Using Gebs Lifecycle Reporting Connector

In this section we will present a case in which the user wants to generate a document that contains all the work items from the release with name Sprint 1 for which the time spent is greater than a certain value. The document specification will be loaded, configured and published from Rational Team Concert using the Lifecycle Reporting Connector.

The first step is to configure the connection details for Jazz Team Server and GEBS Reporting Web Publisher Server. The Gebs Lifecycle Reporting Connector provides a preference page where the user should insert the necessary information so that the connector will be able to communicate with both servers. In order to access the Connection Preference Page the user should follow: Window > Preferences > Web Publisher Reporting > Repository Connection.

Supposing the document specification was previously uploaded to GEBS Reporting Web Publisher by the user designer, we will configure the servers as follows:

The value for a minimum amount of time spent per work item appears in the document specification as an external variable. In order to set this value directly from Rational Team Concert, Gebs Lifecycle Reporting Connector gives the possibility to add global variables from a preference page. These variables will be compared by name with the ones form the document specification and if a match is found their value will be updated. In order to access the Global Variables Preference Page the user should follow Window > Preferences > Web Publisher Reporting > Global Variables.

To add a new variable, the user has to click the add button and complete the name and the value of the variable in the dialog that appears.

With these configurations done correctly, the user can now run a document specification by right-clicking it and selecting Run from the context menu that appears or by double-clicking the desired document specification. A specialized publishing wizard will appear where the user must set the project he wants to extract data from and then set the attributes: release, owner and work item type. In our case we will chose the JKE Banking (Change Management) and set the release to Sprint 1.

When rerunning this document specification again you will notice that the previous configuration was saved.

After the document has been generated a results dialog will appear from where the user has the possibility to download the log file and the archive with results.

For a successful generation, the results archive will contain the output files.

Gebs Lifecycle Reporting Connector provides a Document Generation History which saves the information regarding the publishing of a document. For example, of the user that generated the report above will want to download the results file days from now, he will have to access the Document Generation History by following: Window > Show View > Other > Web Publisher Reporting > Document Generation History. A new view will open and the user has to find the generation of his document and click the save icon from the right of the screen.