I have a decent working web application (Java/Servlet/Jsp) that I would like to improve the end user experience and what they get out of using the application. I capture business data through html forms on web pages and store it in an Oracle database. I display the data back in simple html pages. But I am left craving more. I want better reporting capabilities of my data, I don’t want it to be just some repository.
I came across BIRT and looked at the Listing Demo. It seems no better than what I did in the 1st screen shot (using MVC) in terms of binding the data and presenting the data. It seems that even if I used BIRT, I would still have to conceive the underlying queries. For instance, show me all commitments that are behind in schedule and owned by Mr. Smith. BIRT would not have this as a canned drag-n-drop query.
So Having a flashy display of pie charts and graphs is nice but even if I used BIRT or Crystal Reports, isn’t it still up to me to conceive the results that are displayed in these pie charts and graphs? Do I not fully understand what BIRT can do?
Something I’d like to know whether I am doing right is in the 3rd screen shot. I have a series of pull downs to filter data and then two buttons to display in either a list format or a calendar format. This works well, but now I want to add more filters. What if someone wants to see only Holiday events. Or what if the user would like to show Holiday and Jury Duty events? Is it standard practice to clutter the form with a ton of pull donws, check boxes and search fields? Is this where BIRT or similar would help out?
Should I be investigating using BIRT or is there something else I should be learning, such as data mining, or AJAX??
BTW, this is a one man show, I am the programmer and designer.
Thanks in advanced.
PS: I wasn’t really on Maternity Leave Wednesday Nov 3rd!
It look like that you want an ad-hoc reporting tool like this demo of i-net Clear Reports (used to be called i-net Crystal-Clear). With this tool you have the option to create completely reports where the user can only change minimal things like the filter. Or the user can create the reports self via drag & drop like you can see in the demo. You can define it in the layout template what the user can do.