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Information about BIRT

info_js

I am learning to use BIRT. Can I know what specific problems BIRT can solve? In this day and age where we have many reporting and visualization tools, why BIRT?

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Comments

mwilliams

BIRT's designer is very powerful. Many customizations can be done simply using the graphical interface. If you need to extend it, there are extension points for you to write plugins for new data connections, new palette items, new chart types, new functions, etc. If you need further customization, there are script methods to allow you to customize your designs using JavaScript or Java Event Handlers, or you can go all out and design your reports completely in Java. It allows you to connect to multiple sources and you can join/merge/manipulate that data within a single report. There are libraries for using elements over and over again. The sample viewer is clean enough that many use it in their applications without making changes. Moving past the open-source, Actuate provides a suite of products that build upon the already powerful open-source product, allowing for client side interactivity and manipulation of reports, scheduling, security, distribution, analytics, etc. Hope this helps.

info_js

Thanks a lot for your reply. I did go through the advantages of using BIRT. I want to use BIRT in my project within my Java Program. The format of the whole project is, making a problem statement and showing them that the tool solves...and that is why I asked this question..I need to specific problems which the tool is able to solve.

mwilliams

The main thing I guess you would say that open-source BIRT solves is to be able to take data of any format and display it in a meaningful way for analysis/consumption by the end user. Though, since it's a set of Java API's, you can pretty much use BIRT for anything. The commercial solutions would solve more specific problems like security, tighter integration into multiple platforms, scheduling, distribution, lessen IT requests by making end-user customization easier, etc.

info_js

I know that it is pretty easy to connect to the data source from the Report Designer.. is it difficult to pull and combine data from disparate sources using BIRT Java API's?

mwilliams

Not too bad. This blog shows an example of adding a dynamic dataset to a report: <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://digiassn.blogspot.com/2011/01/birt-dynamically-adding-data-set-to.html'>http://digiassn.blogspot.com/2011/01/birt-dynamically-adding-data-set-to.html</a>

info_js

Thanks Mike for your reply. I went through the BIRT website and had a look at the sample database. I am thinking of using this sample database(mySQL) for my project and also create a CSV file just for the customer data and try to combine these two using the BIRT API's to get meaningful results.(like TOP Customers etc) I think this should be easy. However, I would like to hear your comments before I completely decide, only because I haven't tried coding using the BIRT API's..

mwilliams

Sorry for the delay. I've had other tasks I've had to get to these past couple weeks. Did you figure out what you were wanting to know?

info_js

That's alright. I appreciate your reply. Actually I was travelling and came back last Sunday. I'm planning to use two different sources - a mysql database and a CSV file and combine them. As I stated, it has been a while since I programmed and that part is going to be a challenge. I have the community, any help I need I will definitely ask a question. The plan is I will create a design file using report designer and then use the report API's to connect to the data sources and generate reports. Hopefully this shouldn't be a problem, I'm just trying to evaluate BIRT.