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Book Description

Learn to use the power of Pentaho for Business Intelligence reporting in a series of simple, logical stages. From installation in Windows or Linux right through to publishing your own Java web application, it’s all here.

  • Install and configure PRD in Linux and Windows
  • Create complex reports using relational data sources
  • Produce reports with groups, aggregate functions, parameters, graphics, and sparklines
  • Install and configure Pentaho BI Server to execute PRD reports
  • Create and publish your own Java web application with parameterized reports and an interactive user interface

In Detail

Open source reporting tools and techniques, such as PRD, have been comparable in quality to their commercial counterparts this is largely due to the market's marked tendency to choose open source solutions. PRD is a very powerful tool and in order to take full advantage of it you need to pay attention to the important details.

Pentaho 4.0 Reporting by Example: Beginner’s Guide clearly explains the the foundation and then puts those concepts into practice through step-by-step visual guides. Feeling confident with your newly discovered, desirable, skill you will have the power to create your very own professional reports including graphics, formulas, sub-reports and many other forms of data reporting.

Pentaho 4.0 Reporting By Example: Beginner’s Guide is a step-by-step guide to create high quality, professional reports. Starting with the basics we will explore each feature to ensure a thorough understanding to peel back the curtain and take full advantage of the power that Pentaho puts at our fingertips.

This book gives you the necessary resources to create a great variety of reports. You will be able to make reports that contain sub-reports, include graphics, sparklines and so on. You will also be able to parameterize your reports so that the final user can decide what information to visualize. You will be able to create your own stoplight type indicators and drill down in your reports. and execute your reports from your own web application.

Pentaho 4.0 Reporting By Example: Beginner’s Guide lets you learn everything necessary to work seriously with one of the world’s most popular open source reporting tools. This book will guide you chapter by chapter through examples, graphics, and theoretical explanations so that you feel comfortable interacting with Pentaho Report Designer and creating your own reports.

Table of Contents

  1. Pentaho 5.0 Reporting by Example Beginner’s Guide
    1. Table of Contents
    2. Pentaho 5.0 Reporting by Example Beginner’s Guide
    3. Credits
    4. About the Authors
    5. About the Reviewers
    6. www.PacktPub.com
      1. Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more
        1. Why Subscribe?
        2. Free Access for Packt account holders
    7. Preface
      1. What this book covers
      2. What you need for this book
      3. Who this book is for
      4. Conventions
      5. Time for action – heading
        1. What just happened?
        2. Pop quiz – heading
        3. Have a go hero – heading
      6. Reader feedback
        1. Customer support
        2. Errata
        3. Piracy
        4. Questions
    8. 1. What is Pentaho Report Designer?
      1. Types of reports
      2. Main features of Pentaho Report Designer
        1. History
      3. Examples of typical reports
        1. The buyer report
        2. The income statement
        3. The inventory list
        4. Invoice
        5. Product Sales
        6. Top N Customers
        7. HTML actions
      4. Summary
    9. 2. Installation and Configuration
      1. Configuring the environment
        1. System requirements
      2. Time for action – installing JDK and configuring the environment variables
        1. What just happened?
      3. Time for action – downloading, installing, and configuring PRD
        1. What just happened?
      4. Learning the Sakila database
      5. Time for action – downloading and installing Sakila DB
        1. What just happened?
        2. The Sakila database schema
          1. Customer Data
          2. Inventory
          3. Business
        3. Have a go hero
        4. Pop quiz – system requirements, JDBC driver, Sakila DB, and RAM
      6. Summary
    10. 3. Start PRD and the User Interface (UI) Layout
      1. Starting PRD
      2. Time for action – starting PRD and creating a new report
        1. What just happened?
      3. PRD layout
        1. The Work area
        2. Insertable objects
        3. Report tree structure
        4. Style and Attributes
        5. The Data panel
        6. The menu bar
        7. Shortcuts
        8. The tab section
        9. Format tools
        10. Message section and memory indicator
        11. Have a go hero
        12. Pop Quiz – layout of PRD
      4. Summary
    11. 4. Instant Gratification – Creating Your First Report with PRD
      1. Creating your first report with PRD
      2. Time for action – creating a new report and creating a table based on data sets
        1. What just happened?
      3. Time for action – configuring the Report Header and Details Header sections
        1. What just happened?
      4. Time for action – configuring details
        1. What just happened?
      5. The second half of the report
      6. Time for action – adding functions
        1. What just happened?
      7. Time for action – configuring the Details Footer section
        1. What just happened?
      8. Time for action – adding more details
        1. What just happened?
      9. Output types
      10. Time for action – exporting in different formats
        1. What just happened?
        2. Have a go hero
        3. Pop Quiz – data sets, functions, and objects
      11. Summary
    12. 5. Adding a Relational Data Source
      1. Learning about JDBC driver
      2. Time for action – configuring drivers
        1. What just happened?
      3. Creating a new data set
      4. Time for action – creating a new data set
        1. What just happened?
      5. Time for action – modifying the header and detail
        1. What just happened?
      6. Time for action – modifying the report's footer
        1. What just happened?
      7. Aggregation functions
      8. Time for action – using functions to configure styles
        1. What just happened?
      9. Encoding charset
        1. Have a go hero
        2. Pop quiz – JDBC, Functions, and Encoding Charset
      10. Summary
    13. 6. Adding Groups
      1. Starting practice
      2. Time for action – modifying the SQL query
        1. What just happened?
      3. Time for action – configuring the layout
        1. What just happened?
      4. Configuring the Group section
      5. Time for action – adding groups
        1. What just happened?
      6. Modifying functions
      7. Time for action – modifying functions and page breaks
        1. What just happened?
        2. Learning more about groups
        3. Have a go hero
        4. Pop Quiz – positioning hierarchy and groups
      8. Summary
    14. 7. Adding Parameters
      1. Starting practice
      2. Time for action – creating a new report
        1. What just happened?
      3. Parameters
      4. Time for action – adding parameters
        1. What just happened?
      5. Time for action – creating nested parameters
        1. What just happened?
        2. Have a go hero
        3. Pop quiz – format and parameters
      6. Summary
    15. 8. Using Formulas in Our Reports
      1. Starting practice
      2. Time for action – making a copy of the previous report
        1. What just happened?
      3. Formulas
        1. Creating formulas
        2. The formula editor
      4. Time for action – creating a new formula
        1. What just happened?
      5. Time for action – styles with formulas
        1. What just happened?
        2. Have a go hero
        3. Pop quiz – formulas
      6. Summary
    16. 9. Adding Charts
      1. Starting practice
      2. Time for action – creating a new report
        1. What just happened?
      3. Charts
        1. Creating and configuring charts
        2. Types of charts
          1. The bar chart
          2. The line chart
          3. The area chart
          4. The pie chart
          5. The multipie chart
          6. The barline chart
          7. The ring chart
          8. The bubble chart
          9. The scatter-plot chart
          10. The XY bar chart
          11. The XY line chart
          12. The XY area chart
          13. The extended XY line chart
          14. The waterfall chart
          15. The radar chart
          16. The XY area line chart
      4. Restarting practice
      5. Time for action – creating a pie chart
        1. What just happened?
      6. Time for action – creating a bar chart
        1. What just happened?
          1. The relationship between charts and report sections
        2. Have a go hero
        3. Pop quiz – charts
      7. Summary
    17. 10. Adding Subreports
      1. Starting practice
      2. Time for action – creating a new report
        1. What just happened?
      3. Subreports
        1. Subreports in PRD
        2. The relation between Reports and Subreports
        3. The relation between sections of the Report and Subreports
      4. Creating and configuring Subreports
        1. Opening and closing Subreports
      5. Restarting practice
      6. Time for action – creating our first Subreport
        1. What just happened?
      7. Time for action – configuring our first Subreport
        1. What just happened?
      8. Time for action – creating and configuring the second Subreport
        1. What just happened?
        2. Have a go hero
        3. Pop quiz – Subreports
      9. Summary
    18. 11. Publishing and Running Reports in Pentaho BA Server
      1. Learning Pentaho
        1. Defining Pentaho
        2. Pentaho components
        3. Principal Pentaho projects
        4. A brief historical review
      2. Principal characteristics of Pentaho
        1. Downloading Pentaho BA Server
        2. System requirements
      3. Time for action – installing and running Pentaho BA Server
        1. What just happened?
      4. General layout of Pentaho User Console
        1. The Home perspective
        2. The Browse Files perspective
        3. The Opened perspective
        4. The Schedules perspective
        5. The Administration perspective
      5. Creating a new solutions folder
      6. Time for action – publishing reports in Pentaho BA Server
        1. What just happened?
        2. Executing reports in Pentaho BA Server
        3. Creating a schedule
        4. Uploading reports
        5. Have a go hero
        6. Pop quiz – Pentaho
      7. Summary
    19. 12. Making a Difference – Reports with Hyperlinks and Sparklines
      1. Starting practice
      2. Time for action – configuring the layout
        1. What just happened?
      3. Learning about hyperlinks
        1. Types of hyperlinks in PRD
        2. Interaction between PRD and Pentaho BA Server
        3. Restarting practice
      4. Time for action – creating our first hyperlink
        1. What just happened?
      5. Time for action – hyperlinks in charts
        1. What just happened?
      6. Learning about sparklines
        1. Restarting practice
      7. Time for action – creating our first sparkline
        1. What just happened?
        2. Have a go hero
        3. Pop quiz: Hyperlinks and Sparklines
      8. Summary
    20. 13. Environment Variables, Stylesheets, and Crosstabs
      1. Learning about environment variables
        1. Environment variables in PRD
        2. Using the environment variables
        3. On practice
        4. Learning CSS
        5. Stylesheets in PRD
        6. The Style Definition Editor
        7. Applying CSS
      2. Starting practice
      3. Time for action – configuring the layout
        1. What just happened?
      4. Time for action – creating and applying our stylesheet
        1. What just happened?
      5. Trying out stylesheets
        1. Learning about crosstabs
        2. The crosstabs in PRD
        3. Using crosstabs
      6. Crosstabs editor
      7. Time for action – configuring the layout
        1. What just happened?
        2. Have a go hero
        3. Pop Quiz – environment variables, stylesheets, and crosstabs
      8. Summary
    21. 14. PRD Reports Embedded in Web Applications
      1. Tools and technologies we will be using
        1. Learning JEE
        2. Learning Apache Tomcat
      2. Time for action – installing and starting Apache Tomcat
        1. What just happened?
        2. Learning Eclipse and WTP
      3. Time for action – installing and initiating Eclipse WTP
        1. What just happened?
      4. Time for action – creating a new Dynamic Web project
        1. What just happened?
        2. Configuring Eclipse Perspectives
        3. Infrastructure configurations
      5. Time for action – creating a Tomcat instance
        1. What just happened?
      6. Time for action – setting a JNDI/JDBC connection pool
        1. What just happened?
      7. Time for action – configuration of libraries and the PRD report
        1. What just happened?
        2. Code components
      8. Time for action – creating a context Listener
        1. What just happened?
      9. Time for action – creating a web client
        1. What just happened?
      10. Time for action – creating a standalone application
        1. What just happened?
        2. Have a go hero
        3. Pop quiz – graphics
      11. Summary
    22. A. Sakila DB Data Dictionary
      1. The customer table
        1. The address table
        2. The city table
        3. The country table
      2. Inventory
        1. The film table
        2. The category table
        3. The film_category table
        4. The language table
        5. The actor table
        6. The film_actor table
        7. The inventory table
        8. The film_text table
      3. Business
        1. The staff table
        2. The store table
        3. The rental table
        4. The payment table
    23. B. Pop Quiz Answers
      1. Chapter 2, Installation and Configuration
        1. Pop quiz – system requirements, JDBC driver, Sakila DB, and RAM
      2. Chapter 3, Start PRD and the User Interface (UI) Layout
        1. Pop quiz – layout of PRD
      3. Chapter 4, Instant Gratification – creating your first report with PRD
        1. Pop quiz – data sets, functions, and objects
      4. Chapter 5, Adding a Relational Data Source
        1. Pop quiz – JDBC, functions y encoding charset
      5. Chapter 6, Adding Groups
        1. Pop quiz – positioning hierarchy and gGroups
      6. Chapter 7, Adding Parameters
        1. Pop quiz – format y Parameters
      7. Chapter 8, Using Formulas in Our Reports
        1. Pop quiz – formulas
      8. Chapter 9, Adding Charts
        1. Pop quiz – charts
      9. Chapter 10, Adding Subreports
        1. Pop quiz – Subreports
      10. Chapter 11, Publish and Run Reports in Pentaho BA Server
        1. Pop quiz – Pentaho
      11. Chapter 12, Making a Difference – Reports with Hyperlinks and Sparklines
        1. Pop quiz – Hyperlinks and sparklines
      12. Chapter 13, Environment, Stylesheets, and Crosstabs
        1. Pop quiz – environment, stylesheets, and crosstabs
      13. Chapter 14, PRD Reports Embedded in Web Applications
        1. Pop quiz – graphics
    24. Index