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RT and JasperReports Server Integration (got it working, anyone interested?)

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mailinglists at boksa

Apr 9, 2012, 3:39 AM

Post #1 of 6 (806 views)
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RT and JasperReports Server Integration (got it working, anyone interested?)

Hi Everyone,

RT has been my primary tool to manage Tickets and other Requests since 2001 (RT 2.x) and I am still using it everyday. During the last few years I integrated some billing functions into RT (by using custom fields, workflows etc.). As a natural consequence I have reached the point where I need a function I could not find in RT itself: easily manageable print layouts (aka PDFs ;-) ) that can be custom tailored to fit my client's needs (e.g. grouping by cost unit).

After a few days of work I now have a completely working system that allows me to create pretty, printable Reports from RT using JasperReports Server [1].

It uses RT's REST API with customizable (query builder) queries and a simple definition (REST Interface URL, Username and Password) to access ticket data from JasperReports Server. I have done so by creating a custom DataSource [2] and a custom QueryExecuter [3] for JasperReports - all you need to know to prepare your data from RT to be used in a Jasper report are the credentials of your instance's REST Interface and the query builder query you would like to run - you should know all of these if you work with RT regularly ;-)

You can then use tools like iReport [4] to design fantastic reporting templates for your RT data including your logo, graphs and many other cool things.

As you already might have guessed I think I have found a pretty good solution to integrate RT and JasperReports Server. Now I am standing at the point where I wonder

a) If this is interesting to the RT community (found some mails back in 2007)?
b) If anyone of you is interested in joining my efforts to improve the solution?
c) If there is anything else you would like to know about the solution?
d) As a part of the project I have also built a single J2EE component (DAO [5]) to access the RT REST Interface - would you like to see this component to be released independently?

I would be glad to get some feedback from you to see if this will be a cool thing for myself or if it makes sense to create a project for the RT community - I have many cool ideas in the back of my head (like direct integration into the RT web interface).

Looking forward to your answers and sending curious greetings from Cologne

Benjamin

P.S.: As this is a very "developerish" topic I hope it is OK to crosspost this mail...

[1] http://jasperforge.org/projects/jasperserver
[2] http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/sample.reference/datasource/index.html#customdatasource
[3] http://jasperforge.org/uploads/publish/jasperreportswebsite/trunk/sample.reference/hibernate/index.html#queryexecuters
[4] http://jasperforge.org/projects/ireport
[5] http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/DataAccessObject.html
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cornellgreen at gmail

Apr 9, 2012, 3:51 AM

Post #2 of 6 (771 views)
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Re: RT and JasperReports Server Integration (got it working, anyone interested?) [In reply to]

This sounds like an excellent addition to RT, a tool I myself have been working with since nearly its inception.

Not much of a developer myself, I encourage you to consider at least making this available to the RT community, if not actually folding it into the RT code base.

Cornell D. Green
CIO
CommunIT Solutions
Let's get Your Technology to WORK!
http://CommunIT.us/helpdesk

On Apr 9, 2012, at 6:39 AM, Benjamin Boksa <mailinglists [at] boksa> wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> RT has been my primary tool to manage Tickets and other Requests since 2001 (RT 2.x) and I am still using it everyday. During the last few years I integrated some billing functions into RT (by using custom fields, workflows etc.). As a natural consequence I have reached the point where I need a function I could not find in RT itself: easily manageable print layouts (aka PDFs ;-) ) that can be custom tailored to fit my client's needs (e.g. grouping by cost unit).
>
> After a few days of work I now have a completely working system that allows me to create pretty, printable Reports from RT using JasperReports Server [1].
>
> It uses RT's REST API with customizable (query builder) queries and a simple definition (REST Interface URL, Username and Password) to access ticket data from JasperReports Server. I have done so by creating a custom DataSource [2] and a custom QueryExecuter [3] for JasperReports - all you need to know to prepare your data from RT to be used in a Jasper report are the credentials of your instance's REST Interface and the query builder query you would like to run - you should know all of these if you work with RT regularly ;-)
>
> You can then use tools like iReport [4] to design fantastic reporting templates for your RT data including your logo, graphs and many other cool things.
>
> As you already might have guessed I think I have found a pretty good solution to integrate RT and JasperReports Server. Now I am standing at the point where I wonder
>
> a) If this is interesting to the RT community (found some mails back in 2007)?
> b) If anyone of you is interested in joining my efforts to improve the solution?
> c) If there is anything else you would like to know about the solution?
> d) As a part of the project I have also built a single J2EE component (DAO [5]) to access the RT REST Interface - would you like to see this component to be released independently?
>
> I would be glad to get some feedback from you to see if this will be a cool thing for myself or if it makes sense to create a project for the RT community - I have many cool ideas in the back of my head (like direct integration into the RT web interface).
>
> Looking forward to your answers and sending curious greetings from Cologne
>
> Benjamin
>
>
> P.S.: As this is a very "developerish" topic I hope it is OK to crosspost this mail...
>
>
> [1] http://jasperforge.org/projects/jasperserver
> [2] http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/sample.reference/datasource/index.html#customdatasource
> [3] http://jasperforge.org/uploads/publish/jasperreportswebsite/trunk/sample.reference/hibernate/index.html#queryexecuters
> [4] http://jasperforge.org/projects/ireport
> [5] http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/DataAccessObject.html
> --------
> List info: http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-devel

--------
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robert at robertblackwell

Apr 9, 2012, 4:44 AM

Post #3 of 6 (766 views)
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Re: RT and JasperReports Server Integration (got it working, anyone interested?) [In reply to]

I agree this would be an excellent addition to RT. Is there a project
repository set up somewhere? I would be interested using this and
helping with the project.

Robert

On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 6:51 AM, Cornell D. Green <cornellgreen [at] gmail> wrote:
> This sounds like an excellent addition to RT, a tool I myself have been working with since nearly its inception.
>
> Not much of a developer myself, I encourage you to consider at least making this available to the RT community, if not actually folding it into the RT code base.
>
> Cornell D. Green
> CIO
> CommunIT Solutions
> Let's get Your Technology to WORK!
> http://CommunIT.us/helpdesk
>
> On Apr 9, 2012, at 6:39 AM, Benjamin Boksa <mailinglists [at] boksa> wrote:
>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> RT has been my primary tool to manage Tickets and other Requests since 2001 (RT 2.x) and I am still using it everyday. During the last few years I integrated some billing functions into RT (by using custom fields, workflows etc.). As a natural consequence I have reached the point where I need a function I could not find in RT itself: easily manageable print layouts (aka PDFs ;-) ) that can be custom tailored to fit my client's needs (e.g. grouping by cost unit).
>>
>> After a few days of work I now have a completely working system that allows me to create pretty, printable Reports from RT using JasperReports Server [1].
>>
>> It uses RT's REST API with customizable (query builder) queries and a simple definition (REST Interface URL, Username and Password) to access ticket data from JasperReports Server. I have done so by creating a custom DataSource [2] and a custom QueryExecuter [3] for JasperReports - all you need to know to prepare your data from RT to be used in a Jasper report are the credentials of your instance's REST Interface and the query builder query you would like to run - you should know all of these if you work with RT regularly ;-)
>>
>> You can then use tools like iReport [4] to design fantastic reporting templates for your RT data including your logo, graphs and many other cool things.
>>
>> As you already might have guessed I think I have found a pretty good solution to integrate RT and JasperReports Server. Now I am standing at the point where I wonder
>>
>> a) If this is interesting to the RT community (found some mails back in 2007)?
>> b) If anyone of you is interested in joining my efforts to improve the solution?
>> c) If there is anything else you would like to know about the solution?
>> d) As a part of the project I have also built a single J2EE component (DAO [5]) to access the RT REST Interface - would you like to see this component to be released independently?
>>
>> I would be glad to get some feedback from you to see if this will be a cool thing for myself or if it makes sense to create a project for the RT community - I have many cool ideas in the back of my head (like direct integration into the RT web interface).
>>
>> Looking forward to your answers and sending curious greetings from Cologne
>>
>> Benjamin
>>
>>
>> P.S.: As this is a very "developerish" topic I hope it is OK to crosspost this mail...
>>
>>
>> [1] http://jasperforge.org/projects/jasperserver
>> [2] http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/sample.reference/datasource/index.html#customdatasource
>> [3] http://jasperforge.org/uploads/publish/jasperreportswebsite/trunk/sample.reference/hibernate/index.html#queryexecuters
>> [4] http://jasperforge.org/projects/ireport
>> [5] http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/DataAccessObject.html
>> --------
>> List info: http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-devel
>
> --------
> List info: http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-devel
--------
List info: http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-devel

mailinglists at boksa

Apr 11, 2012, 4:18 AM

Post #4 of 6 (750 views)
Permalink

Re: RT and JasperReports Server Integration (got it working, anyone interested?) [In reply to]

Wow - Thanks a lot for all of your feedback.

I will try to setup a (github-)repository and some basic instructions about setting up RT4 and JasperServer on Debian 6 by the end of next week (April 22). At the moment I have to catch up on the backlog created while writing the integration toolkit - yesterday I started working on the backlog by sending out the first actual quarterly invoices created with it :-D

In the meantime feel free to send me suggestions, tell me about features you would like to see and use cases to be covered so that I can prepare a proposed roadmap as soon as we start! Also I still don't have a name for the project (my local repository is named jasper-rt which seems very boring) - if you have any cool suggestions please share them :-)

@mailinglist admins: Is it OK to use the rt-devel mailinglist for the first basic discussions or should I create a separate mailing list?

Thanks a lot for all your answers, I am sure your interest and feedback will help making this a cool tool.

Benjamin

Am 09.04.2012 um 13:44 schrieb Robert Blackwell:

> I agree this would be an excellent addition to RT. Is there a project
> repository set up somewhere? I would be interested using this and
> helping with the project.
>
> Robert
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 6:51 AM, Cornell D. Green <cornellgreen [at] gmail> wrote:
>> This sounds like an excellent addition to RT, a tool I myself have been working with since nearly its inception.
>>
>> Not much of a developer myself, I encourage you to consider at least making this available to the RT community, if not actually folding it into the RT code base.
>>
>> Cornell D. Green
>> CIO
>> CommunIT Solutions
>> Let's get Your Technology to WORK!
>> http://CommunIT.us/helpdesk
>>
>> On Apr 9, 2012, at 6:39 AM, Benjamin Boksa <mailinglists [at] boksa> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Everyone,
>>>
>>> RT has been my primary tool to manage Tickets and other Requests since 2001 (RT 2.x) and I am still using it everyday. During the last few years I integrated some billing functions into RT (by using custom fields, workflows etc.). As a natural consequence I have reached the point where I need a function I could not find in RT itself: easily manageable print layouts (aka PDFs ;-) ) that can be custom tailored to fit my client's needs (e.g. grouping by cost unit).
>>>
>>> After a few days of work I now have a completely working system that allows me to create pretty, printable Reports from RT using JasperReports Server [1].
>>>
>>> It uses RT's REST API with customizable (query builder) queries and a simple definition (REST Interface URL, Username and Password) to access ticket data from JasperReports Server. I have done so by creating a custom DataSource [2] and a custom QueryExecuter [3] for JasperReports - all you need to know to prepare your data from RT to be used in a Jasper report are the credentials of your instance's REST Interface and the query builder query you would like to run - you should know all of these if you work with RT regularly ;-)
>>>
>>> You can then use tools like iReport [4] to design fantastic reporting templates for your RT data including your logo, graphs and many other cool things.
>>>
>>> As you already might have guessed I think I have found a pretty good solution to integrate RT and JasperReports Server. Now I am standing at the point where I wonder
>>>
>>> a) If this is interesting to the RT community (found some mails back in 2007)?
>>> b) If anyone of you is interested in joining my efforts to improve the solution?
>>> c) If there is anything else you would like to know about the solution?
>>> d) As a part of the project I have also built a single J2EE component (DAO [5]) to access the RT REST Interface - would you like to see this component to be released independently?
>>>
>>> I would be glad to get some feedback from you to see if this will be a cool thing for myself or if it makes sense to create a project for the RT community - I have many cool ideas in the back of my head (like direct integration into the RT web interface).
>>>
>>> Looking forward to your answers and sending curious greetings from Cologne
>>>
>>> Benjamin
>>>
>>>
>>> P.S.: As this is a very "developerish" topic I hope it is OK to crosspost this mail...
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] http://jasperforge.org/projects/jasperserver
>>> [2] http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/sample.reference/datasource/index.html#customdatasource
>>> [3] http://jasperforge.org/uploads/publish/jasperreportswebsite/trunk/sample.reference/hibernate/index.html#queryexecuters
>>> [4] http://jasperforge.org/projects/ireport
>>> [5] http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/DataAccessObject.html
>>> --------
>>> List info: http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-devel
>>
>> --------
>> List info: http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-devel
>

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trs at bestpractical

Apr 11, 2012, 6:06 AM

Post #5 of 6 (747 views)
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Re: RT and JasperReports Server Integration (got it working, anyone interested?) [In reply to]

On 04/11/2012 07:18 AM, Benjamin Boksa wrote:
> @mailinglist admins: Is it OK to use the rt-devel mailinglist for the
> first basic discussions or should I create a separate mailing list?

rt-devel is a perfectly fine place for now. :)
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falcone at bestpractical

Apr 11, 2012, 7:49 AM

Post #6 of 6 (743 views)
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Re: RT and JasperReports Server Integration (got it working, anyone interested?) [In reply to]

On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 09:06:42AM -0400, Thomas Sibley wrote:
> On 04/11/2012 07:18 AM, Benjamin Boksa wrote:
> > @mailinglist admins: Is it OK to use the rt-devel mailinglist for the
> > first basic discussions or should I create a separate mailing list?
>
> rt-devel is a perfectly fine place for now. :)

rt-devel is great, I'd prefer it to cross-posting (although
cross-posting to make an announce of it for people to test is great).

-kevin

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