There's a decent free WYSIWYG tool for JasperReports called iReport.. I've used M$ SQL Reporting Services and I reckon the JasperReports-iReport combination is on a par with that.
Fritz On 9/17/07, Antoine Fortuin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi! > > I've made use of JasperReports and Pentaho Reporting. > > Pentaho is great for end users who prefer the Crystal Reports (GUI Report > building) method. It has it's quirks and is a bit inflexible quite often but > it's the easiest tool by far for an end user to use to create reports. > > JasperReports I find to be more flexible but I find it better suited to > custom report development by a software developer. > > Just my 2c. > > Regards, > Antoine > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] on behalf of Soren Aalto > Sent: Sun 9/16/2007 10:17 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [CTJUG Forum] OSS BI/Reporting - Jaspersoft, BIRT (or other) > experiences? > > I'm at a fairly high pain point here with the volume of MIS/reporting > requests and how we (don't) handle them through ad-hoc means. > > Currently we have a couple of people who do SQL queries...mostly > using a JSP tool I wrote (kind of the same as Oracle isqlplus which > our vendor removed from our system to keep us from knowing too > much). Anything that isn't doable in a single query is > > - pieced together by hand > - somebody writes an adhoc program. > > A problem is that "somebody" is now me -- mostly writing stuff > in Groovy/Groovlets/GSP, some JSP stuff, some Jython as well. > We migrated from an in-house system to a 3rd party admin > system (Student records/Finance/HR...) about 18 months ago > and our former Natural/Adabas developers are no longer functioning > programmers. I'm trying to push everybody in the Java (+ JVM > scripting languages a la Groovy) direction, but it's a slow process/steep > learning curve, far removed from Natural/Adabas... > > I realise we need help -- primarily on the Reporting/BI front, and > also on the programming front...but I also want to try and stay with > an OSS/web friendly technology strategy here. > > Does anybody out there have experience with OSS stuff like Jaspersoft/Jasper > Reports and/or Eclipse/BIRT? I looked at these things long ago and > wasn't convinced they'd help because the focus seemed mainly to be > on presentation/reporting, but the thing that attracts me is the web viewers > that would allow our staff to publish reports on the web easily. > > I also looked at OpenReports, which looked promising, but I didn't get > it working...some issues with log4j. And I've seen Pentaho...but that's > about it. > > I'm mostly interested in: > > 1) a decent OSS solution for reporting and/or BI that publishes > stuff on the web easily, or > 2) good reasons why I shouldn't look at (1) (like, you have tried to > go this route and have ended up going with a commercial solution > like Cognos...Microsoft Dynamics/Navision/whatever they call it > now...Crystal Reports...Discoverer?) > 3) Anybody who does consulting in this line who also could shore > up our not-really-happening Java/Web/OSS friendly strategy. > > I'm posting this on a JUG list on the other side of the country -- because > I haven't been able to see any life on Dbnjug and...I just tried again > and the SAJUG website isn't there. CTJUG is the only JUG with any > mail traffic in the country. > > -- > Soren Aalto > Director: ICT > University of Zululand > > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CTJUG Forum" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/CTJUG-Forum For the ctjug home page see http://www.ctjug.org.za -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
