Regarding Actuate BIRT connector

neoonwheel

Hi All,

I have just joined this forum and wanted help from gurus here. Following is the area where I am looking for the help:

Problem definition: I was going through the open source reporting tool from Actuate and Eclipse' BIRT. I downloaded it from the web portal and was going through the report designer tool called "BIRt report designer professional". So far so good.. Now in the data connection menu I can see SAP, Actuate, flat file etc connection options. My area of concern is how can I connect my BIRT reporting tool to the OLAP server I am running on. I am using Hyperion Analytic Services (Essbase) and I wanted to build reports on the cubes and data present in my Essbase.
Is there any way for me to either connect to Essbase or write a custom data connector in my BIRT reporting tool for the Hyperion Essbase. I am ready to build a connector but then is there any API toolkit available where I can put Essbase as an option in the designer and even can put a module which will read my data for putting it into the report? Such API toolkit exist? If so how can I download it and how should I start on this (API docs available or not) ?

Guys could you please help me in this? I need to start on this ASAP. Should I write a custom connector for Essbase in the BIRT and how can I deploy it to my client side. I appreciate all your help and support.

Thanks
Abhijeet

Virgil

Hi Abhijeet,<br />
<br />
There is not an out-of-the-box connector to Essbase, but you are correct that the list of data sources can be extended to include your custom sources. If you are using BIRT 2.2, then this is even easier with the new ODA Runtime Driver Plug-in Project wizard and ODA Designer Plug-in Project wizard. (These can be found at File | New Project | Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools) These wizards help you create a generic ODA driver and screens that you can use to start pointing at the Essbase data.<br />
<br />
If you are looking for more examples to start with (or are on BIRT 2.1) then you can see a couple of example ODA drivers at <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.actuate.com/products/products-resources.asp?ArticleId=11719'>http://www.actuate.com/products/products-resources.asp?ArticleId=11719</a><br />
<br />
Virgil

neoonwheel

Hey Virgil,

Thanks a lot buddy. I will look into the link that you have provided. I have following questions though:

1. Can I write such ODA driver for Essbase easily?
2. How can I design the screens for metadata (dimension) import from Essbase, is there anythign where I can create custom screens?
3. How can I put my module to read the data from the Essbase and provide it to BIRT while putting the data into the report?
4. Even if I do everything I want to do, is there a way to deploy my solution as an extension/plugin to a normal BIRT user so he do not have to code everything which I did? He can just plug it in his BIRT copy.

I know I am asking too much, but I am just trying to minimize the time I need to invest if I will not be getting what I want from BIRT. Thanks a lot once again for your mail and pointers.

Thanks
Abhijeet

PuckPuck

Actuate has an Essbase connector which works with BIRT, and all other Actuate products. It may serve better use to get the connector from Actuate, rather than build one yourself. The connector requires Essbase Deployment Services for version 7, or Hyperion High Availability Services for version 9.

The connector will prompt for standard connection details, then present a large text box to enter in an MDX query. A few query options also exists, which help in the way the data is returned, particularly to repeat the row dimensions for every row, or to return the level number of a particular dimension (and more...). Internally the connector is multi-threaded for improved performance with larger data sets.

There is a cost associated with the connector, which also comes with Professional Services from Actuate. Given the time it would take you to write your own connector, it makes sense to use something which is in use, in production at other companies (Suzuki to name one), and has been proven as an effective and efficient way to get data from Essbase. In our own testing, at other clients, we have shown that reports written using BIRT and the connector performed significantly better (over 500% improvement) than when using Hyperion Reports.

For more information about the connector please contact your Actuate account manager, or sales engineer.