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BIRT Integration with EGL

BIRT Integration with EGL. Damian Madden – Jon Sayles. Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT). An Eclipse-based open source reporting system A mature Eclipse technology Can create pdf/html reports Can generate complex report design layouts: Lists Charts Cross-tabulation

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BIRT Integration with EGL

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  1. BIRT Integration with EGL Damian Madden – Jon Sayles

  2. Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) • An Eclipse-based open source reporting system • A mature Eclipse technology • Can create pdf/html reports • Can generate complex report design layouts: • Lists • Charts • Cross-tabulation • Letters • Documents • Compound reports. • BIRT home page: http://www.eclipse.org/birt

  3. BIRT Design File (xml) Generated report (html/PDF) BIRT Elements and Integration BIRT Report Design EGL BirtHandler out EGL Program out in out EGL JavaGen Application

  4. Report Design Tool • Report Design Perspective • Create reports: • From scratch • Using pre-fab layouts and templates (see below) • Tie reports directly to data sources: • Within Report Design perspective, can preview reports • From EGL BirtHandler and Program or Web page, can bass array to report • Each report element can customized extensively • U.I. • Expressions (counters and accumulators) • Straightforward and Eclipse development process

  5. Report Design Preview • Content Area tab when in Report Design perspective • Allows you to analyze report with full data in view • Use as either: • Standalone Report – if running BIRT XML • Design development tool – if intending to execute BIRT report from EGL: • Program • JSFHandler

  6. BirtHandler • EGL Part type • Called from EGL program or JSFHandler • which can pass an EGL dynamic array into the BirtHandler • The BirtHandler interacts with BIRT standard events • openEvent – reference to BIRT report data set (a data source) • fetchEvent - reference to

  7. EGL Program That Invokes BirtHandler • Report Design Perspective • Create reports: • From scratch • Using pre-fab layouts and templates (see below) • Tie reports directly to data sources: • Within Report Design perspective, can preview reports • From EGL BirtHandler and Program or Web page, can bass array to report • Each report element can customized extensively • U.I. • Expressions (counters and accumulators) • Straightforward and Eclipse development process

  8. BIRT Lab and Workshop • Let’s create an PDF report like this, using BIRT and a batch EGL program • The steps to do this start on the next slide.

  9. Workshop and BIRT Steps • Download the BIRT Runtime • Configure your project • Watch the BIRT Report Design tutorial • Create the Report_Design file • Create the BIRTHandler • Create the EGL Program that calls the BIRTHandler • Test

  10.  BIRT Runtime Download • Download BIRT runtime, birt-runtime-2.1.2.zip, from: • http://download.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/ • Note – there are a lot of different version of the Runtime. Please only download 2.1.2 – as no other versions work with EGL and RBD v7.1 • From the BIRT site, select: • Recent Builds Page • Latest Releases: • 2_1_2 • Download the Report Engine

  11.  Project Configuration – 1 of 3 • Unzip the downloaded Report Engine file into a directory on your PC • Set the project’s build descriptor option birtEngineHome to the location of the Report Engine directory in the BIRT runtime: • e.g. C:\birt\birt-runtime-2_1_2\ReportEngine • Note that ReportEngine is a folder created by unzipping the download • Set your EGL Project Capabilities for BIRT • From Window > Preferences • General • Capabilities • Select Advanced • Expand EGL Developer and select EGL BIRT • Click Apply then OK

  12.  Project Configuration – 2 of 3 • Verify that your Default EGL Project Features Choices is BIRT enabled • From Window > Preferences • EGL • Check EGL with BIRT report support • Enable BIRT report support for the EGL project: • Under Project > Properties, go to EGL Project Features • Check EGL with BIRT report support

  13.  Project Configuration – 3 of 3 • To generate PDF reports, download the iText 1.5.2 jar file and add it to the project’s class path. It can be downloaded from: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/itext/itext-1.5.2.jar • Once you’ve downloaded the file, open the Resource Perspective, and: • From Windows, copy the file to your: • \src\ folder … and into the … • \WebContent\WEB-INF\lib folder • Close the Resource Perspective, and return to the Web Perspective

  14.  Watch the BIRT Tutorial The BIRT site has two excellent tutorials for learning how to use the Report Design tool: Flash movie with annotations  Step for Step tutorial http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/tutorial/

  15.  Create Your Report Design Layout • From Project Explorer, create a \reports\ folder under the EGLWeb project • Open the Report Design perspective • From the File menu, create a new, report • For the parent folder, specify the EGLWeb/reports • Name the report: customerList.rptdesign • Click Next • Note the abundance of cool report templates  • Select My First Report • Click Finish

  16.  Create the Report’s Data Source and Data Set • Open the Data Explorer view • Right-click over Data Sources and create a New Data Source • As a Scripted Data Source • Named: scrDataSource • Right-click over Data Sets and create a New Data Set • Named: scrDataSet • With the four Output columns shown • And their Display Names • When you are finished, your Data Explorer should show the following defined resources

  17.  Layout the Report Using the Data Set • From the Content Area, select the Layout tab • From the Outline View, Select drag and drop the scrDataSet into the top left-hand corner of the report layout, where it will create a report table as shown below • Optionally open the Palette view on the left

  18.  Customize the Column Headers and Row Font • From the Content Area, click the left-most cell to select the column header row • From the Property Editor – customize the properties • Change the Font type and make the column headers bold • From General, change the row background color • Then, select the detail row, and change it’s font

  19.  Add a Total Expression • From the Palette, drag a Dynamic Text element into the Report, and add it to the footer row • From the Expression Builder, select: • Category: BIRT Functions Sub-Category: Total Double-Click: count(filter, group_level): number • Click OK

  20.  Add a Report Heading • From the Palette, drag a Label element into the top of the report • Customize one or more of its General properties: • Background color • Bold text • Centered • Text Color: White (if you make the background darker)

  21. EGL BIRTHandler From Project Explorer, create a new EGL BIRTHandler, in the programs folder, named: arrayHandler • Copy paste the code in the ***Notes • Review the inline comments, note the following: • The handler is passed a dynamic array of customer records • Which it uses with the two reserved functions that fire automatically: • openFunction • fetchFunction • fetchFunction adds values to the BIRT design report by calling the setColumnValue function (built into the BIRTHandler)

  22. EGL Program Calling BIRTHandler From Project Explorer, create a new, EGL Program in the programs folder, named: BIRTHandler, named: birtReportProgram1 • Copy paste the code in the ***Notes • Review the inline comments, note the following: • You must reference your input (Report Design file), and output file – as shown • You retrieve and process your dynamic array data (in this case, a sub-set of the Customer table) • You declare a variable of type: BIRTHandler, with the specific value shown • You pass your dynamic array to the BIRTHandler • And you call the EGL built-in functions to create the report

  23. Produce the PDF Report From Project Explorer, open the Java Resource:src folder, from the \programs\ sub-folder: • Select birtReportProgram1.java • Right-click and: • Run as • Java Application • This should create the PDF shown here  • Optional things to do: • Create an html page (see next slide) • From the tutorial, learn how to: • Customize the column widths and row height • Outline the State data • Add a label to the Total Count() value • Do a grouped report

  24. HTML Report In this section we have just scratched the surface of what you can do with BIRT and EGL.

  25. EGL JSFHandler Calling BIRTHandler You can – if your project requirements dictate, call BIRT from a JSFHandler. You will need to configure your project to call BIRT. Below is the Use Case model for this. Let’s see what we need to do to make this work. Special Thanks to Matt Heitz, for this one! Selected rows Output PDF

  26. EGL JSFHandler Calling BIRTHandler – Configure Your Project – 1 of 2 Complete the following four tasks (starting on this slide) • Edit the deployment description for the Web module (web.xml). • Add a new EnvironmentVariable named birt.report.engine.home of type java.lang.String. • The value should be the location of the BIRT runtime. • This is the same value that you would place in the build descriptor option birtEngineHome. 2. (If you are using WebSphere Application Server)  • Edit the EAR's deployment descriptor (application.xml). • Set the web module's classloader policy to PARENT_LAST. 3. Ensure that the EGL program uses absolute paths to the report design files. Relative paths will not work. See the JSFHandler for an example of this

  27. EGL JSFHandler Calling BIRTHandler – Configure Your Project – 2 of 2 Step 4. RBD 7.1 includes BIRT version 2.1.2, which does not work on WAS 6.1. BIRT 2.1.3 has fixed this problem. You can download BIRT 2.1.3 from the link below. Once downloaded, • Copy the following files from the BIRT 2.1.3 ReportEngine\lib folder into the web module's WEB-INF\lib\ folder: • coreapi.jar • engineapi.jar • js.jar • modelapi.jar • scriptapi.jar • Download BIRT 2.1.3 Runtime http://fullmoon.ottawa.ibm.com/birt/downloads/drops/R-R1-2_1_3-200707051847/birt-runtime-2.1.3.zip

  28. EGL JSFHandler Calling BIRTHandler – Create the Page and JSFHandler From Project Explorer: Create a new .JSP page, named: testBIRT.jsp Modify the default page header text Edit the JSFHandler Delete the existing code, and replace it with the code in the slide ***Notes Note the following: • Absolute path to the report_design file • .pdf output file • sel int[0]; array – used to catch the rows the users select with the dataTable checkboxes • Looping through the sel[0] array, to populate the customersOut array, which is eventually written to the pdf file Save your changes.

  29. EGL JSFHandler Calling BIRTHandler – Create the Page From Page Designer / From Page Data – • Drag the customers[] array onto the page, and select some columns – as output (read only) fields • With the entire dataTable selected, from Properties - Row actions • Click: Add selection column to the table • This will add a checkbox to the dataTable • With the checkbox selected, from the Value: • Click the icon • Select the sel int [] array Finally - Drag the writeToPDF function on to the page, where it will render as a Submit Button

  30. Run the Page Run the page on the server. Select any # of rows, and press: writeToPDF - this should create a file on your c:\ drive, called: reportOut.pdf. Open the file Selected rows C:\reportOut.pdf

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