[rt-devel] Announcing RT-REST and RT-Jasper [was: RT and JasperReports Server Integration (got it working, anyone interested?)]

Sun Apr 22 13:11:23 EDT 2012

Hi Everyone,

it's done :-) I have setup two GitHub repositories to host everything you need to run you own RT an JasperReports Server integration:

RT-REST: http://projects.boksa.de/RT-REST/
RT-REST is a Java class library to interact with RT: Request Tracker's REST Interface.

RT-Jasper: http://projects.boksa.de/RT-Jasper/
RT-Jasper is a toolkit to integrate RT: Request Tracker as a queryable data source in JasperServer.

Feel free to give the components a try and let me know what you think :-) I have chosen to drop full installation instructions in favor of a demo system (see the RT-Jasper page for more information) and I assume you already have a RT installation to play with. To learn how to install JasperReports Server please refer to

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jasperserver/files/JasperServer/JasperServer%204.5.0/JasperReports-Server-CP-Install-Guide.pdf/download .

To help you with your questions I'll try to be around in #rt on irc.perl.org .

I am really curious to see what you will say about my work and I hope there will be enough users using it to ensure a constant flow of great ideas and improvements.

Enjoy the rest of your weekends :-)

Benjamin

Am 11.04.2012 um 13:18 schrieb Benjamin Boksa:

> Wow - Thanks a lot for all of your feedback.
> 
> I will try to setup a (github-)repository  and some basic instructions about setting up RT4 and JasperServer on Debian 6 by the end of next week (April 22). At the moment I have to catch up on the backlog created while writing the integration toolkit - yesterday I started working on the backlog by sending out the first actual quarterly invoices created with it :-D
> 
> In the meantime feel free to send me suggestions, tell me about features you would like to see and use cases to be covered so that I can prepare a proposed roadmap as soon as we start! Also I still don't have a name for the project (my local repository is named jasper-rt which seems very boring) - if you have any cool suggestions please share them :-)
> 
> @mailinglist admins: Is it OK to use the rt-devel mailinglist for the first basic discussions or should I create a separate mailing list?
> 
> Thanks a lot for all your answers, I am sure your interest and feedback will help making this a cool tool.
> 
> Benjamin
> 
> 
> 
> Am 09.04.2012 um 13:44 schrieb Robert Blackwell:
> 
>> I agree this would be an excellent addition to RT. Is there a project
>> repository set up somewhere? I would be interested using this and
>> helping with the project.
>> 
>> Robert
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 6:51 AM, Cornell D. Green <cornellgreen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> This sounds like an excellent addition to RT, a tool I myself have been working with since nearly its inception.
>>> 
>>> Not much of a developer myself, I encourage you to consider at least making this available to the RT community, if not actually folding it into the RT code base.
>>> 
>>> Cornell D. Green
>>> CIO
>>> CommunIT Solutions
>>> Let's get Your Technology to WORK!
>>> http://CommunIT.us/helpdesk
>>> 
>>> On Apr 9, 2012, at 6:39 AM, Benjamin Boksa <mailinglists at boksa.de> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Hi Everyone,
>>>> 
>>>> RT has been my primary tool to manage Tickets and other Requests since 2001 (RT 2.x) and I am still using it everyday. During the last few years I integrated some billing functions into RT (by using custom fields, workflows etc.). As a natural consequence I have reached the point where I need a function I could not find in RT itself: easily manageable print layouts (aka PDFs ;-) ) that can be custom tailored to fit my client's needs (e.g. grouping by cost unit).
>>>> 
>>>> After a few days of work I now have a completely working system that allows me to create pretty, printable Reports from RT using JasperReports Server [1].
>>>> 
>>>> It uses RT's REST API with customizable (query builder) queries and a simple definition (REST Interface URL, Username and Password) to access ticket data from JasperReports Server. I have done so by creating a custom DataSource [2] and a custom QueryExecuter [3] for JasperReports - all you need to know to prepare your data from RT to be used in a Jasper report are the credentials of your instance's REST Interface and the query builder query you would like to run - you should know all of these if you work with RT regularly ;-)
>>>> 
>>>> You can then use tools like iReport [4] to design fantastic reporting templates for your RT data including your logo, graphs and many other cool things.
>>>> 
>>>> As you already might have guessed I think I have found a pretty good solution to integrate RT and JasperReports Server. Now I am standing at the point where I wonder
>>>> 
>>>> a) If this is interesting to the RT community (found some mails back in 2007)?
>>>> b) If anyone of you is interested in joining my efforts to improve the solution?
>>>> c) If there is anything else you would like to know about the solution?
>>>> d) As a part of the project I have also built a single J2EE component (DAO [5]) to access the RT REST Interface - would you like to see this component to be released independently?
>>>> 
>>>> I would be glad to get some feedback from you to see if this will be a cool thing for myself or if it makes sense to create a project for the RT community - I have many cool ideas in the back of my head (like direct integration into the RT web interface).
>>>> 
>>>> Looking forward to your answers and sending curious greetings from Cologne
>>>> 
>>>> Benjamin
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> P.S.: As this is a very "developerish" topic I hope it is OK to crosspost this mail...
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> [1] http://jasperforge.org/projects/jasperserver
>>>> [2] http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/sample.reference/datasource/index.html#customdatasource
>>>> [3] http://jasperforge.org/uploads/publish/jasperreportswebsite/trunk/sample.reference/hibernate/index.html#queryexecuters
>>>> [4] http://jasperforge.org/projects/ireport
>>>> [5] http://java.sun.com/blueprints/corej2eepatterns/Patterns/DataAccessObject.html
>>>> --------
>>>> List info: http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-devel
>>> 
>>> --------
>>> List info: http://lists.bestpractical.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/rt-devel
>> 
> 