Introduction to Pentaho Reporting

Components

Pentaho Reporting consists of the Reporting engine, Report Designer, the Pentaho BI Server, and the following client tools and add-ons:

The BI Server can be built as a standalone WAR that can be deployed to an existing server, but it is typically bundled by Pentaho with the above-listed tools, plus the Apache Tomcat application server version 5.5, and the MySQL relational database version 5.0. This forms a self-contained, Web-based framework for managing and creating business intelligence solutions.

Features

Pentaho Reporting offers the following functionality:

  • Pixel-perfect report creation with Report Designer.
  • The ability to add a user-friendly metadata domain to a data source via Metadata Editor.
  • Fine-tuning of reports created with Report Designer and ad hoc reporting through Design Studio.
  • The Pentaho User Console Web interface, which enables easy management of reports and analysis views.
  • An ad hoc reporting interface, which offers a step-by-step wizard for designing simple reports. Output formats include PDF, RTF, HTML, and XLS.
  • A complex scheduling subsystem that enables users to set reports to execute at given intervals.
  • The ability to email a published report to other users.
  • Connectivity between Reporting client tools and the BI Server, which allows content created with Metadata Editor, Report Designer, and Design Studio to directly publish to the BI Server.