Creating reports using JasperReports

Introduction

iDempiere includes the Jaspersoft reporting software library as standard to produce reports in a simple format from many Windows, such as Business Partner Details, Bank/Cash, and so on.

You can also use the embedded JasperReports engine to generate reports in your own customized format by using JasperSoft Studio to design them.

Standard Reporting

Ready-made reports

Many iDempiere Windows include standard, ready-made tabular reports that can be generated from the Report button on the Toolbar (or type Alt-R). Some Windows, for example Invoices (Customer), also have a Print button (Alt-P) that produces a formatted page.

By default the standard report format includes features like:

• Zoom across to related documents (e.g. zoom to a Business Partner from the report);
• Drill down using hyperlinks in HTML reports;
• Export to HTML, PDF, and Excel.

You can see the full list of ready-made reports by logging in as System/System role, then select Report&Process and execute an advanced query with the filter Report=Yes to select the reports.

Use these ready-made reports as a guide to create your own.

Customise a standard report

You can customise these reports and prints using the Toolbox icon from the print-preview window to change:

• Add and remove columns;
• Page format and orientation: A4 Landscape for example;
• Font: serif or sans serif;
• Display order of the items on the page;
• Sort order of the rows or pages;
• Format of the columns: alignment, width, colour, and so on.

Once you have made your changes, save the new print format and re-create the print-out.

Report Wizard

iDempiere also provides a Report Wizard using the Wizard icon which provides more functionality to customise the standard reports, in particular:

• Grouping criteria: group by date or by customer, for example;
• Summary Fields: provides aggregate functions like sum, count, minimum, maximum, mean, variance, and standard deviation;
• Copy Print Format: make a copy of the standard format of the ready-made reports and then change the format to suit your requirements, leaving the original print format intact.

Create new reports using built-in reporting functionality

You can also create your own reports using iDempiere's built-in reporting functionality by creating a Report View for a database table or a more complex database. Follow the guidelines here.

Customised reporting

Create new reports using JasperSoft Studio

The standard reporting mechanism is suitable for simple reports, but using the built-in Print Format tools to customise layouts and create new reports can be cumbersome and time-consuming.

If you want to create more sophisticated reports and print-outs with professionally designed layouts, fonts, colours and logos, you should rather use JasperSoft Studio to do the design, then load the JRXML report definition into iDempiere.

There is a very good guide to the use of JasperSoft Studio in this video by Evenos, and there is a shorter, word-less video here.

Install JasperSoft Studio

• Download and install the Community Edition of JasperSoft Studio from the download page (note: don't download the older iReport Designer as this has been deprecated in favour of JasperSoft Studio);
• Follow the installation instructions here. JasperSoft Studio is built on the same framework as the Eclipse IDE so the installation and usage is the same.

Create Data Adapter

• Start up JasperSoft Studio;
• Delete the two unnecessary Data Adapters (called One Empty Record and Sample DB);
• Create a new Data Adapter to connect to the iDempiere database: Create Data Adapter > Database JDBC Connection > Next >
  • Name: iDempiere Data Adapter
  • JDBC Driver: org.postgresql.Driver
  • JDBC URL: jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/idempiere (use localhost if the database is on the same machine as JasperSoft Studio, otherwise replace localhost with the name of the database server);
  • Username: adempiere (the same username that was used when iDempiere was installed)
  • Password: *********
• Click on Test to test the connection parameters;
• Click Finish if all is well.

Create JasperReport

There is also a video by Red1 demonstrating a powerful plug-in by Niemcor, with ready made sample reports, that uses OSGi to install the plugin without restarting the server.

See Also

• Making fonts available to your JasperReports
• Making resources such as images and language files available to your JasperReports
• Multi-Lingual Jasper
• Link to historical Compiere documentation on JasperReports
• Another link to historical Compiere documentation about Financial Reports