eclipse-birt/index.php - www.eclipse.org/proposals - Git at Google

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 <?php
 include_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/projects/fragments/proposal-page-header.php");
 generate_header("Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Top-Level");
 ?>

   <h1>Business Intelligence & Reporting
       Tools</h1>

 <p>This project proposal is in the <a href="/projects/dev_process/">
   Proposal Phase</a> and is posted here to solicit community feedback, additional project participation
   and ways the project can be leveraged from the Eclipse membership-at-large.
   You are invited to comment on and/or join the project.
   Please send all feedback to the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.birt">eclipse.birt
   newsgroup</a> or the <a href="https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/birt-proposal">
   birt-proposal</a> mailing list.</p>


     <h2>Project Organization</h2>


       <p>The <i>Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project</i> is a proposed
         open source Top Level Project of eclipse.org.The <a href="charter.html">Project
         Charter</a> describes the organization of the project, roles and responsibilities
         of the participants, and top-level development process for the project.</p>


     <h2>Project Principles</h2>


     Among the key principles on which this project has been initiated, and
       will be run, are the following: <br>
       <br>
       <b>Extension of the Eclipse value proposition</b> - The Eclipse Project
       has set a high standard for technical excellence, functional innovation
       and overall extensibility within the Java IDE domain. We intend to apply
       these same standards to the business intelligence and reporting domain.
       <br>
       <br>
       <b>Leverage Eclipse ecosystem</b> - A major goal of this project is to apply
       the application development strengths of the Eclipse Project to the business
       intelligence and reporting domain. The project will work closely with other
       Eclipse project areas whenever possible to leverage the capabilities being
       developed in those areas.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Vertical Solutions</b> - Reporting and Business intelligence are a facet
       of almost all applications that are developed today. A core principle of
       this project is to provide a general purpose reporting capability that can
       easily and seamlessly be integrated as a component of vertical applications
       and solutions.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Extensibility</b> - To meet the varied requirements for reporting and
       Business Intelligence, provide extension points that enable developers to
       adapt the technology to meet application specific needs.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Vendor neutrality</b> - We aim to encourage Eclipse participation and
       drive Eclipse market acceptance by providing vendor-neutral capabilities
       and to encourage participation for complementary capabilities through additional
       projects.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Open, standards-based development</b> - Where market adopted standards
       exist that meet the design goals, our aim is to leverage and adhere to them.
       Where market adopted standards do not exist, we will develop and publish
       any new capabilities in the Eclipse open forum. <br>
       <br>
       <b>Incremental delivery</b> - In order to meet the pent-up demand for reporting
       within the Java application market, a goal is to delivery functionality
       to market as rapidly as possible via an incremental delivery model.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Agile development</b> - Our aim is to incorporate into our planning process
       the innovations that arise once a project is underway, and the feedback
       from our user community on our achievements to date. We think an agile development
       and planning process, in which progress is incremental, near-term deliverables
       are focused, and long-term planning is flexible, will be the best way to
       achieve this.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Inclusiveness &amp; diversity</b> - We aim to assimilate the best ideas
       from the largest number of participants representing the needs of the widest
       range of end-users. So we will encourage organizations across a broad range
       of technical, market and geographical domains to participate in this project.<br>


     <h2>Project
       Scope </h2>


       <p>The Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project will address
         a broad range of needs in the business intelligence and reporting space
         using the Eclipse platform. <br>
         <br>
         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.<br>
         <br>
         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.<br>
         <br>
         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. Over time, the creation of
         additional projects is anticipated and encouraged to address additional
         aspects of business intelligence, such as Online Analytical Processing
         (OLAP), statistical analysis, Extract Transform and Load (ETL) tools and
         so forth.<br>
         <br>
         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.<br>
         <br>
         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: <br>
       </p>
       <ul>
         <li>Listings of information (Example: Transactions in an account)</li>
         <li>Sorting, grouping and aggregation of data with and without subtotals
           (Example: A listing of all product sales for each sales person, grouped
           by state)</li>
         <li>Charts to present information in easy to understand formats (Example:
           Pie chart showing an investor's portfolio allocation by High Growth/Growth/Income/etc.
           categories)</li>
         <li>Matrix or cross-tab layouts (Example: Financial budget reports with
           cost codes as rows, columns for each month, and cells containing numerical
           data for that cost code/month)</li>
         <li>Delivery of information as one or a combination of web pages, PDF
           files, printed documents, Excel files, etc. (Example: Frequent flyer
           statement delivered as a web page online and a printed document in the
           mail)</li>
         <li>Precise, highly formatted layouts (Examples: Bank statements; utility
           bills; commission statements; invoices; government forms)</li>
         <li>Page navigation for long reports (Examples: Hundreds of pages corporate
           cell phone usage bill with First Page, Next Page, Goto Page, etc. buttons)</li>
         <li>Table of Contents (Example: Multi-page Investment Portfolio summary
           with Table of Contents to quickly navigate to Account Summary; Fund
           History; etc.)</li>
         <li>Keyword or content search within a report (Example: find information
           on a customer in a 1000 page customer account report)</li>
       </ul>
       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.<br>
       <br>
       For report development, the project broadly targets three classes of developer:
       <ul>
         <li><b>Application Developers</b> - 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.</li>
         <li><b>Report Developers</b> - 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.</li>
         <li><b>Business Users</b> - 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.</li>
       </ul>
       <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.<br>
       </p>


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


       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.<br>
       <br>
       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.<br>
       <br>


     <h2>Projects
       </h2>


       <p><b>Eclipse Report Designer</b><br>
         <br>
         The Eclipse Report Designer is an Eclipse-based desktop authoring environment
         for report development. Eclipse Report Designer enables application and
         report developers to create simple and complex reports for use within
         their organization. The tool recognizes and caters to the broad range
         of report development skills from the non-programmer report developer
         focused on report layout to the application developer looking for sophisticated
         control over report creation.<br>
         <br>
         Eclipse Report Designer provides:</p>
       <ul>
         <li>Visual report layout with precise control over report page design</li>
         <li>Extensive range of Wizards and Builders for no-code speed of development</li>
         <li>Component-based report development and reuse</li>
         <li>Template and style-sheet presentation model</li>
         <li>Ability to programmatically control any report behavior using Java
           (if needed)</li>
         <li>Data access direct to SQL databases, Java objects or other data sources</li>
         <li>Support for creating actionable reports that link to other content
           or transaction systems</li>
         <li>Interactive report features with full development control (e.g. click
           on column heading to sort report)</li>
       </ul>
       The report design format will be open source and XML-based.<br>
       <br>
       The Eclipse Report Designer will include and leverage a Report Design Engine
       that provides the services required by the user interface to create, edit
       and manage report designs. This design engine will be open and documented,
       making it fully accessible by other applications and products. Report designs
       can be created or manipulated programmatically for integration into custom
       report design environments for targeted uses. For example, as a flexible
       report feature seamlessly built into a finance application.
       <p>The Report Designer will provide a number of commonly requested integration
         points to support application-specific and general purpose extensions
         to the designer. Specifically:</p>
       <ul>
         <li>Fully extensible data access and query capabilities to support authoring
           reports against any target data source. This will include ability to
           extend the Report Designer with custom query builder user interfaces
           and data access logic.</li>
         <li>Easy integration of code to incorporate complex and/or application
           specific business logic into report designs.</li>
         <li>Extensible model that allows new visual components to be incorporated
           into reports (for example, new graphical representations of data).</li>
       </ul>
       The Report Engine project described below takes report designs created by
       the Eclipse Report Designer as input to generate resultant report documents.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Web Based Report Designer</b><br>
       <br>
       The Web Based Report Designer project delivers a fully customizable, 100%
       HTML based tool for creating reports with basic layouts and data manipulation.
       The tool will leverage components such as style sheets and templates created
       using the Eclipse Report Designer. In addition, the tool will provide an
       Eclipse-based customization facility for the user interface for full branding
       and embedding within Java applications. The goal of this project is to provide
       an accessible and easy-to-use report design environment to meet the needs
       for ad hoc report creation by business users within any java application.<br>
       <br>
       Web Based Report Designer ultimately will support a number of report design
       capabilities, including:
       <ul>
         <li>Ability to select, sort, group and filter data</li>
         <li>Support for cross-tab reports and charts</li>
         <li>Support for formatting control (column position, fonts, colors)</li>
         <li>Ability to apply templates and style sheets for layout and formatting</li>
         <li>Advanced reporting features (subtotals, &#133;)</li>
         <li>A highly customizable user interface for integration into any Java
           application</li>
         <li>Extensible user interface to support additional application specific
           or general purpose reporting capabilities</li>
       </ul>
     The Report Engine project described below uses report designs created by the
       Web Based Report Designer to generate resultant report documents.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Report Engine</b><br>
       <br>
       The Report Engine project enables XML report designs created by the Eclipse
       Report Designer, Web Based Report Designer or any other tool to be deployed
       as an embedded component within a J2EE application. To support this, the
       Report Engine provides two core services: generation and presentation.<br>
       <br>
       <i>Report Generation Services</i>: The generation service within the Report
       Engine is responsible for connecting to the specified data source(s), retrieving
       and processing the data (sorting, grouping, aggregations, etc), creating
       the report layout and generating the report document. Report content can
       immediately be viewed using the presentation services, or saved for use
       later (permitting snapshot views of reports to be retained over time).<br>
       <br>
       <i>Report Presentation Services</i>: The presentation service within the
       Report Engine provides a rich set of viewing capabilities for report content.
       This includes the infrastructure for viewing a document online (rendering
       to HTML, page by page navigation, etc.); for printing a document; and for
       generating alternate output documents such as PDF. These are all sourced
       from the same initial output document, enabling the same content to be targeted
       for different delivery vehicles within the same application (for example,
       a transaction statement that is viewed online as HTML and is also available
       for offline distribution/viewing via PDF).<br>
       <br>
       Both the generation and presentation services provide support for the extension
       points discussed in the earlier sections of this proposal. In addition,
       the output formats supported by the presentation service is also extensible
       - enabling documents to be targeted for specific display devices. <br>
       <br>
       The Report Engine allows Java application developers to quickly integrate
       powerful report generation and viewing capabilities into their applications
       without having to build the infrastructure from lower level Java components.<br>
       <br>
       <b>Charting Engine</b><br>
       <br>
       The Chart Engine project provides a rich business chart generation capability
       that can be used as a standalone charting component, as well as providing
       the chart generation service within the Report Engine project. Visual presentation
       of business data in the form of charts is a common, and key, aspect of many
       reports and other forms of business intelligence. As such, a robust charting
       capability is essential within the overall Business Intelligence and Reporting
       Tools project.<br>
       <br>
       The Chart Engine will allow Java application developers to provide data
       to the engine in a pre-defined format and to provide an XML file that specifies
       the characteristics of the chart that will be generated. The project will
       include an Eclipse-based design component to facilitate visual design of
       the chart to be created.<br>
       <br>
       Initial scope for the Chart Engine project is focused on the production
       of chart images that can be embedded in a report. Future enhancements would
       potentially include interactive chart viewing capabilities that allow users
       to, for example, change the chart type and rotate charts at view time.<br>


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	<?php
	include_once($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] . "/projects/fragments/proposal-page-header.php");
	generate_header("Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Top-Level");
	?>

	<h1>Business Intelligence & Reporting
	Tools</h1>

	<p>This project proposal is in the <a href="/projects/dev_process/">
	Proposal Phase</a> and is posted here to solicit community feedback, additional project participation
	and ways the project can be leveraged from the Eclipse membership-at-large.
	You are invited to comment on and/or join the project.
	Please send all feedback to the <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.birt">eclipse.birt
	newsgroup</a> or the <a href="https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/birt-proposal">
	birt-proposal</a> mailing list.</p>


	<h2>Project Organization</h2>



	<p>The <i>Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project</i> is a proposed
	open source Top Level Project of eclipse.org.The <a href="charter.html">Project
	Charter</a> describes the organization of the project, roles and responsibilities
	of the participants, and top-level development process for the project.</p>





	<h2>Project Principles</h2>


	Among the key principles on which this project has been initiated, and
	will be run, are the following: <br>
	<br>
	<b>Extension of the Eclipse value proposition</b> - The Eclipse Project
	has set a high standard for technical excellence, functional innovation
	and overall extensibility within the Java IDE domain. We intend to apply
	these same standards to the business intelligence and reporting domain.
	<br>
	<br>
	<b>Leverage Eclipse ecosystem</b> - A major goal of this project is to apply
	the application development strengths of the Eclipse Project to the business
	intelligence and reporting domain. The project will work closely with other
	Eclipse project areas whenever possible to leverage the capabilities being
	developed in those areas.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Vertical Solutions</b> - Reporting and Business intelligence are a facet
	of almost all applications that are developed today. A core principle of
	this project is to provide a general purpose reporting capability that can
	easily and seamlessly be integrated as a component of vertical applications
	and solutions.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Extensibility</b> - To meet the varied requirements for reporting and
	Business Intelligence, provide extension points that enable developers to
	adapt the technology to meet application specific needs.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Vendor neutrality</b> - We aim to encourage Eclipse participation and
	drive Eclipse market acceptance by providing vendor-neutral capabilities
	and to encourage participation for complementary capabilities through additional
	projects.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Open, standards-based development</b> - Where market adopted standards
	exist that meet the design goals, our aim is to leverage and adhere to them.
	Where market adopted standards do not exist, we will develop and publish
	any new capabilities in the Eclipse open forum. <br>
	<br>
	<b>Incremental delivery</b> - In order to meet the pent-up demand for reporting
	within the Java application market, a goal is to delivery functionality
	to market as rapidly as possible via an incremental delivery model.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Agile development</b> - Our aim is to incorporate into our planning process
	the innovations that arise once a project is underway, and the feedback
	from our user community on our achievements to date. We think an agile development
	and planning process, in which progress is incremental, near-term deliverables
	are focused, and long-term planning is flexible, will be the best way to
	achieve this.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Inclusiveness & diversity</b> - We aim to assimilate the best ideas
	from the largest number of participants representing the needs of the widest
	range of end-users. So we will encourage organizations across a broad range
	of technical, market and geographical domains to participate in this project.<br>





	<h2>Project
	Scope </h2>



	<p>The Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools Project will address
	a broad range of needs in the business intelligence and reporting space
	using the Eclipse platform. <br>
	<br>
	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.<br>
	<br>
	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.<br>
	<br>
	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. Over time, the creation of
	additional projects is anticipated and encouraged to address additional
	aspects of business intelligence, such as Online Analytical Processing
	(OLAP), statistical analysis, Extract Transform and Load (ETL) tools and
	so forth.<br>
	<br>
	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.<br>
	<br>
	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: <br>
	</p>
	<ul>
	<li>Listings of information (Example: Transactions in an account)</li>
	<li>Sorting, grouping and aggregation of data with and without subtotals
	(Example: A listing of all product sales for each sales person, grouped
	by state)</li>
	<li>Charts to present information in easy to understand formats (Example:
	Pie chart showing an investor's portfolio allocation by High Growth/Growth/Income/etc.
	categories)</li>
	<li>Matrix or cross-tab layouts (Example: Financial budget reports with
	cost codes as rows, columns for each month, and cells containing numerical
	data for that cost code/month)</li>
	<li>Delivery of information as one or a combination of web pages, PDF
	files, printed documents, Excel files, etc. (Example: Frequent flyer
	statement delivered as a web page online and a printed document in the
	mail)</li>
	<li>Precise, highly formatted layouts (Examples: Bank statements; utility
	bills; commission statements; invoices; government forms)</li>
	<li>Page navigation for long reports (Examples: Hundreds of pages corporate
	cell phone usage bill with First Page, Next Page, Goto Page, etc. buttons)</li>
	<li>Table of Contents (Example: Multi-page Investment Portfolio summary
	with Table of Contents to quickly navigate to Account Summary; Fund
	History; etc.)</li>
	<li>Keyword or content search within a report (Example: find information
	on a customer in a 1000 page customer account report)</li>
	</ul>
	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.<br>
	<br>
	For report development, the project broadly targets three classes of developer:
	<ul>
	<li><b>Application Developers</b> - 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.</li>
	<li><b>Report Developers</b> - 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.</li>
	<li><b>Business Users</b> - 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.</li>
	</ul>
	<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.<br>
	</p>


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



	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.<br>
	<br>
	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.<br>
	<br>





	<h2>Projects
	</h2>



	<p><b>Eclipse Report Designer</b><br>
	<br>
	The Eclipse Report Designer is an Eclipse-based desktop authoring environment
	for report development. Eclipse Report Designer enables application and
	report developers to create simple and complex reports for use within
	their organization. The tool recognizes and caters to the broad range
	of report development skills from the non-programmer report developer
	focused on report layout to the application developer looking for sophisticated
	control over report creation.<br>
	<br>
	Eclipse Report Designer provides:</p>
	<ul>
	<li>Visual report layout with precise control over report page design</li>
	<li>Extensive range of Wizards and Builders for no-code speed of development</li>
	<li>Component-based report development and reuse</li>
	<li>Template and style-sheet presentation model</li>
	<li>Ability to programmatically control any report behavior using Java
	(if needed)</li>
	<li>Data access direct to SQL databases, Java objects or other data sources</li>
	<li>Support for creating actionable reports that link to other content
	or transaction systems</li>
	<li>Interactive report features with full development control (e.g. click
	on column heading to sort report)</li>
	</ul>
	The report design format will be open source and XML-based.<br>
	<br>
	The Eclipse Report Designer will include and leverage a Report Design Engine
	that provides the services required by the user interface to create, edit
	and manage report designs. This design engine will be open and documented,
	making it fully accessible by other applications and products. Report designs
	can be created or manipulated programmatically for integration into custom
	report design environments for targeted uses. For example, as a flexible
	report feature seamlessly built into a finance application.
	<p>The Report Designer will provide a number of commonly requested integration
	points to support application-specific and general purpose extensions
	to the designer. Specifically:</p>
	<ul>
	<li>Fully extensible data access and query capabilities to support authoring
	reports against any target data source. This will include ability to
	extend the Report Designer with custom query builder user interfaces
	and data access logic.</li>
	<li>Easy integration of code to incorporate complex and/or application
	specific business logic into report designs.</li>
	<li>Extensible model that allows new visual components to be incorporated
	into reports (for example, new graphical representations of data).</li>
	</ul>
	The Report Engine project described below takes report designs created by
	the Eclipse Report Designer as input to generate resultant report documents.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Web Based Report Designer</b><br>
	<br>
	The Web Based Report Designer project delivers a fully customizable, 100%
	HTML based tool for creating reports with basic layouts and data manipulation.
	The tool will leverage components such as style sheets and templates created
	using the Eclipse Report Designer. In addition, the tool will provide an
	Eclipse-based customization facility for the user interface for full branding
	and embedding within Java applications. The goal of this project is to provide
	an accessible and easy-to-use report design environment to meet the needs
	for ad hoc report creation by business users within any java application.<br>
	<br>
	Web Based Report Designer ultimately will support a number of report design
	capabilities, including:
	<ul>
	<li>Ability to select, sort, group and filter data</li>
	<li>Support for cross-tab reports and charts</li>
	<li>Support for formatting control (column position, fonts, colors)</li>
	<li>Ability to apply templates and style sheets for layout and formatting</li>
	<li>Advanced reporting features (subtotals, )</li>
	<li>A highly customizable user interface for integration into any Java
	application</li>
	<li>Extensible user interface to support additional application specific
	or general purpose reporting capabilities</li>
	</ul>
	The Report Engine project described below uses report designs created by the
	Web Based Report Designer to generate resultant report documents.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Report Engine</b><br>
	<br>
	The Report Engine project enables XML report designs created by the Eclipse
	Report Designer, Web Based Report Designer or any other tool to be deployed
	as an embedded component within a J2EE application. To support this, the
	Report Engine provides two core services: generation and presentation.<br>
	<br>
	<i>Report Generation Services</i>: The generation service within the Report
	Engine is responsible for connecting to the specified data source(s), retrieving
	and processing the data (sorting, grouping, aggregations, etc), creating
	the report layout and generating the report document. Report content can
	immediately be viewed using the presentation services, or saved for use
	later (permitting snapshot views of reports to be retained over time).<br>
	<br>
	<i>Report Presentation Services</i>: The presentation service within the
	Report Engine provides a rich set of viewing capabilities for report content.
	This includes the infrastructure for viewing a document online (rendering
	to HTML, page by page navigation, etc.); for printing a document; and for
	generating alternate output documents such as PDF. These are all sourced
	from the same initial output document, enabling the same content to be targeted
	for different delivery vehicles within the same application (for example,
	a transaction statement that is viewed online as HTML and is also available
	for offline distribution/viewing via PDF).<br>
	<br>
	Both the generation and presentation services provide support for the extension
	points discussed in the earlier sections of this proposal. In addition,
	the output formats supported by the presentation service is also extensible
	- enabling documents to be targeted for specific display devices. <br>
	<br>
	The Report Engine allows Java application developers to quickly integrate
	powerful report generation and viewing capabilities into their applications
	without having to build the infrastructure from lower level Java components.<br>
	<br>
	<b>Charting Engine</b><br>
	<br>
	The Chart Engine project provides a rich business chart generation capability
	that can be used as a standalone charting component, as well as providing
	the chart generation service within the Report Engine project. Visual presentation
	of business data in the form of charts is a common, and key, aspect of many
	reports and other forms of business intelligence. As such, a robust charting
	capability is essential within the overall Business Intelligence and Reporting
	Tools project.<br>
	<br>
	The Chart Engine will allow Java application developers to provide data
	to the engine in a pre-defined format and to provide an XML file that specifies
	the characteristics of the chart that will be generated. The project will
	include an Eclipse-based design component to facilitate visual design of
	the chart to be created.<br>
	<br>
	Initial scope for the Chart Engine project is focused on the production
	of chart images that can be embedded in a report. Future enhancements would
	potentially include interactive chart viewing capabilities that allow users
	to, for example, change the chart type and rotate charts at view time.<br>



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