BIRT Exchange Forum: BIRT Exchange Forum -> BIRT Rocks!

BIRT does not impose any restrictions on the data size. This could mean BIRT visualizations based on large data sets could be running for a long time using up your computing resources during the busy hours of the day. The other requirement I often come across is to run reports on a recurring basis with the latest data and notify a set of users or even email them a copy of the report output in the desired format(e.g. a weekly sales report). Combine the above end user requirements with the real world business need to trigger the report generation based on certain system events or other business processes along with the ability to monitor/manage the scheduled jobs and you could end up with a fairly complex scheduling system. Fortunately iServer (Express) addresses these complex requirements with a simple user interface.

Information Console is the end-user interface to iServer(Express). It offers a very simple yet rich web interface that meets majority of the end-user needs around calendar based scheduling, and also lets them pre-define any input parameters to the report if any along with the output location, format and notify and share with other users.


Management Console is another web interface that offers a more granular control over scheduling aspects (calendar and event based) in iServer (Express).


It allows for a more advanced calendar schedule and event settings.


If you create a job that uses an event based criteria and a calendar schedule, the job runs when both conditions occur. The systems accept three kinds of events:

• File Event - Use the file/folder presence as a condition for running a job.
  
• Job Event - Specify completion of a job as a criterion for running a scheduled job.
  
• Custom Event - With custom event you can specify a web service that iServer(Express) monitors and run the jobs when the web service returns a signal to the web service. The following wiki article discusses Custom Event web service in further detail:
  http://www.birt-exch...e_-_Report_Jobs

You can obtain information about scheduled jobs or completed jobs using Management Console.


iServer(Express) groups job processing into five phases:

• Scheduled
  
• Waiting for Event
  
• Pending
  
• Running
  
• Completed

Based on the privileges, individual users and administrators can manage jobs at each and every phase.
Download your own evaluation copy of iServer (Express) and try these features yourself:
http://www.birt-exch...press/features/