As promised in my post, "Pentaho Reporting 3.5 for Java Developers First Look", I've taken the time to thoroughly grok Pentaho Reporting 3.5 for Java Developers by Will Gorman [direct link to Packt Publishing][Buy the book from Amazon]. I've read the book, cover-to-cover, and gone through the [non-Java] exercises. As I said in my first look at this book, it contains nuggets of wisdom and practicalities drawn from deep insider knowledge. This book does best serve its target audience, Java developers with a need to incorporate reporting into their applications. But it is also useful for report developers who wish to know more about Pentaho, and Pentaho users who wish to make their use of Pentaho easier and the resulting reporting experience richer.

The first three chapters provide a very good introduction to Pentaho Reporting and its relationship to the Pentaho BI Suite and the company Pentaho, historical, technical and practical. These three chapters are also the ones that have clearly marked sections for Java specific information and exercises. By the end of Chapter Three, you'll have installed Pentaho Report Designer, and built several rich reports. If you're a Java developer, you'll have had the opportunity to incorporate these reports into both Tomcat J2EE or Swing web applications. You'll have been introduced to the rich reporting capabilities of Pentaho, accessing data sources, the underlying Java libraries, and the various output options that include PDF, Excel, CSV, RTF, XML and plain text.

Chapters 4 through 8 is all about the WYSIWYG Pentaho Report Designer, the pixel-level control that it gives you over the layout of your reports, and the many wonderful capabilities provided by Pentaho Reporting from a wide range of chart types to embedding numeric and text functions, to cross-tabs and sub-reports. Other than Chapter 5, these chapters are as useful for a business user creating their own reports, as it is for a report developer. Chapter 5 is a very deep dive, very technical look at incorporating various data sources. The two areas that really stand out are the charts (Chapter 6) and functions (Chapter 7).

There are a baker's dozen types of charts covered, with an example for each type. Some of the more exotic are Waterfall, Bar-Line, Radar and Extended XY Series charts.

There are hundreds of parameters, functions and expressions that can be used in Pentaho Reports, and Will covers them all. The formula capability of Pentaho Reporting follows the OpenFormula standard, similar to the support for formulæ in Microsoft Excel, and the same as that followed by OpenOffice.org. One can provide computed text or numeric values within Pentaho reports to a fairly complex extent. Chapter 7 provides a great introduction to using this feature.

Chapters 9 through 11 are very much for the software developer, covering the development of Interactive Reports in Swing and HTML, the use of Pentaho's APIs and extension of Pentaho Reporting capabilities. It's all interesting stuff, that really explains the technology of Pentaho Reporting, but there's little here that is of use to the business user or non-Java report developer.

The first part of Chapter 12, on the other hand, is of little use to the Java developer, as it shows how to take reports created in Pentaho Report Designer and publish them through the Pentaho BI-Server, including formats suitable to mobile devices, such as the iPhone. The latter part of Chapter 12 goes into the use of metadata, and is useful both for the report developer and the Java developer.

So, as I said in my first look, the majority of the book is useful even if you're not a Java developer who needs to incorporate sophisticated reports into your application. That being said, Will Gorman does an excellent job in explaining Pentaho Reporting, and making it very useful for business users, report designers, report developers and, his target audience, Java developers. I heartily recommend that you buy this book. [Amazon link]

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I was approached by Richard Dias of Packt Publishing to review "Pentaho Reporting 3.5 for Java Developers" written by Will Gorman. (Link is to Amazon.com)

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Richard Dias has indicated you are a Friend:

Hi Joseph,

My name is Richard Dias and I work for Packt Publishing which specializes in publishing focused IT related books.

I was wondering if you would be interesteed in reviewing the book "Pentaho Reporting for Java Developers" written by Will Gorman.

- Richard Dias

After some back and forth, I decided to accept the book in exchange for my review.

Hi Joseph,

Thanks for the reply and interest in reviewing the book. I have just placed an order for a copy of the book and it should arrive at your place within 10 days. Please do let me know when you receive it.

I have also created a unique link for you. It is http://www.packtpub.com/pentaho-reporting-3-5-for-java-developers?utm_source=press.teleinteractive.net&utm_medium=bookrev&utm_content=blog&utm_campaign=mdb_001537. Please feel free to use this link in your book review.

In the meanwhile, if you could mention about the book on your blog and tweet about the book, it would be highly appreciated. Please do let me know if it is fine with you.

I’m also sending you the link of an extracted chapter from the book (Chapter 6 Including Charts and Graphics in Reports). It would be great if you could put up the link on your blog. This would act as first hand information for your readers and they will also be able to download the file.

Any queries or suggestions are always welcome.

I look forward to your reply.

Best Regards,

Richard

Richard Dias
Marketing Research Executive | Packt Publishing | www.PacktPub.com

Shortly thereafter, I received notification that the book had shipped. It arrived within two weeks.

Of course, I've been too busy to do more than skim through the book. Anyone who follows me as JAdP on Twitter knows that in the past few weeks, I've been:

• helping customers with algorithm development and implementing Pentaho on LucidDB,
• working with Nicholas Goodman with his planning for commercial support of LucidDB through Dynamo Business Intelligence, and roadmaps for DynamoDB packages built on LucidDB's plugin architecture, and
• migrating our RHEL host at ServerBeach from our old machine to a new one, while dealing with issues brought about by ServerBeach migrating to Peer1's tools.

None of which has left any time for a thorough review of "Pentaho Reporting for Java Developers".

I hope to have a full review up shortly after the holidays, which for me runs from Solstice to Epiphany, and maybe into the following weekend.

First, a little background. Will Gorman, the author, works for Pentaho, in software engineering, as a team lead, and works primarily on Pentaho Reporting products, a combination of server-side (Pentaho BI-Server), Desktop (MacOSX, Linux and Windows platforms) and Web-based software (Reporting Engine, Report Designer, Report Design Wizard and Pentaho Ad Hoc Reporting), which stems from the open source JFreeReport and JFreeChart. While I don't know Will personally, I do know quite a few individuals at Pentaho, and in the Pentaho community. I very much endorse their philosophy towards open source, and the way they've treated the open source projects and communities that they've integrated into their Pentaho Business Intelligence Suite. I do follow Will on Twitter, and on the IRC Freednode Channel, ##pentaho.

I myself am not a Java Developer, so at first I was not attracted to a book with a title that seemed geared to Pentaho Developers. Having skimmed through the book, I think that the title was poorly chosen. (Sorry Richard). I find that I can read through the book without stumbling, and that there is plenty of good intelligence that will help me better server and instruct my customers through the use of Pentaho Report Designer.

My initial impressions are good. The content seems full of golden nuggets of "how-tos" and background information not commonly known among the Pentaho community. Will's knowledge of Pentaho Reporting and how it fits into the rest of the Pentaho tools, such as KETTLE (Pentaho Data Integration) and Mondrian (Pentaho Analysis), along with a clear writing style makes all aspects of Pentaho more accessible to the BI practitioner, as well as those that wish to embed Pentaho Reporting into their own application.

This book is not just for Java developers, but for anyone who wishes to extend their abilities in BI, Reporting and Analysis, with Pentaho as an excellent example.

I'll be following up with the really exciting finds as I wend my way through Will's gold mine of knowledge, and, will do my best to fulfill my promise of a full review by mid-January.

You can also click through the Chapter 6 (a PDF) as mentioned in Richard's email.

Thank you, Richard. And most especially, thank you, Will.

I'm currently on a gig at a very interesting SaaS company. We're introducing and creating agile methods, creating a new SOA with MDM and recreating the applications in the new architecture. One snag that we hit is that the company is using WebLogic 9.2 and the most recent Hibernate Tools won't work with the WebLogic WorkShop, which is based on Eclipse 3.1.

Can anyone point me to an archive where I can find Hibernate Tools for Eclipse 3.1? The team can't find it anywhere. What's up Hibernate? Use the latest or forget it?

On a related note, I want to give Kudos and a huge hoozah to Martin Ying, Principal Consultant with BEA Systems, Inc. He's accomplished an incredible amount in the four days he's been here. I heartily recommend Martin to anyone wanting to get started with developing in WebLogic Workshop. He's amazing. Thank you, Martin.

We're constantly recreating our 6D™ project management methodology. It started with combining Clarise's software development and project management experience with my aerospace system engineering and program management experience to adopt strict project controls to modern business needs for responsive software development and system integration processes working through distributed personnel. Well, here's a quick thought... software development and deployment should move away from traditional release cycle concepts to one of continuous process/code improvement within SaaS and virtual appliance environments. No code is alpha nor beta nor production, but a continuum of changes and adaptations responding to fluctuating business needs; done within a well managed environment to prevent security errors, poor performance, "garbage out" and junk code. So as we're assuring that our 6D™ [six dimensions of a project] is in accord with the PMBoK, we'll be keeping this thought in mind as well, and let's think beyond Extreme and Agile programming and continuous process improvement for software quality.

Today, Pentaho launched their new open source project, Software Quality Reports (SQR) for Bugzilla. Bugzilla is a "Defect Tracking System" or "Bug-Tracking System" that allows developers to keep track of outstanding bugs in their product. We interviewed Lance Walter and Nicholas Goodman of Pentaho for this podcast to get the inside story about this new project.

Software Quality Reports for Bugzilla is the first in a series of focused solutions that Pentaho will be bringing forth in 2006 onward. SQR for Bugzilla is based upon the Pentaho Open BI Suite to provide enhanced reporting and analysis of data from Bugzilla.

Lance pointed out that one reason the first Pentaho solution was for Bugzilla is that Bugzilla has quickly achieved worldwide popularity for its rich functionality, and is used by organizations ranging from open source leaders like The Apache Project, Novell, Open Office, and Red Hat to public- and private-sector organizations including NASA, AT&T, Citigroup, GlaxoSmithKline, France Telecom, Rutgers University, Overstock.com, Siemens and more.

Nick provides a wealth of details on the uses and goals of the SQR for Bugzilla project. Bugzilla is used as a source system for the Pentaho solution, though other source systems, such as configuration management and version control, can be added. The Pentaho SQR for Bugzilla adds reports and analytical slice & dice which allow project managers, end users and developers to answer questions about bug resolution or bug burn that can not be easily answered using only Bugzilla reports. Pentaho SQR for Bugzilla is a separate project, licensed under the open source Mozilla license 1.1, and can be downloaded from Pentaho or Sourceforge.

Screen shots can be found at Sourceforge.

The Pentaho SQR for Bugzilla podcast
is approximately 40 minutes in length and 37 MB in size.

Update: You can read the full press release from Pentaho, New Open Source Project Harnesses World’s Most Popular Open Source BI Suite to Enhance Bugzilla with Reporting and Analysis.

Pentaho and Simba Technologies announced today their Spreadsheet Service allowing Microsoft Office users to access Pentaho OLAP using Microsoft Excel's Pivot Tables. Under the terms of their agreement, Pentaho becomes the exclusive distributor of Simba’s Microsoft Excel connectivity technology for use with Mondrian, which will be delivered and branded as Pentaho Spreadsheet Services.

We're trying to get more information about this new service.

[Quick Update:] Lance Walter of Pentaho quickly responded to our request for more information, and provided a link from the Pentaho Analysis page to the Pentaho Spreadsheet Services FAQ.

Spreadsheet Services is basically a client-side library. It sits on the client machine, and translates ODBO calls from Excel’s PivotTable Service into XML/A calls that go to Pentaho Analysis Services / Mondrian. [Pentaho Spreadsheet Services] works with Mondrian “standalone” – meaning Mondrian deployed without any of the rest of the Pentaho platform. So if you’re an existing, happy Mondrian user and want to use Pentaho Spreadsheet Services, you don’t need to deploy or configure the Pentaho platform to use it.
-- From Lance Walter, VP Marketing, Pentaho