Business Logic: data elaborated according to event driven script (JavaScript/Java code)
  4. Prensentation: data bound to report items (tables, charts, etc...) and shown on report layout

In BIRT Designer all reports can be rappresented as tables, charts, crosstab, textual document or as combination of these items. In this chapter it will be described all steps to create a sample table containing itmSUITE tickets info:

Id Ticket Type Ticket Status Owner Project Creation Date
1 Incident Opened Williams Project 1 01/01/2017
2 Problem Completed Michael Project 2 12/02/2017
7 Release Closed John Project 3 23/05/2017
1. Report Template

A report template is XML-like file that contains report items, datatsource, dataset and scripting references. It is a .rptdesign exstension file interpreted by Report Engine in order to generate report output.


Step Description
1. Project Creation
ProjectCreation.png
  1. Click on File > New > Project on toolbar
  2. Select Report Project on Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools section
  3. Tape 'My Report' as Project name and click on Finish button
2. Report Template Creation
ReportTemplateCreation.png
  1. Click on File > New > Report on toolbar
  2. Select 'My Report' Project created on previous steps
  3. Tape 'MyTicket.rpdesign' as report template name and click on Next button
  4. Create a blank report. Other default models: Simple Listing, Dual Column Listing, Grouped Listing, Chart Listing
  5. Click on Finish button. Report template file has been created in workspace