Integrating Pentaho Reporting web frontend with custom Java/JSF application

Question

I have the following situation:

OTLP database schema with data. Database procedures pump data into denormalized, star-schema with defined dimensions and fact tables. The goal is to build web application, which can do summary and drill-down on those defined data structures.

I can build custom web interface, but I would prefer to use existing tools for the reporting part. The resulting application must be written in java and integrated with existing solution based on JSF and Pentaho looks like it's up to the task, but I can't find anywhere, how one would go about this, or whether is this even possible.

Thank you

Answer 1

As Adam says if you have OLAP you can use Jpivot - or better use Saiku. Saiku makes it ridiculously easy to develop your own front end, and is all REST based. It does come with a UI but you dont have to use it as the server is separated.

Answer 2

There is currently no JSF component that displays an OLAP table from a mondrian backend, but you can use JPivot, it is a JSP custom tag library.

If you end up creating your own UI you can use the olap4j API, (see my other answer here on how to do that). It is not so hard, the API supports the basic transformations, v1.0 is promised to be released soon.

Answer 3

Well, if you are happy with ordinary HTTP calls instead of JSF provided from Pentaho then you could interface JPivot or the reporting side of pentaho without any problems, as all functionalities are reachable via plain URLs. (Just double-click on the tab to see the URL).