You can add a new report to any project. It is good practice to separate the reporting files from other files in your project. In this example, the supplied reports are stored in the

report

folder. When you use

File > New

and choose to create a new report, always use the Process Developer Template. The template has a script, which when the report is deployed, automatically detects the Data Source connection information by using the supplied

AeBirtContext

class.

If you are interested in this script, open a report that uses the template, select the Data Source, and then click on the

Script

tab in the report editor. The Data Source while in Process Developer does not use the server settings; instead, it is predefined to point to your embedded Process Server's server derby database. This database has a limitation that only one application can connect to it at a time, so if you are creating reports using derby make sure you stop the embedded Process Server first.

Note

: If you need to change the default, edit the data source properties to point to the database in which you store your data.

Once you have created a new report, the next step is to define a data set. A data set is the SQL and parameters that return the results from the database. After creating the SELECT statement, you can simply drag the data set onto the canvas and a simple table is created for you. Now you can go ahead and make any of the formatting changes for your report that you need.

Charts and other reporting types are also available. To use these features, you will need to consult the BIRT documentation. A few chart samples are included to give you a sense of the capabilities. Please note that these reports were designed and tested against the embedded server's derby database. You may need to make modifications to the SQL Data Set for each report if you want to use them with another supported database.

Reports are easily deployed simply by selecting them or the folder where they reside using the context menu to select

Export

. From within the displayed dialog, select the

Orchestration > Business Process Archive

export option. Select a location for your BPR file. Typically, you will also choose Web service deployment with the location of your server (the default is localhost on port 8080). Also, make sure to check the

Replace existing resources

checkbox or the system may not overwrite the previous report deployments unless you have set that as the default when setting server properties.

You can also choose to save the deployment script, which is an ant script that can deploy your reports again simply by selecting

Execute

from the context menu. Note the sample project has a saved deployment script in the deploy folder that you can use to automatically deploy the sample reports. Selecting the

Next

button brings you to a page where you will see your reports in the additional resources list. Choose a

Process Group

name for both your entries, for example

Sample Reports

.

In order to create human task-centric reports, you will need a basic understanding of the human task data model. The data model is of course centered on the task, which is in the

AeB4PTask

table. The primary key of this table is the

ProcessId

. Other tables have keys that relate back to the

ProcessId

in this table. As mentioned in the process section of the data model, a system process actually handles the task state management using the

AeB4PTask

table and the

AeProcess

table.

Table 2 contains a short list and descriptions of task tables for which you may have monitoring or other interests. Figure 2 contains a portion of the full data model that is centered on the

AeB4PTask

table.