Is jasper the right solution

[bmi]

Hello jasper guys,

Need some help for making decision what reporting-solution to use.

environment notes:
A customer (small bank) wants to replace his Reporting-Tool (ISIS Papyrus). It is only used for PDF-creation and templating.
They want to change to something less proprietary and shift the knowledge/work to the JAVA-Developers.

Since the PDF's that goes to customers (about 8000 bank-customer) are visually fine, they'd like to keep appearance the same.
So now i've got a bunch of things the actual software can and i don't know how good Jasper is meeting those reqs.

If some of the pros easily can answer some of these, that would help a lot.

 

• are whaterproof signs possible (for Example "TEST" or "Copy")?
• Having more Pagenumber ranges in one report? (restart numbering)
• Are PDF indextables possible -> Bookmarks?
• is the Version PDF/A supported?
• does a word-wrap logic exist? (allow wrap in a long word at a specific point with "-" sign)
• forcing words to be on the same line? (expression "a la carte" always in the same line)
• is inline formatting possible? (having italic word inside textelement)
• is dynamic font-size possible? (adjust font-size at runtime when number does not fit in table-cell)
• having 3 languages in one template (table-header etc.) - whats the best approach do realize that?
• How flexible is jasper in defining when to shift data sections to a new page? (and carry-over values?)
• Are there any benchmarks comparison to BIRT, Crystal etc.? (mid complex Report -> 3500 Pages)

thx

[pjamack]

  From my experience and those I've spoken to with years of Jasper Experience, there is a lot of possibilities and capabilities within the various tools. It can be a great tool for those with a lot of time, patience, and even more patience.  The problem with Jasper is it is limited when it comes to a True Reporting solution.  If you have hardcore programmers who know Java, and they are the ones assiged to Reporting, then there are a world of opportunities possible, including everything you mentioned. And a lot of what you mentioned is available within IReports. 

But if you want a tool that is more drag and drop and point and click and a tool where Business only users can build Reports, Jasper is a horrible tool for that. There is adhoc, domains, topics, etc, but again, non programmers hate Jasper. Many programmers complain about it themselves.   Half of the 'features' seem to require more programming or workarounds.  And if you assign reporting tasks to programmers who have a ton of other programming duties, it might not go over well. If they have a full plate of other duties and suddenly have a new caseload of Jasper Reporting duties, Jasper will become a pain in the butt nobody likes or wants to use. And They'll find ways to program and  avoid half of Jaspers real capabilities.

  What's the point in having a tool, even one you pay for, where people would rather build work arounds then use the tools available?  Because truth be told, Jasper is a pain in the neck. It seems to be created for programmers by programmers.  Great in one sense, horrible in a Business Reporting sense.  Nobody who is already busy wants to have more crap thrown on their plate. Especially if it's something that requires too much busy work that other tools seem capable of doing without such a learning curve and without programming.   Throw it to the business and customer care people, and they'll jump off a cliff wanting to know why you didn't go with something better.

  And it's a horrible tool for support.  Research the forums. Research other forums. Research the web.  You will find most questions go unanswered. Even if you get the Pro version and get Jasper Support, it rarely helps as the same questions might go unanswered. Or you get programming 'do this' kind of answers not related to what the issue is at all.

 

  If you have a few programmers who aren't busy, who like learning new things, who don't find reporting as a pain in the neck already without dealing with Jasper, then why not. It's an interesting tool to learn. But as stated earlier, if you assign it to programmers who are already busy and who don't really like sizing fonts, setting up layouts, figuring out why a tool doesn't offer simple calculations or date functions, you will be sadly disappointed. And god forbid you assign Jasper to a non programmer. 

[bmi]

Hello pjamack,

Thanks a lot for your reply. I know that going with jasper ist not an easy decision. Since i have to shift reporting responsibilities to the 3-5 java developers, i will have the problem that they have other duties than reporting... but this i can't change. At least they are well experienced programmers... :-)

Since i'm looking also into other tools (Crystal, Birt, Cognos), are there other solutions that might fit my needs? Again the needs are only on PDF generating and pixel perfect layouting (Bank receipe etc.)

Or in other words, is there a tool which is not a pain in the neck when you have very detailed reqs?

[pjamack]

  I've used a ton of different tools and software over the years. Jasper does have it's pluses
 If you know java, there are a lot of options. A lot of integration. Embedding with your own tool capabilities. Pixel perfection, etc.
And it's open source and has been used by a number of companies and people.  What it doesn't do well though is  Reporting.
If you have to spend a week or two building a report that some other tool might get done quickly, all the added integration capabilities are of no use.  If you have end users who work through the growing pains with you, then it's a great tool. Everybody will learn and nobody will get their head knocked off.  But if you  have end users who want a report to look exactly like they want it, with the sorting, calculations, etc and the database is sort of hands off don't do too much, Jasper is going to be a pain to all involved. And demanding business users dont' want to hear "the tool is limited."

 

 Other tools are Pentaho, a little nicer, but again, the forums are useless, the help is limited and it's a tool a lot of people haven't used or used here and there.   I haven't used BIRT. I've heard good things about it though.   THe other tools are a lot more expensive like Business Objects with Crystal Reports, Cognos, Microstrategy, Microsoft 2008 BI stack, Oracle has it's toys like OBIEE & Hyperion, and so on.    Since you're going with Jasper I'm assuming the big dogs are just too costly.  With them though the support is a lot better and there is tons of knowledge.  While there are issues, doing reporting becomes a lot easier. But programmers don't always like those tools because it becomes more about the Analysts than programmers.

 

 It really depends on what kind of end users you have. With Jasper, you need end users who aren't that demanind and don't need everything Tomorrow. Especially if they want pivot tables, sorting, break downs, and complex reports. Because if you have developers who build work arounds for every report, and you do a ton of reports, fast forward a year and you'll have a thousand reports that sort of do the same thing and a slow system where nothing is really organized or connected.  And then you upgrade to a new server and all those workarounds don't work anymore.  

 

 That is the nightmare in Jasper. A lot of people built workarounds then were forced to stay with older versions because the workarounds took too much effort to make, the reports finally did what was expected, and now rebuilding all the objects, database code, functions, jsp, UI, etc just so the same reports that work can work in the new version, is a nightmare.