Being crazy of Pentaho and its associated tools Id like to share some thing about Pentaho CE 5.0.1 BA latest release..
First of all, Id like to thank you to the web details team for the efforts they kept in bringing up the powerful analytical engine(BA server).

The home page itself make you to stick with BA server where you can enter into the server with "admin" and "password" as the default credentials.. Yes, "joe" user is no more but he left with the same password to log into BA server.

There will be NO more admin console ... Now it is very easy and developer friendly to navigate in one console(User Console) to give data base connections and new roles for new users..

A lot of stuff included in the home page itself, giving the blogs links, books on different tools of pentaho family. In a single word I can say , All the stuff related to Pentaho at a single place. A BI developer like me can reduce the time for developing reports, dashboards , jobs.

Market place for installing C-Tools and the installed plug-ins list drop down is one of the good ideas of the team.

As quick as Pentaho released its CE 5.0.1 , I just downloaded and trying to explore the new look and navigating from all the menus, reports, connection places and etc.

Its very easy to install the pentaho CE BA now in windows...
Installation procedure :
1) Down load the software as a .zip file using this link .
2) Unzip it in your fav folder
3) Click on start-pantaho.bat file

Home page :


NOTE: path and class path for java must be set before the installation.

Hello Guys,

Here is a small document prepared on differentiating Pentaho Open source Vs Jasper Professional.

Based on the below information one can take decision on tool selection for BI needs.

I would like to present a clear picture with insight & readers of this document are encouraged to add your points in the comment box..

IMP NOTE:  Remember , I am comparing the Pentaho Open source(Community) 5.0.1 stable  with Jasper Professional(licensed) 5.5 

Dashboards :

Key feaute	Pentaho Open source Dashboard	Jasper Professional dashboard
Tool	Community Tools(C-Tools) – Server plug ins CDE(Community Dashboard Editor) CDF(Community Dashboard Framework) CDA(Community Data Access)	iReport/Jasper Studio Desktop stand alone tools
Development of Reports done at	Fly on the server itself	Depends on stand alone designing tools & need to publish to the server and again need to design the dashboard
Responsiveness /Mobile support	Responsiveness is achievable using bootstrap css framework	Lack of responsiveness even though there is Proprtional property of the dashboard designer
Dashboards output end view-able devices	Compatible with Mobile/iPad/laptop/Desktop/TV like big screens	Compatible with laptop/desktop
Charts	Protovis charts implemented, extend able to D3 charts.. can integrate fusion and HTML charts also.	Embedded charts engines – Jfree, Fusion & HTML5 charts. Can integrate protovis/D3 charts using html component of iReport/Jasper Studio
Loading of charts on the dashboard	Will take lesser time using Pentahos powerful caching mechanism	Will take longer time to load the charts on the dashboard
Embedding BI	Achievable using iframe tags	Achievable using iframe tags
Community support	Active	Active as it is a professional .. general community is not so active
Interactivity/Drill down/ Inter charts(frames) communication	Achievable	Achievable
Multi-tenancy	Need to check (will update on this)	Achievable
Customization	Developer friendly	Not developer friendly
Download here	Pentaho Maket Place or install using ctools-installer.sh http://community.pentaho.com/	Purchase license https://www.jaspersoft.com/jaspersoft-business-intelligence-software-trial

Key feature	Pentaho Open source Analysis	Jasper Opensource/Pro Analysis
Desktop Stand alone Development Tool	Pentaho Schema workbench	Schema Workbench
Front End tool to view the output	Pviot4J Analytics (or) Saiku Analytics (or) JPivot View (or) BTable (or) Ivy Schema Editor	JPivot View
Ad-hoc Reporting on Cube ouptut	Yes, using Saiku Analytics	Ad-hoc Editor (For jasper pro & enterprise it is an add-on feature. http://www.jaspersoft.com/editions
Query Language	MDX ( Multi Dimensional Expression)	MDX (Mullti Dimensional Expression)
Caching	Enabled – Very fast access of data	Enabled – some what less speed when compared with pentaho server
Community Support	Very Active – Quick Responses	Not so active as it is not a owned product of jasper/tibco
Documentation	Online documentation available with examples	Online pdf documentation is available with Examples

Key feature	Pentaho Open source Ad-hoc	Pentaho Enterprise Ad-hoc	Jasper Pro Ad-hoc
Source for ad-hoc reporting	Meta data layer creation	Meta data layer creation	Create topics OR Create Domains
Tool	Pentaho Meta Data Editor(PME) (Stand alone desktop tool) (OR ) Create JOINS on the fly on the server and use it for ad-hoc reporting	PME	No desktop tool.. directly in the server create Domains OR topics
Output Server tools	WAQR – Web Ad-hoc Query and Reporting (OR) Saiku Reporting compatible with 4.8 server as of now	Interactive Reporting - Advanced of WAQR But WAQR is not supported by any more Interactive reporting is an extension of WAQR in Enterprise Version of pentaho	Jasper Ad-hoc Editor
Support	Deprecated – No longer supported by penatho	On demand support	On demand – Need to be jasper customer
Visualization of Data in the form of charts	No	No	Yes .. using Ad-hoc report output visualization of data in the form of selected charts .

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Hi Guys,

Recently I came across a situation on plotting the 0 values result set on a pie chart and failed to produce the chart with out leaving any message.

Alternatively I have shown a message saying that "All the values in the result set are zero so can not plot the visualization".

Of course, this is not a big matter to blog but I can say that this is a best practice in report designing and would like narrate for the one who wish to follow best practices.

Your end-client can easily understand when the chart is having all zero values.

Example :
Query : SELECT field1, field2, field3 FROM dummyTable
Output : 
field1      field2  field3
----------      ---------   ---------
  0              0           0

For instance assume you are showing data  on pie chart and given expressions in 3 different series lets say "series1", "series2" , "series3".

Now, if you see the preview of the report, you will be getting nothing in output as your query resultset has all values as 0



Drag and drop the "Static Text Field" over the chart from palette section and write your message(message is : All values are zero so can not plot the visualization) and Print this field when ever the values are zero.

For doing this, you have to Write similar like below expression for "Static Text Fields" PrintWhenExpression

($F{field1}==0) && ($F{field2}) && ($F{field3})

Observation or Preview.
Now select some input controls for which you will get result set  0 .. You will get the below similar like output.


Thats it... When ever your query result set is having all 0s you will be displaying message saying that can not plot visualization.


Sadakar
BI developer