Book Image

BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting

By : John Ward
Book Image

BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting

By: John Ward

Overview of this book

BIRT is an Eclipse-based open source reporting system for web applications based on Java and Java EE. To address a wide range of reporting needs within a typical application, ranging from operational or enterprise reporting to multi-dimensional online analytical processing (OLAP), you need to know BIRT from head to toe. If you wish to start making reports easily and quickly, and also want to be up-to-date with the latest developments in BIRT, then this book is for you. It will guide you from scratch to develop reports using the Eclipse BIRT project. You will learn how to connect to data, use report items to display and format data, and use scripting to build advanced reports and charts.The book steers you through each step of report setup, to creating, designing, formatting, and deploying reports with data from a wide range of data sources. Its focus is on familiarizing you with the most visible and familiar product built with the BIRT framework – the BIRT Report Designer. It starts by introducing the concepts of business intelligence and open source software, and different installation methods. It will introduce you to the various visual report elements that can be used to design BIRT reports, such as the Palette and Grid components. You will learn the details of the data components of BIRT (the Data Source and the Data Set), different types of source data that BIRT supports such as XML files, flat text files, and databases, and the creation of all of the elements while connecting to Data Sources in reports and Report Projects. By the end of the book, you will be able to enhance the presentation of your report using Charts, Hyperlinks, and Drill Through. You will also be able to take advantage of the scripting capabilities that BIRT has to offer with Expressions and Event Handlers and successfully deploy BIRT reports.The book includes a case study at the end along with a real-world example that runs throughout the book.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
BIRT 2.6 Data Analysis and Reporting
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface

A basic scenario


When I teach people about development topics of any sort, I like to use scenarios. This book will be no different. The scenarios provide a basic context for the learner to relate the topic information to, and hopefully help in facilitating information retention.

So, in this chapter we will look at a simple scenario in order to get us started with our first report. Assume you work for a toy company called Classic Cars. Classic Cars specializes in selling models of classic cars and motorcycles. Classic Cars uses a centralized database for all company operations, such as employee listing, offices, customers, products, and sales history. This information is in a relational database that is stored locally on your machine, as Classic Cars is a small company.

In this chapter, I will walk you through creating your first report that will be a list of all products that a particular customer has bought in the past. I choose this for a number of reasons. First, it is a fairly simple...