Overview - Getting Started Introduction

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With Actuate iServer Express, you can deploy, manage, schedule, run and share BIRT Reports, BusinessReports, and e.Spreadsheet reports quickly and easily.

iServer Express includes the following functionality:

• Multiple levels of security, including user and role security, to control access to reports
• On-demand, time-based, and event-based scheduling
• Web pages and APIs to run, view and share reports with other users
• Report parameter pages with dynamically populated and cascading drop-down list boxes, radio buttons, check boxes, and calendar controls.
• Automated email distribution of reports
• Report publishing, versioning, and archiving

All of this functionality can be accessed via the end user web interface for iServer Express or via its Web Services API.

Contents 1 Getting Started 2 Terminology 3 What’s Not Covered 4 Lessons

Getting Started

To help you get started with iServer this guide takes you step by step through the basic functionality of the web-based user interfaces. You will learn how to use both the iPortal (the end user interface) and Management Console (the administrator user interface).

You'll get a quick overview of the following user activities:

• Log in to iServer Express using iPortal
• Navigate folders and find reports
• Run reports on demand and save the results to the server
• Provide report parameter values
• Schedule a report to run later: both one-time and repeated
• Run a report and generate PDF output
• Specify if multiple versions of report documents should be created and how many versions to keep at one time.
• View BIRT reports in the standard Actuate Viewer
• View BIRT reports in the Interactive Viewer
• View e.Spreadsheet reports

You'll also learn about the following administrator functionality:

• Log into Management Console
• Create users and security roles
• Assign access privileges to reports and folders, based on users and security roles
• Upload a report design to iServer Express
• One-click publishing of BIRT reports to iServer Express directly from the Actuate BIRT Report Designer
• One-click publishing of e.Spreadsheet reports to iServer Express directly from the Actuate e.Spreadsheet Report Designer

Terminology

This dicsussion of iPortal Express uses a number of terms that may be unfamiliar. A Terminology section at the start of each section of this guide defines the major terms used in that section. For other terms, see the Actuate Glossary on the documentation page, or view it directly as HTML.

BIRT report

a report created using the Eclipse BIRT or Actuate BIRT Designer tools.

e.Spreadsheet

a report created using Actuate e.Spreadsheet Designer that produces Excel-compatible spreadsheets.

What’s Not Covered

This Getting Started Guide is designed to get you up and running with iServer Express as quickly as possible. As such, it does not cover many of the exciting, but more advanced, features in iServer Express. Some of the areas that are not covered are listed in the Learn More section. Please refer to the product manuals for more information on these features.

Lessons

The following lessons guide you through some of the major parts of iServer Express. You can pick those that are of most interest and come back to the others later as needed. We recommend, however, that within a topic, you work though the guides in the order they are listed as later guides assume you are familiar with the earlier material.

1. Install and Configure iServer Express on Windows
2. Log into iServer Express using iPortal
3. Run and View a BIRT Report
4. View BIRT Reports with the Actuate Viewer
5. Work with e.Spreadsheet Reports
6. Schedule Reports to Run in the Future
7. Set Up Users & Security Roles
8. Publish Reports to iServer Express
9. Learn More

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