© 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 | 2/11/2008 Getting the most from your BIRT reports Integrating Actuate iServer Express Virgil Dodson – Actuate Corporation

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Agenda Who is Actuate? What is iServer Express? Why does a developer care? What are the coolest features? How do the pieces fit together? How do I integrate into an application? Live Demo Q&A

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Actuate is the Engine Behind BIRT Founder and Co-Sponsor of Open Source BIRT Project Chair of BIRT Project Mgmt. Committee Over ½ million lines of code for BIRT and Data Tools Project Training, Services, and Support for BIRT Commercial Products that extend BIRT functionality

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 What is iServer Express?

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 iServer Express Deploy, Manage, Schedule, Run and Share BIRT Reports Quickly and Easily Web-based user interface to run, view and share reports On-demand, time and event based scheduling Automated distribution of reports User interface to collect report parameters Secure reports with User and Role security Report management, versioning and control Up and running in 30 minutes or less Variety of application integration options Equinox application

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application 1 “Just give me a list of customer sales and the best performing city and state.”

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application “ We also need to dynamically link the customers’ to another report” 1 2

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application “We’d like to slice this by sales rep, too, grouped alphabetically.” 1 2 3

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application “Actually, we’d like to be able to produce a completely separate report for each rep.”

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application “Maybe they should be able to change their view by themselves.”

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application “We have quite a few users using this system now and there’s some fairly sensitive data in there...”

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application “We need to schedule these reports to run every other week.”

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application “We need to track which users have used the system.” 4

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 “They need to set up their own reports with new data.” Evolution of an Application

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Evolution of an Application “We need these dashboards linked to our business process” “We need to be able to approve or reject the changes” “We need a single version of the truth” “We need to analyze the information in Excel” “We don’t want to be waiting around for the results” “We don’t want to be re-typing information from these dashboards into our other applications…can we export?” “We need to be able to see the underlying detail” “We need to print the dashboard out to take into meetings” “We need the output as Excel” “We need Flash charts” “We need to easily find stuff within the dashboard” “We need to know who’s looked at the information” “We need a simple way to see the entire contents of the detail report” “We need a view that looks like an existing flow chart” “We need these dashboards in multiple languages”

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Why does a developer care? I don’t have time or resources to build the report management features I need to secure my reports I need to schedule some reports I want to stop manually ing reports to the same people over and over again. I want my application to have more cool interactive features. I want out of the report customization business I need to easily integrate reports into my application  My application is already built…Standalone iServer branded to match site  Quickly add reporting to an application - URL integration to launch reports  I want to build the entire reporting UI myself but still harness the power of a report server behind the scenes - Web Services API integration

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 What are the coolest features?

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Scheduling is a Complex Problem to Solve Self-service scheduling for end-users Web-based scheduler Different batch outputs from the same report Parameter storage Cope with growing number of batch jobs Integrated job management Proactively manage hardware Batch monitoring Fix report errors before users complain Completion and error notification Trigger reports as soon as data is ready Event-based scheduling

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Flexible Scheduling Schedule reports to run in future  Recurring or one-time End-user Independence  Users can schedule their own jobs  Users can maintain their own job queues  Users can share results with other iServer Express users Manage scheduled jobs Versioning of documents and version management  Important for reports that run regularly on a schedule

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Security is a Complex Problem to Solve Limit access to reporting functionality Secure report server access Ensure users run only authorized reports Secure report level access Restrict access to running and viewing reports separately Manage executable and output security distinctly Ensure users see only the data that’s relevant Different report output for different users Manage privileges for multiple users simultaneously User groups

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 iServer Express Security 1. Standalone Security Usernames & roles are stored in iServer Express Direct login to iServer Express iServer Express Report Repository iPortal 3. External Privileges plus Single Sign-on Usernames & roles are not stored in iServer Express Login to iServer Express is invisible; handled by external Single Sign-on iServer Express Report Repository iPortal LDAP Server SSO System 2. Integrated Privileges plus Single Sign-on Usernames & roles are stored in iServer Express Login to iServer Express is invisible; handled by external Single Sign-on iServer Express Report Repository iPortal SSO System

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 What are all the pieces?

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 iServer Express iServer Express iServer Express Architecture Data Sources Data Sources RelationalFlat FilesERPLegacyEJBXML Metadata Services Web Services API Report Storage BIRT Report Engine Designs, documents Administration & Management User Privileges & Security Roles Document versioning Notification Job Scheduling iPortal Turn-key UI for end-users Based on JSP pages and servlets Customizable and personalizable via skins, functionality levels, modify JSPs iPortal Turn-key UI for end-users Based on JSP pages and servlets Customizable and personalizable via skins, functionality levels, modify JSPs Standard Viewer Interactive Viewer Business Report Studio Management Console Turn-key UI for administrators and advanced end-users Based on JSP pages & servlets Not customizable Management Console Turn-key UI for administrators and advanced end-users Based on JSP pages & servlets Not customizable Configuration Console JSP page for basic system configuration Configuration Console JSP page for basic system configuration

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Configuration Console Web based UI License Management Start / stop server Configure Diagnostic Logging Java settings System administrator password Configure Configure Network Settings  Ports for iPortal and Management Console, Web Services  Server hostname

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Management Console Web Based UI Administrators and Power Users Manage Jobs Run/View/Schedule Reports Manage Users/Groups/Roles Set up Notification Channels Manage Repository (Backups/archiving)

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Management Console Roles AdministratorOperatorUser

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 iPortal Web based J2EE application Browsing and Running Reports Can be branded and skinned Customizable JSPs Interactive Viewer Option BusinessReport Studio Option

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 iPortal uses Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture Model - contains the logic for sending requests to and processing responses from Actuate iServer Express. This component is the data model for iPortal. View - contains the pages that display data prepared by actions. This component is the presentation portion of iPortal. Controller - contains the servlets that implement actions. This component is the program control logic for iPortal.

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Interactive Viewer  Flexible Report Exploration  Powered by AJAX  Allows for Manipulation of Reports by End Users  Adding Filters  Sorting Criteria  New Calculations  Grouping  Conditional Formatting  Print and Export Options  Saving, Sharing of View

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 BusinessReports Studio  Intuitive Web Based Report Designer for End Users  Ad Hoc with IT Control  Self-Service with Zero Training  100% User Adoption  Leverages BIRT technology  Interactive Viewing  Share and Collaborate

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 How do I integrate into an application?

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Typical iServer Express Reporting Environment

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Typical iPortal for iServer Express Architecture

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Off-the-shelf but Fully Customizable Customize parameter and viewing UI to match application Editable JSP’s Launch reports via simple web hyperlinks URL-based API’s Access 100% of functionality from Java, PHP, other types of apps Comprehensive Web Services API Leverage systems infrastructure Archiving integration Integrate with systems management tools Integrate with security infrastructure

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Integration Scenarios 1. Standalone Skins-based customization (colors, logos) Customizable JSP UI No integration needed iServer Express Report Server User 2. URL Access Hyperlinks from application pages to launch reports Easy integration with web pages User URL App Server (Java, PHP, …) 3. Web Services API to access services, get content Covers 100% of iServer Express functionality Used for more granular, controlled integration Complete WSDL for Java access iServer Express Report Service User Web Services App Server (Java, PHP, …) iServer Express Report Service Note: All scenarios can be used in combination

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Integration: Standalone

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Integration: URLs Common  All URLs listed are relative. Absolute URLs should be prefixed with:  : /  The following parameters should be added to all URLs  serverURL= :  volume=

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Integration: URLs (cont.) Execute Report Transient (does not save)  /executereport.do  __executablename={ }/ {; }  __progressive=true  __saveOutput=false  __wait=wait  invokesubmit=true  =

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Integration: URLs (cont.) Execute Report & Save  /executereport.do  __executablename={ }/ {; }  __progressive=true  __saveOutput=true  __wait=wait  __outputName={ }/  __versionName=  __replace=  invokesubmit=true  =

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Integration: URLs (cont.) View Report with Navigation Bar  /iv  __report={ }/ {; } View Report without Navigation Bar  /iv  __report={ }/ {; }  __ivcmd=run

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Integration: Web Services API IDAPI - Actuate Information Delivery API Integrating and administering Actuate iServer Express SOAP messaging Supports:  uploading and downloading files  generating a report and  scheduling report generation  sending an notification when a job completes  managing the users and security roles in an Encyclopedia volume  …

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Web Services API (iServer Express)

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Web Services API (Encyclopedia Volume)

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Web Services API (Files and Folders)

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Web Services API (Jobs)

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Web Services API (Jobs continued)

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Web Services API (users)

© 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 | 2/11/2008 Live Demo

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 iServer Express Delivers Immediate Value Available immediately for download on BIRT Exchange along with documentation, demos, and forums. Appropriate for BIRT applications requiring security and scheduling Install, configure, deploy in under 60 minutes

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 Q&A Virgil Dodson

Getting the most from your BIRT reports | Actuate iServer Express | © 2008 by Virgil Dodson; made available under the EPL v1.0 BIRT Exchange Community Site Centralized Knowledge Hub for BIRT Developers Access Downloads, Demos, Tutorials, Tips & Techniques, Webinars Easy for users to contribute content, share knowledge Enables developers to be more productive and build applications faster Download Documentation Software Share Knowledge Reports, Code, Tips Forums Find Search, Sort Rate, Comment