Thursday, September 27, 2012

Analyzing NextReports downloads with NextReports

Because NextReports is a reporting tool, it can be used to make analysis even on itself. We use NextReports to analyze the download process of its artifacts: engine, designer, server and update (designer download started from application update).

To make this analysis possible a simple pivot is used. This pivot can show things like:
  • location from where the download was started through fields like country, city, ip.
  • artifact that was downloaded through fields like product, file, version
  • time when the download  was done through a date field

A simple selection that shows the number of downloads for every artifact is like this:


Report used by pivot also has parameters which allows to filter data. For example it is easy to select a period of time between to dates, country, product, version:



Results will show more than simple statistics. It is easy to spot attacks of Denial Of Service type if a large number of downloads is seen from the same ip:


Also it is possible to know how many downloads are done in a period of time, seeing totals for product or for artifact:


This is just an example when NextReports pivot can be really useful to make analysis and get a lot of answers from raw data.

Monday, September 24, 2012

NextReports: Pivot Widget

NextReports Server allows users to add a pivot widget inside a dashboard. This pivot can be created from any report found on server. Pivot widget is based on a simple sql query without OLAP integration.


User selects what he wants to see on ROW, COLUMN and DATA. Also two check boxes will make the totals for rows and columns visible or not.

When user clicks compute, data is presented to user. Also, on compute action, user selection is saved and when user returns to the widget, this selection is made automatically.

Being a widget, user can also detach a pivot and make it as big as the screen with F11 key to have more space if needed.

Alongside drill-down, pivot widget brings a new BI feature  to analyze data.

Because we want to contribute to java open source, our wicket pivot  project was put on github.

Do you have something to say about our pivot? Please tell us more on our forum.


Thursday, August 30, 2012

NextReports Server: A good-looking login screen

Application login screen must offer more than just a simple form for credentials. This screen can be the place where user has access to information. Here users can learn what's your application about and can access links to everything they need like manuals, tutorials, license policy and so on.

NextReports Server login was improved to show more info about NextReports Suite in following releases.


Besides all previous links, now users can go directly to next-reports web site to read about engine, designer and server.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

NextReports: Easy way to use subreports

Following previous post "NextReports: Parent and children reports"  it's time to show a simple example of a sub-report usage.

A sub-report is just a simple report with one or more parameters. Let's think about a report which shows a list of employees and the hours they worked for a specific project:



This report has a $P{Project} parameter. When we run it, the value is asked:


and after selection the result is like:


To use this report as a sub-report, we have to create a master report. We use as example a report that selects a list with projects and total hours worked for projects. In one cell we will insert the sub-report, making the layout looking like:


To make our sub-report have the $P{Project} parameter completed for every column $C{Project} NextReports has a simple convention: The column from master report must have an alias with the same name as the parameter from sub-report. In our case both alias column from master and parameter from sub-report have the name Project.

When we run this report we will get a nice PDF. We just use some colors to see what is from master and what is from sub-report.


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

NextReports: Simplify Perspectives

NextReports Designer uses a concept called "perspectives".  Any report or chart can be seen from two perspectives : query (sql) and layout.

Because NextReports has two types of layout entities (charts & reports), designer main toolbar contains three perspective actions:
  • Query Perspective
  • Report Perspective
  • Chart Perspective
Report and Chart Perspectives cannot be enabled at the same time, so a nice improvement can be done here.

In the new 5.3 release only two perspective actions will be shown, making user interface more concise:
  • Query Perspective
  • Layout Perspective

Practically, "Layout Perspective" will show a report layout or a chart layout . "Layout Perspective" action will be disabled when just a query is loaded and enabled when a report or a chart is loaded.

Monday, July 30, 2012

NextReports: Parent and children reports

With 5.3 version, NextReports will bring a very needed feature: possibility to insert a report inside another report. In the same way a chart is inserted inside a report, now a new action is available allowing to add a report. As for charts, all parameters from parent report are passed to child report if child has some identically with parent's ones.

If the child report is inserted inside detail band, to make it acting as a sub-report, it has to meet a simple convention condition. For any child report parameter, if user wants the parameter to have a record-dependent value, the column from parent report (which has to pass the value to sub-report parameter value) must have an alias with the same name as the sub-report parameter name.

Besides a relation of report/sub-report, a parent report can contain just a simple set of children reports allowing to have more queries inside a report. To make this possible, the children reports can be inserted in header or footer bands.

To make work with children charts and reports easier, NextReports Designer will allow to edit children directly from parent report. When we will Edit a chart or a report, designer will open the child and user can do any changes he wants. After the child report/chart is edited, user will return to the parent report through a special action:


Using this kind of navigation (edit inner report/chart - back to parent), user can go inside & outside to an infinite number of children reports.

Monday, July 23, 2012

NextReports: Table Widgets with Style

NextReports dashboards can contain table widgets, which basically represent grid reports created with the designer.

Forthcoming version of NextReports will take into account the layout of the report making table widgets to contain corresponding style. This means colors, font style, padding and alignment will be visible. Some properties like font family, font size and borders are not taken into account, being irrelevant.

A major benefit of using styles for table widgets is interpreting  formatting conditions  (with relevant properties) for cells and rows. Such example can look like :


Thursday, June 21, 2012

NextReports Server: Queries

NextReports Server manages reports and charts. Both are created upon an sql query which was not seen anywhere on the server. The only thing users could see was the list of parameters values used to run a query.

Version 5.3 of server will bring more information regarding sql queries. First, in monitor a new column Query will be added:
By clicking it, the full query (with all parameters replaced by the actual run values) will be seen:

In Info actions for report and chart, users will see also the query:


Search actions for report or chart will bring a new entry "Sql Contains" which will look for all entities whose sql queries contain the entered text:


It is possible now to search for a special column or table (for example) used in our reports, identifying very fast what reports may be affected by column or table name changes.

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

NextReports Designer: your home, your data

NextReports Designer contains internally a lot of user data:
  • config files which can be modified from UI like settings, servers
  • demo data base
  • generated logs
  • all created queries, reports, charts
  • all generated files through export / preview actions
  • report and chart templates
  • data sources and schemes definitions
  • workspace files
Till version 5.3 all this data is kept inside installation folder. This has a few drawbacks:
  • If you install designer as an administrator and you want to use it as a regular user you must have write rights in installation directory
  • Two or more users on same computer can see all data and cannot work concurrently
Starting from version 5.3, user data will be kept inside user home. When a user starts NextReports Designer, inside its user home a new folder called .nextreports-<version> will be created.

There are some things you must be aware of.

When you import from an older version, you must select the user data folder, meaning:
  •  old installation folder for version < 5.3 or  
  • .nextreports-<version> folder for version >= 5.3
NextReports protocol (used by server's edit in designer feature) is installed in registry in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead of HKEY_CURRENT_USER, to be used by all users from same machine.

Because there are more users which can work on the same designer, from version 5.3 more instances are allowed. Previous versions allowed only for one instance of NextReports Designer.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

NextReports Server : Drill down with ease

NextReports Server allows to link an infinite number of drill-down widgets.

Version 5.2 of NextReports Server has a new "Up to Root" link which will make it easier to return to the first entity from wherever the user is inside the drill flow:



Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Wicket : Change an AjaxSelfUpdatingTimerBehavior

NextReports Server supports an automatic refresh for widgets. Just clicking "Edit Settings" for one widget will bring the following dialog:


Here user can modify "Refresh Time" which tells how many seconds should pass till next auto refresh.

To make this happen , an AjaxSelfUpdatingTimerBehavior is used. By default there is no refresh time set (value is 0). A change will imply to stop previous  AjaxSelfUpdatingTimerBehavior and to create a new one if that's the case:
for (Behavior behavior : widgetPanel.getBehaviors()) {
   if (behavior instanceof AjaxSelfUpdatingTimerBehavior) {
       ((AjaxSelfUpdatingTimerBehavior) behavior).stop();                    
   }
}           
if (refreshTime > 0) {
   widgetPanel.add(new AjaxSelfUpdatingTimerBehavior(Duration.seconds(refreshTime)));
} 
There are two things to have in mind:
  1. AjaxSelfUpdatingTimerBehavior must not be removed because, after stop, the event is called one more time on the client, so it has to be present.
  2. When we already have a refresh time set (greater than 0) and we want to modify its value, if a refresh is done when the dialog is opened, the desired panel no longer exists. So the user will be informed about this through a message (otherwise an error would have been raised):



Wednesday, May 09, 2012

NextReports : Templates for Parameters' Values

When we define parameters in NextReports Designer we can select default values for parameters. These values will be automatically selected in user interface when user runs the report.

There are some special cases of reports with a lot of parameters, when the user  may want to have more than a group of default values. To allow such functionality, version 5.2 of NextReports Server will bring a new feature :  Templates for Parameters' Values.

Basically, inside the runtime parameters panel, user will be able to save a template of values or to select a previously saved template to automatically load all values.


To save a template, user has to check "Save as" option and to enter a name for the template. Advancing to next step or just finishing will save the values template inside repository. On other runs for same report, user will be able to select the template.

Templates can also be removed by selecting them from a list.

So, in case you have reports with many (dependent) parameters and you need the way to run more variants without a lot of selecting , start using values templates.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Wicket 1.5 and general models

NextReports Server is in process for Wicket 1.5 migration. A lot of things need to be addressed, but in particularly one of them has to be noticed.

Running reports in NextReports Server consists of a number of steps, one of them being selecting parameters. Depending of parameter's type, user can choose the values using a specific UI component like text field, check box, combo box, calendar, selection lists and so on.

Model used for a parameter is something generic like Serializable, because it's type can be anything. One problem appeared at migration from version 1.4 to version 1.5. A simple String TextField with a Serializable model (objectModel in our case):
TextField<String> textField = new TextField<String>("txtValue",
                new PropertyModel<String>(this, "objectModel"));
When we put a value in our text field, on submit we get : "is not a valid Serializable" error. That shows us Wicket 1.5 does not know that String declaration in our case is a Serializable type. To make models accept a general type , we should now create also the converter used by the component to specify the class type:
TextField<String> textField = new TextField<String>("txtValue",
                new PropertyModel<String>(this, "objectModel")) {
            
      @Override
      public <C> IConverter<C> getConverter(Class<C> type) {
          return new AbstractConverter() {

              public Object convertToObject(String value, Locale locale) {
                  return value;
              }

              @Override
              protected Class getTargetType() {
                  return String.class;
              }
                    
          };
      }

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

NextReports : Row Formatting Conditions

Till version 5.2 NextReports allowed only cell formatting conditions. But the new version will also bring the possibility to add row formatting conditions.

User can select now a row


and row properties will be seen:


 Clicking on formatting conditions, user can add, edit or remove them:


In this example we just alternate background color for rows:

We can go further and alternate not rows, but records data. Consider the following report:


We will modify row formatting conditions for all rows like following:


We will obtain:

We can modify more properties for a row formatting condition. For next report:

 we will select background and border properties:

 Result is:

We can have any expression used for row formatting. Next shows a row formatting simulation if productivity is less than 50%:




If you want to combine cell and row formatting conditions, keep in mind that cell formatting conditions will overwrite row formatting conditions.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

NextReports : Text Rotation

In version 5.2 of NextReports a new property for cells is added: text rotation. This property has meaning only for PDF or EXCEL exporter formats. It can have only three degrees values :
  • 0  : no rotation 
  • 90  : text is rotated to the left with 90 degrees 
  • -90 : text is rotated to the right with 90 degrees
You can have for 90 degrees value something like:

 And for -90 degrees value:

Monday, March 19, 2012

NextReports Engine : Report Conversion

Version 5.1 of NextReports was already released, but  there is the time to look into next version.

One of the biggest feature, NextReports will resolve in version 5.2 is report conversion. This is not a 'visible' feature to the end user, but a back-end functionality.

NextReports supported from start back-end compatibility with older type of reports. Any new functionality was brought to life without breaking compatibility. For NextReports Engine users (developers) this means that anytime when a ReportUtil.loadReport(String xml) or a ReportUtil.loadReport(InputStream is) was done, no xml exception was raised.

To be more flexible in NextReports evolution, an entirely new convert process was integrated. Using a chain of xml converters, a Next report can be modified to a new structure. Practically if a report with version X is loaded by an Y version of engine, where Y > X, the load method will do the following:
  • get report version (X in this case)
  • apply a converter chain process if needed
  • load the resulted xml
To explain the second step,  for example if we have a Converter_X1 (to version X1) and a Converter_X2 (to version X2) with X < X1 < X2 < Y then conversions X->X1 and X1->X2 are needed,they are applied using a chain of responsibility order and the new version of report is set to Y.

The only differences to NextReports Engine are the signatures of the load methods from ReportUtil class which now throw a LoadReportException:
public static Report loadReport(String xml) throws LoadReportException { ... }

public static Report loadReport(InputStream is) throws LoadReportException { ... }

Friday, March 09, 2012

NextReports : Notifications with Wicket Push

With version 5.1, NextReports Server implements a much-desired feature: message notification.

In previous versions, when a report was manually set to run, user was redirected to Monitor section. Here running processes can be seen and with an auto-refresh at some time the result will appear in history table, containing the link to the document.

In current version, after a manually run, a message in the top right corner will notify that the process started and that a new message will be issued after finish. This first message has a short life of 5 sec and it will disappear after time elapsed. When process is finished, a new message will be shown containing the link to resulted document. This message will live until the user will close it.


If an error occurred  during export process, an error message will be shown.


To see the actual error user has to go to Monitor section and look in history table to "Success" column.


If you schedule a report, you will only be notified about it. No messages when the process is finished will be issued.


To implement this notification feature, NextReports uses wicket-stuff push and jQuery jGrowl.

Using a general Observer pattern, first we need an event ReportResultEvent and a listener interface:
public interface ReportListener {    
    public void onFinishRun(ReportResultEvent result);
} 
Our ReportService will manage report listeners for current logged user:
public void addReportListener(ReportListener reportListener) {
    reportListeners.put(SecurityUtil.getLoggedUsername(), reportListener);        
}

public void removeReportListener() {        
    reportListeners.remove(SecurityUtil.getLoggedUsername());
}

public void notifyReportListener(ReportResultEvent event) {
    ReportListener reportListener = reportListeners.get(event.getCreator());
    if (reportListener != null) {
        reportListener.onFinishRun(event);
    }
}
When the process is finished we will create the event and we will notify all listeners:
ReportResultEvent event = new ReportResultEvent(...);
reportService.notifyReportListener(event);
To use jGrowl in Wicket it's easy with an AjaxBehavior. Messages will be kept in Session FeedbakMessages list.
public class MessageAjaxBehavior extends AbstractDefaultAjaxBehavior {

   public void renderHead(IHeaderResponse response) {

     super.renderHead(response);      
     response.renderJavascriptReference(
         new JavascriptResourceReference(MessageAjaxBehavior.class, "jquery.jgrowl.js"));
     response.renderCSSReference(
         new CompressedResourceReference(JGrowlAjaxBehavior.class, "jquery.jgrowl.css"));
     response.renderCSSReference(
         new CompressedResourceReference(JGrowlAjaxBehavior.class, "jgrowl.css"));

     String feedback = renderFeedback();
     if (!StringUtils.isEmpty(feedback)) {
         response.renderOnDomReadyJavascript(feedback);
     }

   }

   protected void respond(AjaxRequestTarget target) {
     String feedback = renderFeedback();
     if (!StringUtils.isEmpty(feedback)) {
        target.appendJavascript(feedback);
     }
   }
   ....... 
}
Rendered feedback message contains the jgrowl javascript text. Message can be sticky to live until user close it, or it can have a time-elapsed life using life with a millisecond value.
$.jGrowl("message",   
           {
             theme: 'css-class',
             sticky: true        //  life: 5000        
           }
        )
All options of jGrowl can be found here.

Finally our wicket page will contain a message label:
Label messageLabel = new Label("message", "");
messageLabel .setOutputMarkupId(true);
messageLabel .add(new MessageAjaxBehavior());
And we will initialize push service:
protected void onInitialize() {

    super.onInitialize();

    initPush();
           
    reportService.addReportListener(new ReportListener() {            
            
        public void onFinishRun(ReportResultEvent result) {                

            if (pushService.isConnected(pushNode)) {
                // forward the Message event via the push service 
                // to the push event handler
                Message message = createMessage(result);
                pushService.publish(pushNode, message);
            }
        }
    });
}

private void initPush() {

    // instantiate push event handler
    IPushEventHandler handler = new AbstractPushEventHandler() {     
            
        public void onEvent(AjaxRequestTarget target, Message event, 
                            IPushNode node, IPushEventContext context) {
            
            getSession().getFeedbackMessages().add(
                         new FeedbackMessage(null, event.getText(), messageType));
            target.addComponent(messageLabel);
        }       
    };

    // obtain a reference to a Push service implementation
    pushService = TimerPushService.get(); 
        // install push node into this panel
    pushNode = pushService.installNode(this, handler);
}

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

NextReports: Some Internal Tips

From version 5.1, NextReports Designer allows to instantly open some report or chart  when it starts.

There are some system properties which can be used to achieve this:

next.datasource
This property is similar to singleSourceAutoConnect, but when we have more than one data source. NextReports Designer will start and it will connect to this datasource.

next.report 
If there is a connected data source (specified by next.datasource system property) this report will be auto-loaded.

next.chart
If there is a connected data source (specified by next.datasource system property) this chart will be auto-loaded.

next.path
If the report or chart is not found in the root node, but inside some folder, this property will specify the relative path.  Slashes or back-slashes can be used in any combination.

If both next.report and next.chart  system properties are specified, chart property is ignored. 

For your installed designer, you can specify system properties inside nextreports.vmoptions file.
For example adding these lines at the end of the file
-Dnext.datasource=Demo 
-Dnext.report=Timesheet
it will make your designer on start to auto-connect to Demo data source and to automatically open Timesheet report.

If your report is found inside /Test/Test1 folder path
-Dnext.datasource=Demo 
-Dnext.report=Timesheet
-Dnext.path=/Test/Test1
Path is converted to use specific file system separator, so you can enter it as you wish (/Test/Test1, Test/Test1, Test//Test1, \\Test\\Test1, Test\\Test1, \Test\Test1).

Thursday, February 16, 2012

NextReports: URL Custom Protocol & Version Dispatcher

When NextReports Server started its existence, users were able to upload reports and charts using server actions. This means:
  • a data source was already created
  • user selects the report from current location
  • user selects the existing data source
  • user selects the images used (if any) from current location
  • report/chart is uploaded in the current server path
After some versions, NextReports  Designer was able to allow publishing to server:
  • user selects server path
  • user selects a server data source; if there isn't created, he can publish it with a single click
  • when publish, used images are also published by default
Starting with version 5.1 a server action will allow to edit a report / chart with the designer:
  • no browsing needed
To allow this, a nextreports protocol is registered when NextReports Designer is installed. If this protocol is found, server edit action will open the designer asking for current logged user password:


After authentication, a data source is locally created (if not found) with following name convention:
<server_data_source_name>@<server_ip>
Designer will auto-connect to this data source and the report/chart is downloaded. If a report/chart with the same name exists, user is notified:


After downloading, the report/chart is automatically opened and user can start to edit it. When user saves it, a confirmation is needed to publish it also on the server:


Server 'Edit' action will launch an url request like:
nextreports://<server>?user=<loggeduser>&ver=<serverversion>&ref=<serverpathtoentity>
This can also be a simple  method to pass to someone a report to edit. If that person can access the report (has the needed rights) you do not need to tell him the server, location and let him download the report, modify it and publish it back. You just give him an url.

Specified version is used to open the needed designer which has the same version as the server avoiding following situations:
  • server version is older than designer version: you can download the report and edit it, but you cannot publish it to server
  • server version is newer than designer version: you cannot download the report
This is done by a dispatcher(installed with the designer) which is launched by nextreports URL protocol shell command.

If the designer with that version is not installed, user is informed and he can download the correct version from the links shown with the message:


If you are a Linux user, you do not have a dispatcher to start your needed version of NextReports, but you can register your nextreports url protocol with following commands:
gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/nextreports/command 
         '<installed_dir>/nextreports "%s"'
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/nextreports/needs_terminal false -t bool
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/nextreports/enabled true -t bool

Monday, February 06, 2012

NextReports: Variables, Functions & Expressions

NextReports has a simpler way of working with data, than other reporting solutions.

For example, inside iReport for JasperReports you can define a so-called variable just to use it in another fields. The problem with this approach is that the user must specify when this variable must be evaluated and when to be reset. (like page, report, group, column types). This is no easy task for non-business users who want to create some reports. This also can bring some invalid calculations if the user does not understand what he is doing.

NextReports does not have user-defined variables. In NextReports Variables are just application-defined like ROW, GROUP_ROW, PAGE_NO and so on.

Instead, users can create Expressions and Functions. Expressions can contain text, variables, parameters, columns and functions (from version 5.1). Functions can be any of SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, COUNT DISTINCT and can be done on sql column or on expression.

For NextReports a field is evaluated if it is found inside layout. So, users do not need to ask themselves when to evaluate something. If you need an expression just to compute something without showing the result, you can make it hidden. But, you will always know when the expression is evaluated without asking yourself.

If we have two functions inside a group footer band

$F{SUM(HOURS)} : computes the sum of hours for a project (work, travel, administration, meeting)
$F{SUM(WORKHOURS)} : computes the sum of implementation hours

and we want also to see how much implementation represents in percentage, it is very easy to create an expression. From version 5.1 the user can select the functions found in the current band, in this case $F{SUM(HOURS)} and $F{SUM(WORKHOURS)}.


Report layout will show the defined expression:


Because functions are interpreted as double values the division will create a double. If you have an integer column $C_HOURS for example and you want to use div operations, be sure to convert it to double like $C_Hours.doubleValue(), otherwise the result will be an integer.


Result can be formatted with pattern property like in following exported pdf: