Actuate BIRT Studio - Designing Information Objects
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Paul Bappoo
Dec 7, 2009, 3:27:07 AM12/7/09
to Paul Bappoo
After having reviewed the freely available open source BIRT report
designer and deployment options as well as the Actuate designer and
iServerExpress and found these to be excellent products for designing
reports that can then be deployed to a user community I am taking
things a step further by looking at the Actuate BIRT Studio, which
promises to allow end users the capability to design their own
reports, over the web, whilst still being within the control of the IT
department.
Actuate BIRT Studio is a commercial product and is available in a
number of options. Essentially these are:
1. As a java component that you can deploy into your own application
server e.g. Apache Tomcat
2. As part of an end user report writing portal, which basically
includes a deployment kit and saves you the time and effort of
creating your own deployment environment.
3. As an extension to the iServerExpress, allowing users to schedule
their own reports in the iServer environment.
For full details and pricing see the Actuate Birt-Exchange website
page here…
http://www.birt-exchange.com/be/products/birt-report-designers/actuate-birt-designer-for-end-users/features/
In order to allow user to create their own reports you first need to
publish data sources for them to base their reports on. In Actuate
these are called Information Objects, the name reflecting the fact
that you are not exposing users to raw database tables and fields, but
rather a set of tables and fields that you have prepared for them.
MULTIPLE SYSTEM REPORTING
An information object can contain data from several different sources.
So long as there is a common field to link the independent data
sources you can specify as many as you like, meaning that you can
offer users data from different systems in a single unified view!
CLEAN DATA VIEWS
Once you have selected the basis for the data sources you can then
rename fields so as to provide the user with field names that make
sense to them in business terms, rather than in database terms. So if
you have fields in your database such as AD_CD_1 (which might mean
Address Code 1) you could rename this to Primary_Address_Code for
example.
You can also remove fields that the end user would have no interest
in. For example any index fields or fields that simply exist to relate
one record to another can be removed from the end user view.
Finally you can add filters and grouping to the data, so for example
if you have a large transaction table you could filter it by month or
year, to provide sets of transactions that the user could select based
on the type of report they want to create.
END USER WEB BASED REPORT DESIGN
Once you have created a series of Information Objects you can hand the
job of creating reports over to your end user community. The report
designer presents a clean, easy to understand and intuitive design
environment to the end user directly in their web browser with no
further software to install.
I will be covering designing reports in a separate guide aimed fairly
and squarely and end user report designers.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Whilst reviewing the commercial add-ons to BIRT I am constantly
thinking about the additional value that these tools may or may not
provide to the business community. When it is possible to do all of
your reporting, over the web, using the freely available open source
tools, then added value must be a consideration when thinking about
spending money on additional commercial aspects of this software.
In thinking about this I have considered the work that an IT resource
would have to undertake in agreeing the specification of reports with
the business, writing the reports, maintaining the reports and making
tweaks and adjustments as the business requires. When comparing this
to the simple production of data sets, on which end users could write
their own reports it is easy to see that the business case for the
additional cost of iServerExpress and the BIRT Report Studio depends
very much on two key factors.
1. The time spent by specialised and expensive IT resources in meeting
user reporting demands.
2. The time users have to wait to get the reports they need.
Clearly the direct salary cost is not the only factor because the
provision of the right information at the right time can be as far
reaching as gaining a business a competitive edge or being able to
give customers the information they need when they need it.
Every business is different and has different reporting needs and time
scales. The BIRT stable of tools fits into practically any business
because you can start of with a no cost simple solution and scale it
incrementally as the business requirement dictates.
CONCLUSION
In creating this report I have looked closely at how IT resources
would create and publish data to their end user community and allow
those users to write reports based on that data. Once again I find
that Actuate have put a lot of thought into the user experience and
the Information Object designer is logical and easy to use.
Conceptually it breaks down the task of creating reports into distinct
data and application layers and provides easy delimitation between the
users of each part.
If your business demands warrant it then these tools provide an
exceptional way to hand over business report generation to your user
community.
I will be looking at how to actually create reports based on provided
information objects in part two of this guide, so keep a look out for
that in the near future.
LEARN MORE
For a full version of this guide with a walk through including screen
shots of how to create information objects and for information about
the BIRT User Group UK please visit
http://www.BIRTReporting.com
Please feel free to share this address with your colleagues and
inspire them to use BIRT to create great looking reports.
I look forward to your feedback so please feel free to send me an
email and let me know how you get on with BIRT, provide feedback on
this guide, share your tips and tricks, or request help for specific
problems. I can’t guarantee to personally solve everyone’s problems
but there are some great BIRT related forums out there and you can
find a growing list of links and resources on my site.
Warm regards
Paul Bappoo
Pa...@BirtReporting.com
http://www.BIRTReporting.com
designer and deployment options as well as the Actuate designer and
iServerExpress and found these to be excellent products for designing
reports that can then be deployed to a user community I am taking
things a step further by looking at the Actuate BIRT Studio, which
promises to allow end users the capability to design their own
reports, over the web, whilst still being within the control of the IT
department.
Actuate BIRT Studio is a commercial product and is available in a
number of options. Essentially these are:
1. As a java component that you can deploy into your own application
server e.g. Apache Tomcat
2. As part of an end user report writing portal, which basically
includes a deployment kit and saves you the time and effort of
creating your own deployment environment.
3. As an extension to the iServerExpress, allowing users to schedule
their own reports in the iServer environment.
For full details and pricing see the Actuate Birt-Exchange website
page here…
http://www.birt-exchange.com/be/products/birt-report-designers/actuate-birt-designer-for-end-users/features/
In order to allow user to create their own reports you first need to
publish data sources for them to base their reports on. In Actuate
these are called Information Objects, the name reflecting the fact
that you are not exposing users to raw database tables and fields, but
rather a set of tables and fields that you have prepared for them.
MULTIPLE SYSTEM REPORTING
An information object can contain data from several different sources.
So long as there is a common field to link the independent data
sources you can specify as many as you like, meaning that you can
offer users data from different systems in a single unified view!
CLEAN DATA VIEWS
Once you have selected the basis for the data sources you can then
rename fields so as to provide the user with field names that make
sense to them in business terms, rather than in database terms. So if
you have fields in your database such as AD_CD_1 (which might mean
Address Code 1) you could rename this to Primary_Address_Code for
example.
You can also remove fields that the end user would have no interest
in. For example any index fields or fields that simply exist to relate
one record to another can be removed from the end user view.
Finally you can add filters and grouping to the data, so for example
if you have a large transaction table you could filter it by month or
year, to provide sets of transactions that the user could select based
on the type of report they want to create.
END USER WEB BASED REPORT DESIGN
Once you have created a series of Information Objects you can hand the
job of creating reports over to your end user community. The report
designer presents a clean, easy to understand and intuitive design
environment to the end user directly in their web browser with no
further software to install.
I will be covering designing reports in a separate guide aimed fairly
and squarely and end user report designers.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Whilst reviewing the commercial add-ons to BIRT I am constantly
thinking about the additional value that these tools may or may not
provide to the business community. When it is possible to do all of
your reporting, over the web, using the freely available open source
tools, then added value must be a consideration when thinking about
spending money on additional commercial aspects of this software.
In thinking about this I have considered the work that an IT resource
would have to undertake in agreeing the specification of reports with
the business, writing the reports, maintaining the reports and making
tweaks and adjustments as the business requires. When comparing this
to the simple production of data sets, on which end users could write
their own reports it is easy to see that the business case for the
additional cost of iServerExpress and the BIRT Report Studio depends
very much on two key factors.
1. The time spent by specialised and expensive IT resources in meeting
user reporting demands.
2. The time users have to wait to get the reports they need.
Clearly the direct salary cost is not the only factor because the
provision of the right information at the right time can be as far
reaching as gaining a business a competitive edge or being able to
give customers the information they need when they need it.
Every business is different and has different reporting needs and time
scales. The BIRT stable of tools fits into practically any business
because you can start of with a no cost simple solution and scale it
incrementally as the business requirement dictates.
CONCLUSION
In creating this report I have looked closely at how IT resources
would create and publish data to their end user community and allow
those users to write reports based on that data. Once again I find
that Actuate have put a lot of thought into the user experience and
the Information Object designer is logical and easy to use.
Conceptually it breaks down the task of creating reports into distinct
data and application layers and provides easy delimitation between the
users of each part.
If your business demands warrant it then these tools provide an
exceptional way to hand over business report generation to your user
community.
I will be looking at how to actually create reports based on provided
information objects in part two of this guide, so keep a look out for
that in the near future.
LEARN MORE
For a full version of this guide with a walk through including screen
shots of how to create information objects and for information about
the BIRT User Group UK please visit
http://www.BIRTReporting.com
Please feel free to share this address with your colleagues and
inspire them to use BIRT to create great looking reports.
I look forward to your feedback so please feel free to send me an
email and let me know how you get on with BIRT, provide feedback on
this guide, share your tips and tricks, or request help for specific
problems. I can’t guarantee to personally solve everyone’s problems
but there are some great BIRT related forums out there and you can
find a growing list of links and resources on my site.
Warm regards
Paul Bappoo
Pa...@BirtReporting.com
http://www.BIRTReporting.com
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