Integrating BIRT into a Web Stack

I'm researching in to how BIRT could be integrated in to a web stack successfully. Does anyone have any knowledge or info they wouldn't mind sharing? I'm trying to obtain as much info as possible so I'm exhausting all my resources available to me (i.e forums,speaking to people I know, searching on the internet etc)
 
 
Thanks to anyone who posts a reply

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mwilliams

I guess I'd need more information on your web stack, but as long as you can run the birt war file, you can use BIRT. Can you be more specific with what you're trying to do?

Katieee

I basically got the role of researching how BIRT could be integrated into a web stack - As it is going to need to be in a web application 
Also one more thing - If I wanted to send people the report I had made and they didn't have the BIRT plugin, what is the most minimalist way of them being able to run it themselves?
 
I hope that gives more info

Thank you for replying!

mwilliams

BIRT is a set of Java APIs that allow you to connect to your data, create your visualization, then output it to a particular format. Once you've rendered your report to one of the available output formats (or a format you've created a custom emitter for), you can use that output file however you'd like. For deployment into a web application that doesn't require you to write any Java code, there is an open source sample viewer available that can be deployed to a Java application server. From there, you can view reports through a browser with a URL. There is also a JSP tag library to allow you to embed reports or portions of reports into a JSP page. There is also the iHub F-Type, which is a freemium version of the commercial report server. It is throttled by throughput as it is intended to be free for smaller/departmental applications. With it, you have the ability to use the JavaScript API and REST API to integrate BIRT into your application quickly and easily with more flexibility than the open source JSP tag library as you can embed BIRT content anywhere you can use JavaScript. Furthermore, you also gain the security, scheduling, interactivity, sharing, etc. features that the iHub has to offer.

Katieee

Hi Michael - Thank you for the reply! 
So if I have created a report - and I then want to send it to a few others so that they can run it (we have the same db columns but each contains different data which is why I want them to run it against their data) and I want to produce it as html output, would they need to have the birt.war file on their machine or am I thinking down the wrong lines for this? 
As I want to try and see if others can run my report and then I'm also going to integrate it into the web app

(You've been really helpful thank you)

mwilliams

Yes. They will need BIRT in some form to be able to run the .rptdesign file (BIRT designer, Deployed Viewer, Java Class, or iHub/iHub F-Type). If you had access to their data from your location, you could just run them.

Katieee

Hi Micheal, 
Ah I see I think the deployed viewer could be a good option. I don't have access to the other peoples data whom I need to send this report to so they can run unfortunately. I did find a little more out of the fact they use ext JS and Vallence framework - is there anything you know about the two when it regards BIRT web application integration?

mwilliams

I've not used either, but if you can handle calling to a servlet to run a design and display the html or whatever other output file you're wanting to show, you can do it. iHub and iHub F-Type have a JavaScript API that allows for easy embedding into places where you can use JavaScript. This might be an option you look into.