Overview of BIRT reporting

In addition to the built-in reports available from the Data Management Portal, you can also design, develop, and install reports based on the open source Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) system.

Important: Viewing the BIRT reports in Data Managemenet Portal in BIRT Report Viewer (BIRT runtime engine) is not safe, therefore it is disabled. It is preferred to view the BIRT reports by using the Tivoli Common Reporting (TCR) after you import the TADDM reports to TCR.

If you are aware of the risks, you can restore BIRT Report Viewer and use it as specified in the following paragraphs.

TADDM includes the open source BIRT runtime engine as an integrated component. In addition, TADDM also includes hundreds of predefined database views and predefined reports. In addition to the predefined reports, you can also use the BIRT designer tool to create new reports to use with the TADDM BIRT runtime engine. These reports can use JDBC data sources that extract data by using predefined database views.

The Data Management Portal interface provides ways to manage these BIRT reports. You can add new reports, download selected reports, delete reports you have uploaded, or run reports. The predefined reports are also packaged so they can be used with the Tivoli® Common Reporting tool.

Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools

Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) is an open source, based on Eclipse system for designing, developing, and running reports. You can develop BIRT reports for TADDM, designing them to use JDBC data sources and SQL queries of predefined database views.

Important: BIRT reports must not use data taken directly from the TADDM database tables. Instead, always design your reports to use a JDBC data source and the TADDM database views that are documented in SDK Developer's Guide.
The BIRT system includes two major components:
  • The BIRT designer, a graphical tool for designing and developing new reports
  • The BIRT runtime engine, which provides support for running reports and rendering published report output

TADDM includes the BIRT runtime engine, which you can use to run the predefined reports. If you want to create your own BIRT reports, you must download the BIRT designer tool that matches the version of the BIRT runtime engine included with TADDM (currently version 2.2.1).

For more information about the BIRT project, including how to download the BIRT designer tool, see http://www.eclipse.org/birt.