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Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2015 13:44:07 +0300
Message-ID: 
 <CAFqjAi0z0hNjFJ61hzgYiSc1+zooTMeGH7BpLjRSZ3OP0ASEwg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [VOTE] reintroduce the evicted specialpurpose components in
 R13.07
From: Taher Alkhateeb <slidingfilaments@gmail.com>
To: dev@ofbiz.apache.org
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Hi Jacques,

With respect to your question below on BIRT and regardless of whether
reports are failing or not IMHO we should discuss the principles.

So the question is very simple. Is it better to use Apache FOP with the
screen widgets to create reports or is it better to utilize a reporting and
business intelligence engine?

To me, this is a no brainer. A full blown engine is definitely better (even
if not necessarily BIRT) for the following reasons:

1- Designer WYSIWYG tools available for much greater productivity and user
friendliness. You can even expose such tools directly to your clients.

2- Ability to design data set, cubes, parameters, charts, graphs, master
pages with headers and footers, and a lot more

3- Ability to do dynamic scripting of the data on an event model which
allows for maximum flexibility in design

4- Ability to export output to many formats (PDF, HTML, word, excel, CSV,
...)

5- Ability to specify unified report libraries containing shared themes,
master pages, javascript source files, CSS, images, etc ...

6- Ability to deploy the reporting server as a standalone solution

7- Ability to integrate with the entity engine or to connect directly to
the database.
8- Building reports on a modular design structure

The above is just a quick brain dump, I am sure there are many other
benefits.

My 2 cents.

Taher Alkhateeb

On Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 1:34 PM, Jacopo Cappellato <
jacopo.cappellato@hotwaxsystems.com> wrote:

>
> On Mar 25, 2015, at 10:55 AM, Jacques Le Roux <
> jacques.le.roux@les7arts.com> wrote:
>
> > Can we say that the Birt reports are better? Do they always work (I got
> some issues there)
>
> No, I wouldn't say that (of course you are free to think otherwise, it is
> just the *we* part that I disagree with).
>
> >
> > Also just tried
> http://demo-stable-ofbiz.apache.org/accounting/control/FinancialSummaryRe=
portOptions?organizationPartyId=3DCompany
> where Birt is not and all reports fail, normal?
>
> I am not sure I understand... I got the same errors with or without Birt:
> the request maps are not defined; I don't see how this bug fits into this
> conversation.
> But for example, the balance sheet report:
>
> https://localhost:8443/accounting/control/BalanceSheet?organizationPartyI=
d=3DCompany
> is not a Birt report and works well; however the if you click on the
> "Export as pdf" button you get an error when Birt is active while it work=
s
> when Birt is inactive.
>
> Jacopo
>
> >
> > Jacques
> >
> > Le 24/03/2015 16:36, Jacopo Cappellato a =C3=A9crit :
> >> The accounting component has financial reports implemented as screen
> widgets (html/pdf/csv) that the Birt component overrides with different
> ones implemented with Birt.
> >> This is actually one example about a specialpurpose component that is
> overriding/hiding functionality that is already provided by the
> applications with a different one: you can't see them when Birt is enable=
d.
> >>
> >> Jacopo
> >>
> >> On Mar 24, 2015, at 4:23 PM, Pierre Smits <pierre.smits@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Don't we also have dependencies on birt? Regarding reporting in
> accounting
> >>> and order?
> >>>
> >>> Best regards,
> >>>
> >>> Pierre Smits
> >>
> >>
>
>

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