How To Connect Jasper iReports To Maximizer On SQL Server ..

Hi,

Hi. I'm a user of both paid and open source software and find the
combination to be worthwhile: OneCare, Office, Maximizer on one side for
instance and I'm looking at Jasper iReport for occasional reporting on the
other side.

1) MAIN QUESTION IS ABOUT OPEN SOURCE JASPER REPORTING: I'd like to use (I
think) Jasper Reports, specifically "iReports" to make custom reports.

2) WHAT REPORTS? All the info I need is in the Maximizer sales software,
which runs on MS SQL Server Express Edition. You could use Crystal, but I
don't want to spend $ 500 for occasional, even if important, reporting.

3) ASSUME A RELATIONAL REPORT GENERATOR WILL WORK: I'm assuming that
Crystal or iReports will allow me to build up the appropriate table-oriented
report I need. I'm familiar with relational database issues and understand
what is possible in terms of headers and details.

4) WHY NOT USE CRYSTAL? Because it costs $ 500.

6) WHAT IS JASPER? It seems to be the most popular opensource (i.e. freee)
reporting environment.

7) SO WHAT'S THE QUESTION? Can anyone specific exactly how iReports can be
connected to Maximizer?

SPECIFICALLY HERE ARE THE ITEMS OF INFO NEEDED:

* JDBC DRIVER OR NOT? Jasper/iReport apparently needs a JDBC driver.
However there seems to be an ODBC/JDBC bridge thing available in iReports.
Does anyone think I need to install a Microsoft JDBC driver? If so, which
one?

* HOW DO YOU KNOW IF IT IS INSTALLED? I have installed the JDBC V 2.1
version but it's not clear how it actually installs. It just seems to sit
there, although I report asked for the location and it seemed to be working.

* JDBC DRIVER CONFIG? Is there any configuration around the JDBC driver
that needs to be done. Where is the interface to accomplish this, I'm
assuming it's not in ODBC admin?

* DATASOURCE CONFIG FOR MAXIMIZER? Once we have the JDBC driver available
(or not possibly if the "bridge" works), what is the configuration around a
Maximizer datasource that will work? Will I need a port number? I'm
assuming that the Maximizer Admin-defined username and password will work?

* FIREWALL? Will anything in a firewalll have to be opened up? I'm using
OneCare, but the question applies equally to ZoneAlarm or Norton etc.

Thanks for your help! I'm sure others would benefit from getting this to
work.

John

Hi John,

I would highly recommend for you to contact the individual vendors who
support iReports and Maximizer for help on how they work.

You mentioned you have the JDBC v2.1 installed. Are you referring to the
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 JDBC driver? The currently available driver is
v1.2.

Regarding how to configure the JDBC driver for use with the applications,
it really depends on the application so I would recommend contacting the
application vendor to see what their requirements are. The driver itself
simply unpacks to a directory. The JAR just needs to be in the Java
environment path.

Regarding Firewall, the JDBC driver itself does not require a firewall to
be opened up. But, in order to connect to SQL Server, the SQL Server
machine will need to open the TCP port in which SQL Server is listening on
in the firewall.

Regards,
Jimmy