Creating a Simple Report using BIRT

BIRT, which stands for Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools, is an Eclipse-based open-source reporting system for Java and J2EE-based web applications. Including the word “Tools” in the acronym is appropriate, since BIRT is in fact a collection of development tools and technologies used for developing reports utilizing the BIRT runtime framework component on your application server. BIRT isn’t essentially a product, but a series of core technologies on top of which products and solutions are built, similar in fashion to the Eclipse framework. The BIRT Report Designer, which is the most visible and familiar product built with the BIRT framework, is an Eclipse plug-in that utilizes BIRT technologies to allow users to design reports in the BIRT document format.

In this article we will create a simple report by first setting up a simple project.