BIRT reporting Programming Tutorial for beginners

Introduction
Reporting interface after project completion
The installation requires
Create BIRT Project
Create Data Source
Create dataset
Create new Report
Configuring the size of the report
Interface Design (Header)
Design charts
Run reports for the first time
Designing the body of the report
Run report (2)
Edit style (1)
Run report (3)
Sub Total
Run Report

1. Introduction

This document is based on:

Eclipse 4.4 (LUNA) (or newer)
BIRT 4.4

2. Reporting interface after project completion

This is a photo of report will be made in this document:

Raw data:

First of all, we need to understand some professional knowledge:

A CUSTOMER can create one or more ACCOUNT in a branch of some bank.
Each account corresponds with a service PRODUCT provided by the bank.
Each account has an AVAILABLE BALANCE.

For convenience, you can look at the following raw data.

** SQL **

Select Acc.Account_Id
    ,Acc.Cust_Id
    ,Cus.Address        Cust_Address
    ,Acc.Product_Cd -- Product Code (Service of Bank)
    ,Acc.Open_Branch_Id -- Branch (of Bank)
    ,Bra.Name           Branch_Name
    ,Acc.Avail_Balance -- Available Balance
From   Account  Acc
    ,Customer Cus
    ,Branch   Bra
Where  Acc.Cust_Id = Cus.Cust_Id
And    Acc.Open_Branch_Id = Bra.Branch_Id;

3. The installation requires

BIRT Plugin:

For programming BIRT report, you need to install BIRT tools into Eclipse. You can see the instructions at:

Install BIRT Report Tools for Eclipse

Sample database:

LearningSQL is a small database used commonly in the instruction of o7planning. The instruction of programming BIRT report also uses data on this Database. You need to create this Database (It takes only 5 minutes) as the following instruction:

JDBC Driver library for Databases (Oracle, MySQL, SQLServer) and its use:

Depending on the type of Database, you use the equivalent JDBC Driver library of that Database (It takes you 3 minutes to finish it), look at the instruction of download at:

JDBC Driver Libraries for different types of database in Java

4. Create BIRT Project

In Eclipse select:

File/New/Other...

Enter Project name:

HelloBIRT

5. Create Data Source

Create a Data Source from JDBC, or XML,... In this document, we will create Data Source from JDBC connected with LearningSQL database.

Here I connect JDBC with LearningSQL database (on DB Oracle). However, other Database manipulation is carried out alike.

ojdbc6.jar is a JDBC Driver library for Oracle

See more:
JDBC Driver Libraries for different types of database in Java

Check whether database LearningSQL has been connected or not.

6. Create dataset

Enter:

Data Set Name: Account avail balance

Select Acc.Open_Branch_Id
     ,Bra.Name           Branch_Name
     ,Acc.Cust_Id
     ,Cus.Address        Cust_Address
     ,Acc.Account_Id
     ,Acc.Product_Cd
     ,Acc.Avail_Balance
From   Account  Acc
     ,Customer Cus
     ,Branch   Bra
Where  Acc.Cust_Id = Cus.Cust_Id
And    Acc.Open_Branch_Id = Bra.Branch_Id
Order  By Acc.Open_Branch_Id