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Products BIRT User Experience Ad Hoc Reporting Features
Query and Analysis
BIRT Studio is an ad-hoc reporting tool for business users to create BIRT-based reports using the reusable components created by BIRT developers in an Eclipse BIRT Designer or BIRT Designer Pro from Actuate. It is an AJAX-based business intelligence tool accessed from a web browser with no client software to install. With BIRT Studio, users can create charts and graphs; add, rearrange, reformat, show and hide data; and change report, row, column and cell formatting to create their own BIRT output.
BIRT Studio is implemented as a service of the BIRT iServer. For BIRT ISVs and SaaS vendors wishing to include BIRT Studio in their product, it can be embedded as a component or with the BIRT Deployment Kit.
Query and Analysis
BIRT Studio provides business users the ability to query and analyze data. Business users select the data they want to see in a business intelligence report, apply calculations and aggregations to the data, and control how it is displayed, filtered, and sorted. The user of BIRT Studio can access any data made available to them by the developer designing the template using an Eclipse BIRT Designer or BIRT Designer Pro.
Data Access and Queries
BIRT Studio gives business users access to the business intelligence data they need, but within IT control.
- Pre-defined Queries – use data queries pre-defined in the report template accessing any data source supported by a BIRT Designer.
- Custom Queries – use queries plugged in via the custom query builder UI or a compliant ODA driver to a custom data access layer.
- BIRT Information Designer – access data for business intelligence reporting needs via the optional metadata layer product that supports relational data sources from vendors such as Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and Sybase. It also supports business intelligence data for non-relational sources such as XML, flat files and custom sources; and helps business users performing JOINS between multiple information objects.
- Synchronized data sets – refresh the design with the latest data source definition.
Calculations and Summaries
With BIRT Studio, business users can define functions to be performed on data.
- Aggregates – summarizes the individual values in a column; for example, SUM and AVERAGE.
- Calculated columns – calculates columns based on a set of pre-defined functions.
Filters
BIRT Studio provides several ways for users to filter data for their business intelligence reporting needs.
- Simple Filters – apply data conditions to a single column; for example, list customers who are based in Chicago, New York or Seattle.
- Compound Filters – applies conditions to multiple columns; for example, list customers who are based in Chicago, New York or Seattle and have an account balance that is > $1 million.
- Top N/Bottom N – first sorts and then filters values to display the top N or bottom N values.
- Prompts (Parameters) – exposes filters as prompts for report users to specify a value that determines the data to be returned in their business intelligence reports.
Data Display Options
With BIRT Studio business users can rearrange, hide and group report data.
- Bound data fields – displays data directly on the report.
- Hidden data fields – hides data but it still can be used for calculations, filtering or added to the report.
- Grouping – groups columns based on data values; for example, grouping order details by Order ID.
- Sections – displays groups as independent tables.
- Hide Details – hides detail columns from the user and report.
- Duplicate Suppress – suppresses the display of duplicate values within a column.
- Sort – sorts data using a single or multiple columns; for example, sort by country, then state and then city.
