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 <p class="head">BIRT Project Description and Scope</p>

 <h1>Background</h1>

 <p>The Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project addresses
 a broad range of needs in the business intelligence and reporting space
 using the Eclipse platform. </p>

 <p>The business intelligence and reporting space is focused on tools and
 capabilities that extract data from data sources, process that data, and
 present the processed information to the end users. The information may
 be needed to enable the users to perform their operational or analytical
 job functions, or it may be customer-centric information such as a transaction
 statement. The capabilities can range from application- and production-level
 reporting, through ad hoc user-driven query tools, to highly interactive
 multi-dimensional online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining
 tools. While many business intelligence and reporting applications access
 operational data sources, it is often the case that developers provide
 specific data warehouses to support the business intelligence and reporting
 needs of an application. The tools in this space can include facilities
 to help build these data warehouses.</p>

 <p>It should be noted that a given application often needs a range of complementary
 capabilities in this area to meet the needs of different users of the
 application. For example, consider components of an online order processing
 application: The individual order invoices will be printed for inclusion
 in the shipping box and the shipping clerk will need an online or printed
 shipping list (both production-level reports); while a product line manager
 may want to perform ad hoc queries to see which products generate the
 most returns; while the purchasing agent may use analytics to look for
 trends and improve stocking levels. Providing a range of coordinated and
 complementary capabilities under the Eclipse Business Intelligence and
 Reporting Tools Project is intended to ensure that the developed technology
 can effectively be used to meet this broad range of needs.</p>

 <h1>Initial Goals</h1>

 <p>Initially, the Project will focus on leveraging the Eclipse platform
 to provide infrastructure and tools for the designing, deploying, generating
 and viewing of reports in an organization, including ad hoc query and
 reporting tools. While not an initial focus, the BIRT project scope includes
 complementing these reporting capabilities with Online Analytical Processing
 (OLAP) and Business Intelligence dashboard functionality. Over time, but
 not in the initial scope, the creation of additional projects is anticipated
 and encouraged to address additional aspects of business intelligence,
 such as Executive Information Systems (EIS), statistical analysis, modeling
 capabilities (what-if analysis), Data Mining Tools, Data Warehouse Modeling
 Tools, Extract Transform and Load (ETL) tools and Data Quality Tools.</p>

 <p>The initial deliverable of the Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting
 Tools Project is to provide a robust platform that can be used to quickly
 and effectively create and deploy reports with any degree of complexity
 without having the developer create the data access, processing and formatting
 logic using Java code or components. In the majority of cases, the report
 developer will design a report within the Eclipse framework using a 100%
 visual design paradigm. However, in recognition of the fact that the variety
 of report layouts and complexity of data access is infinite, the project
 will also support extensive programmatic customization of the report generation
 processes, including programmatic creation of report designs.</p>

 <h1>About Reports</h1>

 <p>Reports extract data from a data source or sources, perform manipulations
 and calculations on the data to answer business questions, and present
 the results as information in a formatted and convenient form for the
 business user to use. This information is then typically used for operational
 or decision support purposes within an organization. Reports vary dramatically
 in size, content and complexity and will include or combine characteristics
 such as:</p>

 <dl class="arrow-list">
 <dt>Listings of information</dt>
 <dd>Example: Transactions in an account.</dd>

 <dt>Sorting, grouping and aggregation of data with and without subtotals</dt>
 <dd>Example: A listing of all product sales for each sales person, grouped
 by state.</dd>

 <dt>Charts to present information in easy to understand formats</dt>
 <dd>Example:
 Pie chart showing an investor's portfolio allocation by High Growth/Growth/Income/etc.
 categories.</dd>

 <dt>Matrix or cross-tab layouts</dt>
 <dd>Example: Financial budget reports with
 cost codes as rows, columns for each month, and cells containing numerical
 data for that cost code/month.</dd>

 <dt>Delivery of information as one or a combination of web pages, PDF
 files, printed documents, Excel files, etc.</dt>
 <dd>Example: Frequent flyer
 statement delivered as a web page online and a printed document in the
 mail.</dd>

 <dt>Precise, highly formatted layouts</dt>
 <dd>Examples: Bank statements; utility
 bills; commission statements; invoices; government forms.</dd>

 <dt>Page navigation for long reports</dt>
 <dd>Examples: Hundreds of pages corporate
 cell phone usage bill with First Page, Next Page, Go to Page, etc. buttons).</dd>

 <dt>Table of Contents</dt>
 <dd>Example: Multi-page Investment Portfolio summary
 with Table of Contents to quickly navigate to Account Summary; Fund
 History; etc.</dd>

 <dt>Keyword or content search within a report</dt>
 <dd>Example: find information
 on a customer in a 1000 page customer account report.</dd>
 </dl>

 <p>This can be contrasted with data-driven JSP pages where the data manipulation
 and presentation needs are more transaction driven and do not include
 recurring reporting needs such as complex aggregation (performed outside
 of the database) and highly complex layouts.</p>

 <h1>Target Users</h1>

 <p>For report development, the project broadly targets three classes of
 developer:</p>

 <dl class="arrow-list">
 <dt><b>Application Developers</b></dt>
 <dd> These are Java developers who are
   creating applications that include the need to retrieve data and present
   that data in the form of reports. This is likely to be a subset of the
   overall application and will include many of the characteristics discussed
   above. In this case, the report generation and viewing will be embedded
   in the overall application.</dd>

 <dt><b>Report Developers</b></dt>
 <dd>Report developers are not typically skilled
   in writing Java code. They expect to use a visual desktop tool to create
   any type of report - including defining database connections, report
   content and report layout. These reports may then be deployed as part
   of an application, or through an easy to use deployment framework.</dd>

 <dt><b>Business Users</b></dt>
 <dd>Business users often want to create their
   own report layouts or customize existing reports. They work through
   a very easy-to-use web-based report creation and editing facility to
   answer business questions on an ad hoc basis.</dd>
 </dl>

 <h1>Architecture</h1>

 <p>The project will address both the design time needs of report creation
 as well as the run-time requirements of report generation and deployment.
 A high-level architecture diagram is provided below. The project will
 adopt and support accepted open standards wherever feasible.</p>

 <img src="chart1.jpg" width="658" height="237"> <br>

 <p>The Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Project is divided into
 a number of sub-projects that reflect the initial focus on the reporting
 aspects of business intelligence and the high-level architecture of the
 project. These are discussed in the sub-project section below. As discussed
 above, the creation of additional sub-projects is anticipated and encouraged
 to address additional aspects of business intelligence.</p>

 <p>Due to the wide variety of potential applications, it is recognized that
 BIRT cannot meet all the requirements of all applications. It is therefore
 a core design principle for the projects within BIRT to support a broad
 range of extension points within the tools and frameworks that allow developers
 to address additional needs. These extension points may be utilized for
 adding value in commercial products using BIRT, or may be developed and
 contributed into the Eclipse open source community.</p>

 <p>For example, logging tools can use BIRT's data extension point to plug-in
 a data query user interface and access logic to read and process log files,
 use BIRT's report engine to present the information in the log, and extend
 BIRT's output/rendering adaptor to email or send a short message to a
 user with the report output in a format targeted for that device.</p>

 <p>We expect the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project to produce
 functional requirements that are more appropriately satisfied through
 the Eclipse Project or other Eclipse foundational projects. In such cases,
 the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project PMC will coordinate
 the corresponding Project PMCs the design and implementation of the corresponding
 contribution.</p>

 </body>
 </html>
	<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
	<html>

	<head>
	<title>BIRT Project Description and Scope</title>
	<link rel="stylesheet" href="../style/compose.css" type="text/css"/>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
	</head>

	<body>
	<p class="head">BIRT Project Description and Scope</p>

	<h1>Background</h1>

	<p>The Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project addresses
	a broad range of needs in the business intelligence and reporting space
	using the Eclipse platform. </p>

	<p>The business intelligence and reporting space is focused on tools and
	capabilities that extract data from data sources, process that data, and
	present the processed information to the end users. The information may
	be needed to enable the users to perform their operational or analytical
	job functions, or it may be customer-centric information such as a transaction
	statement. The capabilities can range from application- and production-level
	reporting, through ad hoc user-driven query tools, to highly interactive
	multi-dimensional online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining
	tools. While many business intelligence and reporting applications access
	operational data sources, it is often the case that developers provide
	specific data warehouses to support the business intelligence and reporting
	needs of an application. The tools in this space can include facilities
	to help build these data warehouses.</p>

	<p>It should be noted that a given application often needs a range of complementary
	capabilities in this area to meet the needs of different users of the
	application. For example, consider components of an online order processing
	application: The individual order invoices will be printed for inclusion
	in the shipping box and the shipping clerk will need an online or printed
	shipping list (both production-level reports); while a product line manager
	may want to perform ad hoc queries to see which products generate the
	most returns; while the purchasing agent may use analytics to look for
	trends and improve stocking levels. Providing a range of coordinated and
	complementary capabilities under the Eclipse Business Intelligence and
	Reporting Tools Project is intended to ensure that the developed technology
	can effectively be used to meet this broad range of needs.</p>

	<h1>Initial Goals</h1>

	<p>Initially, the Project will focus on leveraging the Eclipse platform
	to provide infrastructure and tools for the designing, deploying, generating
	and viewing of reports in an organization, including ad hoc query and
	reporting tools. While not an initial focus, the BIRT project scope includes
	complementing these reporting capabilities with Online Analytical Processing
	(OLAP) and Business Intelligence dashboard functionality. Over time, but
	not in the initial scope, the creation of additional projects is anticipated
	and encouraged to address additional aspects of business intelligence,
	such as Executive Information Systems (EIS), statistical analysis, modeling
	capabilities (what-if analysis), Data Mining Tools, Data Warehouse Modeling
	Tools, Extract Transform and Load (ETL) tools and Data Quality Tools.</p>

	<p>The initial deliverable of the Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting
	Tools Project is to provide a robust platform that can be used to quickly
	and effectively create and deploy reports with any degree of complexity
	without having the developer create the data access, processing and formatting
	logic using Java code or components. In the majority of cases, the report
	developer will design a report within the Eclipse framework using a 100%
	visual design paradigm. However, in recognition of the fact that the variety
	of report layouts and complexity of data access is infinite, the project
	will also support extensive programmatic customization of the report generation
	processes, including programmatic creation of report designs.</p>

	<h1>About Reports</h1>

	<p>Reports extract data from a data source or sources, perform manipulations
	and calculations on the data to answer business questions, and present
	the results as information in a formatted and convenient form for the
	business user to use. This information is then typically used for operational
	or decision support purposes within an organization. Reports vary dramatically
	in size, content and complexity and will include or combine characteristics
	such as:</p>

	<dl class="arrow-list">
	<dt>Listings of information</dt>
	<dd>Example: Transactions in an account.</dd>

	<dt>Sorting, grouping and aggregation of data with and without subtotals</dt>
	<dd>Example: A listing of all product sales for each sales person, grouped
	by state.</dd>

	<dt>Charts to present information in easy to understand formats</dt>
	<dd>Example:
	Pie chart showing an investor's portfolio allocation by High Growth/Growth/Income/etc.
	categories.</dd>

	<dt>Matrix or cross-tab layouts</dt>
	<dd>Example: Financial budget reports with
	cost codes as rows, columns for each month, and cells containing numerical
	data for that cost code/month.</dd>

	<dt>Delivery of information as one or a combination of web pages, PDF
	files, printed documents, Excel files, etc.</dt>
	<dd>Example: Frequent flyer
	statement delivered as a web page online and a printed document in the
	mail.</dd>

	<dt>Precise, highly formatted layouts</dt>
	<dd>Examples: Bank statements; utility
	bills; commission statements; invoices; government forms.</dd>

	<dt>Page navigation for long reports</dt>
	<dd>Examples: Hundreds of pages corporate
	cell phone usage bill with First Page, Next Page, Go to Page, etc. buttons).</dd>

	<dt>Table of Contents</dt>
	<dd>Example: Multi-page Investment Portfolio summary
	with Table of Contents to quickly navigate to Account Summary; Fund
	History; etc.</dd>

	<dt>Keyword or content search within a report</dt>
	<dd>Example: find information
	on a customer in a 1000 page customer account report.</dd>
	</dl>

	<p>This can be contrasted with data-driven JSP pages where the data manipulation
	and presentation needs are more transaction driven and do not include
	recurring reporting needs such as complex aggregation (performed outside
	of the database) and highly complex layouts.</p>

	<h1>Target Users</h1>

	<p>For report development, the project broadly targets three classes of
	developer:</p>

	<dl class="arrow-list">
	<dt><b>Application Developers</b></dt>
	<dd> These are Java developers who are
	creating applications that include the need to retrieve data and present
	that data in the form of reports. This is likely to be a subset of the
	overall application and will include many of the characteristics discussed
	above. In this case, the report generation and viewing will be embedded
	in the overall application.</dd>

	<dt><b>Report Developers</b></dt>
	<dd>Report developers are not typically skilled
	in writing Java code. They expect to use a visual desktop tool to create
	any type of report - including defining database connections, report
	content and report layout. These reports may then be deployed as part
	of an application, or through an easy to use deployment framework.</dd>

	<dt><b>Business Users</b></dt>
	<dd>Business users often want to create their
	own report layouts or customize existing reports. They work through
	a very easy-to-use web-based report creation and editing facility to
	answer business questions on an ad hoc basis.</dd>
	</dl>

	<h1>Architecture</h1>

	<p>The project will address both the design time needs of report creation
	as well as the run-time requirements of report generation and deployment.
	A high-level architecture diagram is provided below. The project will
	adopt and support accepted open standards wherever feasible.</p>

	<img src="chart1.jpg" width="658" height="237"> <br>

	<p>The Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Project is divided into
	a number of sub-projects that reflect the initial focus on the reporting
	aspects of business intelligence and the high-level architecture of the
	project. These are discussed in the sub-project section below. As discussed
	above, the creation of additional sub-projects is anticipated and encouraged
	to address additional aspects of business intelligence.</p>

	<p>Due to the wide variety of potential applications, it is recognized that
	BIRT cannot meet all the requirements of all applications. It is therefore
	a core design principle for the projects within BIRT to support a broad
	range of extension points within the tools and frameworks that allow developers
	to address additional needs. These extension points may be utilized for
	adding value in commercial products using BIRT, or may be developed and
	contributed into the Eclipse open source community.</p>

	<p>For example, logging tools can use BIRT's data extension point to plug-in
	a data query user interface and access logic to read and process log files,
	use BIRT's report engine to present the information in the log, and extend
	BIRT's output/rendering adaptor to email or send a short message to a
	user with the report output in a format targeted for that device.</p>

	<p>We expect the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project to produce
	functional requirements that are more appropriately satisfied through
	the Eclipse Project or other Eclipse foundational projects. In such cases,
	the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project PMC will coordinate
	the corresponding Project PMCs the design and implementation of the corresponding
	contribution.</p>

	</body>
	</html>