Ellipse 8 reports ad customisations architecture 1

[Calator]

I am interested in the technical details of Ellipse 8 reporting and customisations architecture, in the context of upgrading from Ellipse 6.3.1: what does Ellipse 8 out-of-the box have in terms of reporting and customization tools? We know that the standard reports are Jasper, what else?
Is RDL still available, to what extent? does a RDL-Jasper precompiler exist? is there an automated conversion tool from RDL to Jasper available? is that available to ABB only, or to clients as well?
Is there a conversion tool for Business Objects 6.4 reports?
Is Ellipse Connector library available ?
Are the equivalent of User Exists (screen logic customizations) still available?

 

[dckamo]

Hi,
1) Ireport/Jasper is the new Tool for Reporting.
2) RDL is still used. Ellise will convert it to java/groovy class at runtime(in the background, no more cobol). There is no tool to my knowledge to convert RDL to jasper.
3) For customization
- Where you previously used user exits this has been replaced by Hooks
- For UI customization the is screen personalization
4) As far as Business objects, we havent used this and did not find the need to.

Regards
Kes

 

[dckamo]

Hi,

Connectors can still be used. This to a large extent been replaced by smart excel which is used to load your data. This is available on the application itself. You can also use smart excel to export data from data grids in your application.
Further you could use web services to read/create/delete data in ellipse. I think that these web services come off the old MSK... programs with all the integrity logic buil in

Rgds
Kes

 

[Calator]

Hi Kes,
Thanks a lot for your contribution. I wander if you could pls shed some light on the following:
In your experience, is Jasper used as a direct replacement for the operational, canned reports previously supplied by RDL, or it is used in a novel fashion and to what extent is it used for Business Intelligence reporting? What do you use for dashboards and analytics?

Do you still have to request MSRnnn (RDL report) in Ellipse, or the RDL is purely used to compile into a Java/Groovy executable; and what is the naming convention for the resulting report? What is a MSJnnn, a Jasper report or a Java/Groovy report?

Does the vendor still supply the source code for the RDL and Jasper reports, so that the client is able to clone and modify the standard reports?

 

[dckamo]

Hi Calator,
1) RDL's are still supplied for the older reports.New reports were written in jasper.
2) Jasper is quite versatile in that you can produce tradiation reports as well as charts, bar graph pie chart etc.
3) For BI and analytics you can use any tool. We uses Oracle BI tools/Htmldb in mims 4.3 and 5.2. We also used a product called Bablefish for dashboarding.
4) Ellipse 8 offers analytics in the form of Pentaho and Star Schema. We havent used any of this
5) You still request MSR010 etc. MSJ's are jasper reports
6) If you go to function MSE081 you will see the source for the MSR's that you can clone

Regards
Kes

 

[Calator]

Hi Kes & everyone
Would you be able to confirm which is true with Ellipse 8:
• RDL remains a Cobol pre-compiler used exclusively by ABB who deliver the reports in binary code format; customers are not able to clone /customize RDL report
• or RDL has been translated to be a pre-compiler for Java/Groovy generated code, RDL report source is available to the customer, who can customize the ABB standard RDL reports, as well as write their own custom RDL reports

 

[dckamo]

Hi Calator,

The second option is true.

Rgds
Kes

 

[Drw]

Hi Calator,
I have experienced problems with (custom) RDL running in Ellipse 8, where using subroutines or a browse type file read would dramatically impact performance; however this was supposedly resolved in later versions by requesting ABB some type of additional compile which apparently overcomes these performance problems. I have never requested this personally however I was advised by ABB a client can and since notified some clients of this.
Drw

 

[Drw]

Hi Calator,
In reference to the Connector Library; I found this limited in Ellipse 8 and the tools provided are inadequate and restricted.

I have since build my own 'Connector' libraries for Ellipse 8 that can be used in a imported into a development project and also a version for Microsoft Office (Excel) to allow existing connectors access to Ellipse 8 similarly to the old mimsx.dll; however my libraries do not require an Ellipse client or other ABB components/software.

I currently use these libraries in Production Ellipse 8 instances and have incorporated into many custom projects.
...Drew