Eclipse BIRT Report Tutorial 1 - Downloading and Installing BIRT

In this tutorial, we will simply be downloading, installing and setting up Actuate Corporation's Eclipse BIRT Report program.

Step 1: Downloading BIRT:

Download BIRT from the following website:

http://download.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/

Some applications, such as Assetworks AiM system do not support the latest release of BIRT. If this is the case, read your platform's documentation to determine which version of BIRT is supported. Older releases can be found here:

http://download.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/build_list.php

And even older versions can be found in the BIRT archive here:

http://archive.eclipse.org/birt/downloads/build_list.php

Step 2: Installing the BIRT Reports Application:

Find the BIRT folder that was downloaded on to your computer. This will be the location you have defined for web downloads and likely is the "Downloads" Folder under your user path if you are using Microsoft Windows. (Example: C:\Users\myusername\Downloads).

Unzip the folder using a file compression utility such as 7Zip or PeaZip and save the unzipped folder to a location that you can easily find.

Once it has finished unzipping, open the folder and click on Eclipse.exe to open the program.

It will prompt you for a default folder to save any reports you edit and create. You can choose your personal reports folder from your directory, otherwise simply type in a folder name to create a new folder where you reports will be saved.

If you are using version 4.3, the application will bring you to a Welcome screen. This screen has a tutorials section that will be useful for getting started. It identifies how to create a small Hello World application as well as workbench setup features. If you close it by accident, you can always revisit the Welcome page from the Help section of the workbench.

Step 3: Establishing Your Connection

1. Click on the Data Explorer tab.
2. Right click on "Data Sources."
3. Select "New Data Source"
4. Choose your source type.
5. If you are using JDBC that requires access to a database:
1. Find the URL to your server. If you are using sqlserver, t should look something like this:
• jdbc:sqlserver://{server path and port};DatabaseName={Your Database Name};
2. Add the admin username and password
3. Add your JNDI url
6. If you do not already have the appropriate drivers, download the appropriate driver and follow the instructions here and here.
1. Click Manage Drivers
2. Click add
3.  Select the location of your jar file
7. Test the connection, if all goes well, click OK. You are now connected to your database!
8. If you are having problems connecting to the database, try finding the solution to your problem at http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/BIRT/FAQ/Data_Access.

Step 4: Optimizing the Layout

There are a few views that are not immediately presented on your workbench that I have found incredibly valuable to writing reports. To add them, from the workbench, simply go to Window > Show View.

Data Explorer

Data Explorer shows your connections and queries. You can select a query and double click it, or right click and select "edit" to step into and alter the query when needed.

Outline

Outline displays the entire contents of your report, from connections, to parameters, to content. I find digging through the "Body" section of the outline to be very valuable. It's an easy way to refer to select an element in order to change formatting or to get at an element that has been covered up by another element.

Palette

Palette gives you the new things that you can add to your report. I don't use this as much, because I usually drag and drop straight from my datasets, but it can be valuable when adding headers and text boxes.

Navigator

If you save all of your reports in one repository, then Navigator can help you step into any of those reports quickly. It's like a mini file folder widget!