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  <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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