The Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) team is pleased to announce the release of BIRT 2.1. BIRT 2.1 expands on the 2.0 release, by adding features such as joined data sets, connection pooling, better drill through support, improved cascaded parameters, and enhanced charting. BIRT 2.1 also offers many improvements in internationalization, accessibility, and context sensitive help. BIRT is an Eclipse-based open source reporting system for web applications. BIRT’s main components consist of an Eclipse based report designer and a runtime component for deployment to a J2EE application server.

• BIRT Report Designer – WYSIWYG editor is used to create complex report designs. The designer supports advanced features such as, grouping, sorting, filtering, highlighting, , conditional formatting and charting. The designer can access JDBC, XML, flat file and scripted data sources and supports an event model that allows many customizations through Java or JavaScript.
• BIRT Viewer – J2EE/AJAX based application supports running and rendering of report designs. The viewer supports dynamic parameters, table of contents, export to CSV, paginated HTML, PDF, and printing.

BIRT also supplies three public APIs, which can be used to create, modify, execute, and render reports and charts.

• Design Engine API (DE API) – This API can be used to create or modify BIRT XML report designs.
• Report Engine API (RE API) – The report engine is used to generate and render report designs. Using this API the engine can be embedded within Java/J2EE based applications.
• Chart Engine API (CE API) – BIRT supplies a sophisticated charting engine that can also be used standalone. Using the CE API, charting capabilities can be easily added to a Java/J2EE application.

To learn more take a look at the New and Notable Features within BIRT 2.1. Interested in getting started with BIRT? See the BIRT Tutorial. BIRT 2.1 is available for download. Message was edited by: joeo@enigmastation.com

I remember reading somewhere that OLAP implementation was on BIRT roadmap. Is it still in plans? IMO, it is a stretch to market a product as "Business Intelligence" tool without having OLAP support, which is a standard major feature of established BI products: http://www.oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/olap.html http://www.microsoft.com/sql/solutions/bi/default.mspx http://www.pentaho.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=154&Itemid=238 Although the reporting part of BIRT looks quite impressive. Leon

Leon, Currently an OLAP engine is not on the BIRT project plan (As of 2.1). We update the plan for every release, based on Bugzilla entries, and publish it to: http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/project/plan.php Although this is not in the current plan, that is not to say it will never be added or contributed to the BIRT source. Jason

If you are looking at reporting systems, please also take a look at Windward Reports. It is similiar to BIRT in functionality but you use any word processor, such as Word 2003, to design the reports. So there is no learning curve. thanks - dave

If you are looking at reporting systems, please also take a look at Windward Reports. It is similiar to BIRT in functionality but you use any word processor, such as Word 2003, to design the reports.

So there is no learning curve.

thanks - dave

If it a: uses any word processor to design reports b: has no learning curve I highly doubt it comes even close to being "similiar to BIRT in functionality". On the other hand, it might do some things BIRT doesn't.

If it
a: uses any word processor to design reports
b: has no learning curve
I highly doubt it comes even close to being "similiar to BIRT in functionality".
On the other hand, it might do some things BIRT doesn't.

I can't speak to specific features. But I do know we have customers that have switched from BIRT to Windward.

And consider if it is comparable to BIRT using your word processor and with no learning curve - that would be a useful tool...

Please take a look and email me to let me know what you think of the two.

If it
a: uses any word processor to design reports
b: has no learning curve
I highly doubt it comes even close to being "similiar to BIRT in functionality".
On the other hand, it might do some things BIRT doesn't.

I can't speak to specific features. But I do know we have customers that have switched from BIRT to Windward.

And consider if it is comparable to BIRT using your word processor and with no learning curve - that would be a useful tool...

Please take a look and email me to let me know what you think of the two.

Since BIRT is open source, you should be able to download it and do a true comparison. That way you will know. I wouldn't doubt some people would switch from BIRT to Windward. Their needs might be different. Since I am developer, I am pretty satified with BIRT and JasperReports. I've used Word to template things, and, well ,it is a good word processor.

Since I am developer, I am pretty satified with BIRT and JasperReports. I've used Word to template things, and, well ,it is a good word processor.

Hi again; I have asked one of our interns to do a comparison of BIRT and Windward (and yes that is something we should do regardless). In terms of Jasper, here is a case study from a company that switched from Jasper to Windward Aspect Security switches to Windward. This may help some on the advantages of Windward. Also, if you want a simple video on how it works - please take a look at this. thanks - dave

Since I am developer, I am pretty satified with BIRT and JasperReports. I've used Word to template things, and, well ,it is a good word processor.

Hi again;

I have asked one of our interns to do a comparison of BIRT and Windward (and yes that is something we should do regardless).

In terms of Jasper, here is a case study from a company that switched from Jasper to Windward Aspect Security switches to Windward. This may help some on the advantages of Windward.

Also, if you want a simple video on how it works - please take a look at this.

thanks - dave

Looked at the PDF. (I already viewed the video). I don't care for the Eclipse plugin either. iReport, on the other hand is pretty good. Is JasperReports perfect? No. But for my needs, is Windward Reports work the cost? Not at this time. I can see that for some, it is worth the money. I'll be nice and just say that you do have a market - there are plenty of "developers" who should let companies like yours handle the reporting tool. I would suggest that if you are going to post links to your product in every (or any) report thread, you should say that you are an employee of that company.

Mark - I tried to find your email but no luck so I'm posting here. If you want I am happy to give you a dev copy of Windward if in return, if you use it, you tell me what you think of it vs BIRT. If you are interested, please email me at david at windward dot net. thanks - dave

We performed sample report profiling using JBuilder Thread Debugger, which shows that BIRT report engine has multiple thread contention problems. Full Performance Test Report here: http://www.jroller.com/page/galina?entry=birt_reporting_framework_performance_test Valery

Sorry for commenting in old post but what is BIRT? I use eclipse but never heard about it.

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