Creating reports by using Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT)

Use the BIRT reporting features for example report layout, data access, and scripting support to create reports that use the custom reporting URLs from Rational Asset Manager. These reports display valuable statistics about how users are using the assets and repository.

Before you begin

Before you can create a report, you must have BIRT v2.2.1 or greater installed. You can only create reports from the Eclipse client.

About this task

Note: This topic is based on an article that you can download from jazz.net. The complete article includes step-by-step directions, a .pdf file of the completed sample report, a report design file, and sample data files.

Managing software assets goes beyond submitting them to a repository and managing them through consumption. Over time, looking at the changing elements, the models and trends of asset details, consumption use cases, and users information can help companies evaluate the needs of their current business strategies.

Users with different roles need different reports:

Business analysts, administrators, asset owners, and asset consumers need different information to evaluate the repository use. For example, administrators want to know when a role was given to a user. Asset owners want to know who is subscribed to their assets. Asset consumers want to know what the most popular assets are.

Users retrieve data from Rational Asset Manager by using URLs:

The data that is used in the reports comes from a user-created URLs that return repository and asset information. The data is XML that can either be downloaded from a web browser or accessed directly from a reporting tool like BIRT. Different report paths, or URLs, return different types of data. Report paths can also take parameters that allow for query-like functionality; for example, the fromTime and toTime parameters can be used to retrieve only activities that occurred between timestamps.

Create the following types of reports:

The different report paths are targeted for different types of reports. The following types of reports are available:
  • Asset information
  • Related assets
  • Activity logs and information
  • Subscriptions for assets and users
  • User roles assignments and activities
  • Usage of assets in build processes
  • Artifact usage

To learn how to create reports with BIRT, use the following example of how to create a community download report. This sample report will show the download activity for the month of May for a given community. It will also list downloads by asset name for assets in the community.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the Rational Asset Manager web client.
  2. Click Assets.
  3. In the filter your search section, click the name of the community filter that corresponds to the community that you want to create the downloads report for.
  4. Click the icon to the right of the search field with the clip board and the magnifying glass, and copy the search shortcut. For example, this is the search shortcut for the Service Development community: ramSearch:(1fGroup,service_development)
  5. Create a data URL that will retrieve the reporting information for asset activity in May from Rational Asset Manager. The data URL resembles: http://localhost:8080/com.example.repository.web.ws.tomcat/reporting/assetActivity:tid=610|asset:shortcut=fGroup%2Cm4_service_development,fromTime=1209617701756,toTime=1212292501756 wherefGroup%2Cm4_service_development is the search shortcut and the fromTime and toTime are the values for May.
  6. Click Enter.
  7. Save the XML file on your local system.
  8. From the Eclipse client, create a new blank report in the report project that you created for this report.
  9. In the Data Explorer view, right-click Data Sources and select New Data Source.
  10. Select XML Data Source and then click Next.
  11. Click Browse and select the XML file that you saved in step 7.
  12. Click Finish.
  13. Create a data set for downloads by time.
    1. Right-click Data Sets and select New Data Set.
    2. Type a name for the data set and specify the data source that you created in step 10.
    3. Click Next.
    4. Click Next.
    5. Specify Map/data/assetActivity as the table mapping.
    6. Click Next.
    7. In the Column Mapping dialog, map timestamp as a column with a type of 'Date time'.
      Column mapping
    8. Click Finish.
  14. Create a trend chart.
    1. Drag a chart to the report editor.
    2. Select Area as the chart type.
    3. Click Next.
    4. Specify the data set created in step 13.
    5. In the Category (X) Series field, select timestamp from the available column bindings.
    6. Click Edit and grouping.
    7. Ensure that the Data Sorting is unsorted and in the Grouping section specify the following:
      • Type: DateTime
      • Unit: Days
      • Interval: 1
      • Aggregate Expression: Count
      Group and sorting dialog
    8. Click OK.
    9. For the Value Y Series, select RowNum from the available column bindings.
    10. Click Finish.
  15. Create a table for downloads by day.
    1. Drag a table to the Report Editor and drop it under the chart that you just created.
    2. In the Insert Table dialog, define the table size and data set using the following example:
      There are 2 columns and 1 detail and the data set is the one previously defined in the Insert Table dialog.
    3. Select the table in the editor.
    4. In the Property Editor view, open Groups.
    5. Add a new group.
    6. In Group Details, select the Group On value: timestamp.
      In the Group Details section, select timestamp as GroupOn value.
    7. Drag 'Aggregation' to the cell next to [timestamp].
    8. In the Aggregation Builder dialog, change the Function to COUNT and aggregate on the Group.
      Aggregation builder panel with Data Type: Any and Function: Count specified
    9. Click OK.
    10. Select Timestamp.
    11. In the Properties Editor, on the Properties tab, select Format Date Time.
    12. For the Format as property, specify the short format, for example: 5/10/08.
    13. Select and delete the detail row of the table.
  16. Create a data set for downloads by asset.
    1. Follow the steps for creating a data set for downloads by day, but instead of mapping timestamp as a column, map assetName, GUID, targetURL, and assetVersion.
      Column mapping for Asset, ID, URL, and version
    2. Create a computed column with an expression that combines the GUID and version for the asset. For example: row["ID"]+row[Version]. This will allow grouping for unique assets.
  17. Create a table for downloads by asset.
    1. Drag a table to the Report Editor and drop it below the table that you previously created.
    2. In the Insert Table dialog, map the table to the data set created above.
      Insert table with 3 columns and 1 detail for the data set Community downloads.
    3. Select the table in the Property Editor and open Groups.
    4. Create a new group that will classify on the computed values created above with the reporting URL.
      Unique assets grouping in group details.
    5. Delete the [Unique Asset] value in the group header row and drag the asset name column mapping value from the data set created above and drop it on the cell.
    6. Drag the version column mapping value from the data set to the center group header cell.
    7. Drag an Aggregation to the right group header cell.
    8. In the Aggregation Builder dialog, set the function to COUNT and aggregate on the group.
      Aggregation builder dialog with the function COUNT specified for Group: NewTableGroup1
  18. Click OK. The table opens.
  19. Select and delete the Detail Row.

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