This section contains instructions for creating a simple report and and an overview of basic Report Designer features. For more information about the Report Designer, . See Report Design Wizard to create a report using Report Designer quickly and easily.

Important: The Report Designer interface has changed. Report Designer documentation has been updated to reflect recent changes.

The latest distribution for Report Designer is available on SourceForge at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=140317.  Download the Report Designer as part of the Pentaho Open BI Suite (pentaho_demo_hsqldb-1.6.0.GA.863.zip), if you plan to publish your reports using the BI Platform provided by Pentaho. To download the Report Designer as a standalone application, go to http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=140317&package_id=192362. To follow the instructions and tutorials included in the Report Designer documentation, you must install the Hypersonic distribution of Sample Data (pentaho_sample_data-1.6.0.GA.863.zip).

System Requirements

• Windows XP Professional, Mac OSX 10.4.6, SUSE Linux

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• 10.1, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.

  Note: Other versions of the above-listed Linux distributions, and other distributions entirely, will probably work with Report Designer. However, the distros listed here are tested and supported by Pentaho.

• Requires the 1.5.0_06 Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

Installing

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Report Designer

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After you download the contents follow the instructions below to install Report Designer (these instructions are for the standalone download):

1. Extract contents of the zip file into a folder.
2. Read the Readme for important updates.
3. In the Report Designer folder, click the startdesigner.* file that is most appropriate for your operating system.

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The Report Designer

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1. • Windows - ReportDesigner.exe
   • Linux - startdesigner_linux.sh
   • Mac OS X - Report Designer.app
      
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The Pentaho Report Designer Version Checker

Pentaho Report Designer includes a version checker that prompts you when new versions of Report Designer are available. When performing a version check, the server makes an HTTP call to Pentaho Report Designer and exchanges information. This information is used to determine if an update is available and to analyze Report Designer usage in different environments. The version checker helps Pentaho to plan and prioritize platform certifications, testing plans, and localization plans.

Note: Version checker is available for all components of the Pentaho BI Platform.

When you first install the Report Designer, the following dialog box appears prompting you to enable the version checker:

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If you enable the version checker, you receive periodic update notices as shown below. These notices appear when there is a major General Availability (GA) release. Click the version you want, then click Update to begin downloading.
 
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You can enable automatic version checker in Report Designer if you did not enable it during installation. Go to File -> Settings and click Enable Version Checker:
 
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By enabling the Notify me when (unsupported) development releases are available option, you receive update notification when there are development releases. These too will be in the list of available downloads. Keep in mind, however, that unsupported development releases may not have the full functionality and features available in General Availability releases.

If you opt out of the version checker, you can still check for updates manually. In Report Designer, go to Help -> Check for Updates:
 
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Disabling Automatic Version Checker

If you enabled automatic version checker when you installed Report Designer, you can disable it by following the instructions below:

1. Go to USER_HOME/.Report
2. Find the file workspaceSettings.xml.
3. Find the element, <property name="useVersionChecker">false</property>.
4. Change the property value from "true" to false.

Report Designer Start Up

The Report Designer displays a Welcome page and a default workspace at start up. The Welcome page provides you with a brief introduction of the Report Designer and some instructions for getting started. The Welcome page also provides access to sample reports and recently opened reports. Click Design to open the report workspace.

In the center of the workspace a large white area represents the main working area where you build a report.
On the left side of the Report Designer workspace is a panel called the Palette that lists the graphical elements of the report. On the right side of the workspace, the Structure panel allows you to see a hierarchical representation of the report.  The Properties panel allows you to adjust the settings of the currently available selection. In the lower portion of the workspace, the Messages panel displays useful information, hints, warnings, and errors that apply to your current report definition.

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The Data Model

Warning: Reports created with WAQR will not properly open in Pentaho Report Designer because of an XML syntax error. WAQR creates reports with <cdata> tags around each line, but Report Designer is expecting only one <cdata> tag around the entire file. If you want to open a WAQR-created report in Report Designer, you will have to edit the .xaction file by hand using a text or XML editor and remove all of the superfluous <cdata> tags, leaving only one tag around the entire file.

A report generally consists of data supplied by a database in the form of a table and a report definition that defines how the report must be formatted or printed.

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The columns can by identified by an unique column name with a certain datatypedata type. In the sample aboeabove, FIRST_NAME is a column identifier and String is the datatype data type of this column. For convenience, there is a database embedded in the Report Designer that contains some useful data with which to test.

Adding the Sample

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Data Source

Follow the instructions below to configure a sample dataset:data source. See Data Sources for additional information about the different types of data sources.

1. In the Structure panel, right-click Data SetSources and select Add Data Source (formerly Add Pentaho Dataset). A window opens where you can configure the query used in the dataset.
    
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    data source.
   
2. Select SampleData and click the Query Designer. Make sure your Hypersonic database is running before doing so.
    
   
    
   
3. Select PUBLIC from the Choose Schema list box. The SQLeonardo window is loaded. From this window, you can select the tables/views to be included in the datasetdata source.
4. Select the PRODUCTS table by clicking PREVIEW. This allows you to quickly visualize the data currently in the table quickly.
    
   
    
5. Click OK to close both windows.
    
   The dataset data source is added to the report. The Properties tool window displays the available columns and the datatype data type of each column. You can click Click Configure to change the configuration of a datasetdata source. The dataset data source is now set up and installed correctly. You must now define the look of the report.

The Report Definition

The report definition is what you compose in the main area of the graphical Report Designer. This definition provide provides the reporting engine with the location of each field on the report. The report definition consist of several sections called bands, such bands may include a report header, a page header, the item band and others.
The following image represents a schematic report as it may appear on the page:

The standard bands available in all reports are marked with different colors in the following image.

• Red: the page header band. This band is usually printed at the top of each page
• Green: the report header band. This band is printed once when the report starts
• Blue: the item band. This band is printed for each row available in the data table
• Turquoise: the report footer band. This band is printed once at the end of the report
• Orange: the page footer band. This band is printed once at the bottom of each page

The same bands are marked with the same color in the Report Designer. Note that the bands have a label on the left side describing what this band is used for.

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If you adjusted a band to be really very small, chances are high   it may be possible that you can not cannot read the descriptive label anymore. In this case, hover over the label and a tool tip displays the text.

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There can also be multiple group header and group footer bands.

Creating the Report Definition

To start, we are going to add a static title label to our report which that should be printed once on the first page of the report. To accomplish that, we We are going to add this label to the report header band. This label does not depend on the data delivered by our sample datasetdata source; therefore, hence it 's is also called a static label.

Select Click and drag the "Label" report element from the Palette toolwindow by pressing the mousebutton, dragging the label tool window to the report header band and releasing the mouse button.

The label is automatically selected after it was added to the report header band. You can move the label around using the mouse or resize the label by dragging one of the handles.

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You can use the Properties toolwindow tool window to adjust the text and font in use. Change the text to "Sales Report" and the font to "Dialog 24 Bold".

If you did not considerably change the size of the label, there will probably appear a warning may appear in the Messages toolwindow telling you tool window stating that the label is not big enough to show display the text. Use the mouse and resize Resize the label until there 's is enough space for the label to print the contents. Note that the warning message is immediatly removed as soon as the label has a good size.

The report header band should now look roughly as shown in the screenshot like the one shown below.

Now the report definition is already valid although minimal and can be previewed. Just press the Preview button on the bottom of the report definition areaClick Preview.

After you start the reporting report engine has been started up, you are presented with a preview displays that looks the same as the like final report, but is limited to a certain amount number of data rows you can configure in the datasetdata source. The booting process is only done once, ; subsequent invocations of the preview are almost instantaneous. You can go Go back to the design Design view by pressing the clicking Design button.

Now we are going to add textfields that will finally , add text fields that contain data from our the sample datasetdata source. Report elements which that are dynamically filled with data will have the suffix field.
Drag &and drop four Text Fields from the palette Palette to the item band . The report definition should look like the following screenshotas shown below:

The Messages toolwindow now shows tool window displays  several warnings about undefined fields. Each textfield text field should display a column from our sample dataset data source hence we need to set each textfields text field's "Field Name" property in the Properties toolwindow tool window to match a column from the datasetdata source.

You can now preview Preview the report and customize the report definition by using different fonts, background colors, lines and additional static labels as you like.

The following section will show you how to create next segment contains instructions for creating the total sum of all sales by introducing functions.

Functions

A function is a custom program that can return a value depending on other values available in the report. A function can use values available in a dataset data source or use the value returned by another function. This can be used to calculate a total sum, average, minimum, maximum or can be used to hide a label or to hide a rectangle for in every second line. Functions can also collect values used to create charts or to format/convert a value from a dataset data source into another datatypedata type. Functions are very flexible and make almost everything possible.

In the following section, we show you The next section demonstrates how to calculate the total sum of all sold items.

Adding the Total Sum

Functions can be added through the Structure panel by selecting the "Reporting Functions" node. All available functions are listed in the Properties toolwindow tool window with a short description in a tooltiptool tip.
Since we

You want to calculate the sum of all price items in the report we so select the "ItemSumFunction" and press the click Add Function to Report button.

First we have to tell the function what field should be used must be able to identify a field you specify for which to calculate the sum for and as a second property we must . You must also set the name of the function. This is very important, since because the value of the sum will be is accessible by through this name. Note that an error is displayed in the messages toolwindow tool window until you set the name. It won't be possible to You cannot preview a report as long as an error is shown message displays in this toolwindowtool window.

We set Set PRICE as the Field to use used to calculate the sum and we ;  use PRICE_SUM as the name of the function. Don't change the values of the Dependency Level and the Group.

We now just Now you have to show display this value somewhere on the report. For this purpose we will add Add a Text Field to the report footer band and set the Field Name property of the Text Field to PRICE_SUM (the functions name of the function).

You can now A preview of the report and it should look something like the screenshot shown sample below.:

The sum is printed after the last item is printed. As usual you You can adjust the report definition as you likeneeded.

Report Groups

The structure of the report definition we have so far is perfectly fineis all right, but we might you may want to merge the items for each customer and calculate the sum for each customer separately. This can by achieved by a concept called grouping. In the following section we show you is called "grouping." The next segment demonstrates how to group the data by customer.

Adding the Customer Group

Groups can be added in the Structure toolwindow tool window by selecting the "Groups" node and opening the popup menu. Select "selecting Add Group" from the menu.

A group merges or groups all consecutive items with the same values in a group. Each time a new group starts, the group header band of this group is printed. Whenever a group ends, the group footer band is printed.

When you take a look at the preview of our current the sample report, we would like you want a group to start for the first item of "Erik Brown." . The group should be finished complete after the last entry of "Erik Brown" and a new group should start for "Hans Meiser" etcand so on.

For this to happen we have to tell occur, you must force the group to apply to the fields FIRST_NAME and LAST_NAME. (FIRST_NAME only won't be sufficient because there is a "Hans Meiser" and a "Hans Müller"). Therefore we ; therefore, set Group Fields of the group as shown in the next screenshotexample below:

In addition it's always a good idea to give the Always give a group a meaningful name. In this sample we will , use the name, CUSTOMER_GROUP as the name.

When you expand the group in the Structure toolwindow tool window you can see that there is also a group header band and a group footer band available. These bands do not yet appear in the graphical report definition area. To make them appear just , select both bands in the Structure toolwindow tool window and turn enable the Show In Layout GUI property on:

You can now see the the group header band above the item band and the group footer baand band below the item band. This is also the direction how in which they are printed.

To effectively make the group take effect visually effect, we move the FIRST_NAME and LAST_NAME Text Fields to the group header. To do this you can either delete the existing fields and create new ones  ones in the group header or you can cut /and paste them. You can achieve this by selecting both fields, either in the graphical view or in the Structure toolwindowtool window, by holding pressing the <CTRL button on your keyboard > and selecting the fields with the mouse.

Now you can right-click into in the group header band and select paste:

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The bands should look like this nowthe sample below:

Adding the total sum for each group is almost identical as before: •   

• Select the Report Functions node in the Structure

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• tool window.

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• Choose the ItemSumFunction and add it to the report.

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• Enter PRICE as the Field, CUSTOMER_GROUP as the group and CUSTOMER_PRICE_SUM as the function name

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• Add a Text Field to the group footer band, and set the Field Name to CUSTOMER_PRICE_SUM.

That's all! You now have a report that sums the total sales and calculates the total sum for each customer. You can now start to visually enhance the report definition as you likeneeded.
After some minor adjustments, additional labels, and a few lines here and there there, the resulting report looks as follows:

Tip

If you want to achieve almost the same thing with just a few clicks the chapter about the wizard is for you.