Dmitri Popov's article on Sun Report Builder: Better reporting in OpenOffice.org focuses on the improved utility provided to Sun Report Builder (SRB) in its new extension, which is a result of collaboration with Pentaho.

SRB can be installed as a conventional OpenOffice.org extension, Popov points out, integrating directly into the OpenOffice.org Base. He notes the similarities between Base's Form Builder and the SRB form-building feature, describing the three default sections: Page Header, Detail, and Page Footer.

The author goes over the first steps in designing a report, discussing the procedure of adding fields to pertinent page sections and specifying their respective properties.

Popov next talks about sorting and grouping data in a report and creating calculation fields, which are labeled "functions." He notes the lack of documentation for SRB, which makes knowing which operators and formates are supported a bit of a mystery. He further decries the lack of online help and identifies it as the weakest aspect of the current SRB release. Aside from that shortcoming, Popov concludes, Sun's efforts in producing this reporting tool are commendable. One can only hope for an early release of supporting documentation.

SRB does require StarOffice 8 (Update 8 or higher) or OpenOffice.org (2.3 or higher). To learn more about SRB, see OpenOffice.org\'s extensions page. [...read more...]

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