REP - Reporting

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 manages the report creation by means several Eclipse views:

View	Meaning	Comments
New Model	Allows the creation of new Model in selected Folder.
New Object	Allows the creation of new Object definition in selected Folder.
Save	Selected Model in Model area is saved
Print	Selected Model will be exported in docx document (multiple selection is supported shift+drag or ctrl+click)
Print Preview	CMS will visualize a preview of export for selected Model.
Print Settings	Allows to setup the default Print options
Import	Allows to import/update objects below selected Folder using an xls file.