Goodman on BI

Nice list Nick! I have my own tip wish list that I’m sending you, but first a few comments on your list.

1.) I REALLY REALLY REALLY would like some helpers with Charts. The charting engine in the platform (JFreeChart) is very powerful, I think we just need some pointers on how to exploit it in the current Pentaho toolset.

2.) Secure Filter Component, while a bit confusing and not what you would intuitively call a “Prompt For” component (is that any better, really? ugh!), does actually describe the other function of this component. From the Creating Pentaho Solution Guide:

The secure filter component has two separate but related functions. It allows you to customize the default prompting done by the runtime context and can verify that the only valid selections are returned. The action sequence will not continue execution with a value outside of the valid range.

Thus, the reason it was named “Secure” Filter Component in the first place. Not defending the name by any means, just setting the record straight as far as the “we secure nothing” statement. Think we would come off as large hairy geeks if we had a contest for renaming the Secure Filter Component?

Looking forward to these tech tips, and I will try to help you knock them out as well! Also any Pentaho community member that’s looking for a great way to get involved can blog or contribute any of these articles.

kind regards,
Gretchen
Pentaho Community Connection

I’ll start with Kettle, please? Anything report tool related would be next, I think. I’m trying to think down the road from where I’m at on purchased tools. I’d like to do some of my new projects with open source tools and prove we can be effective doing so. Once that is done, I foresee some significant saving down the road.

good point gretchen… I’ll commit a blob faux-pas and change
Show how to use the most unfortunately named Secure Filter component to do list of values (even though we are securing NOTHING). Think “parameter page” driven by “select distinct name from my_reporting_table.”

to something new. Just put it down here in the comments so there’s a record of the original version.

Mike S, what features would you like to see described in Kettle?
I’ve commited myself to doing a Kettle tip each week. Sometimes it takes two weeks (OK, OK! Sometimes it takes 3) but I’m still building those.
Like I stated in by blog here: http://www.ibridge.be/?p=12 I’m still eager to hear about which topic the next Weekly Tip should cover.

The one about passing parameters should be nice to do. Whish I had more Pentaho framework experience. Oh, and time

Thanks for the feedback,

Matt

I’d like to see these two first:
Mondrian: Star Schema to OLAP cubes
A very basic Star Schema with a Fact and Two Dimensions show how this is built into a Mondrian cube and how to built a “Pivot view” Pentaho report.

and # Pentaho Spreadsheet Services: Your data looking sexy in Excel
A quick how to of how to get an instant excel analytic interface into ANY database. Example with Oracle XE. Is there a demo version available.

I’m just found out about pentaho and I guess I’m in real need for some serious BI and Data Mining application which can/could make my life simpler.
Data Mining is serious business and can save some serious money. I’m surprised that not many/more companies are looking into this.

Would most certainly like to learn more.

I would be very interested in the the first two as well, especially Mondrian: Star Schema to OLAP cubes.

Nick,

Great list! I think the Portable ETL would be great. Kettle is fairly straight forward if you have used OWB, Informatica or DTS, but there is always power hiding under the hood. We are using the Pentaho Platform for a very large Federal Government project. Kettle is going to be a key component since we are dealing with XML, Excel, DB, and flat files.

Parameters for reports is also a great topic. It is discussed fairly heavily in the forums and is a pretty important topic once you get past the basics of a static report.

Another topic (just to add to the list) is using the Pentaho workflow services. XActions provide some simple event driven workflow, and Shark provides a more robust environment. There is so little on this topic, and it really demands some attention. I am a bit selfish since these are going to be keys to our project, so any information is welcome.

If you are ever looking for some help with tips, etc. Let me know. We are getting pretty good at Kettle and Mondrian.

Bill

I would really really like to see some tips or examples as to how to ’set’ and ‘pass’ a parameter in report designer.

If there is already a link available to this, i would appreciate if you could guide me to it.

Thanks so much,
Falguni

hi matt,
i’m a newbie to kettle. i has done a kettle tansformation which will execute based upon a parameter. and i dont know how to pass a parameter from xAction to the PDI component could u help me out in this

thanks in advance

Hi Nicholas, I’d like to know how to pass parameters between a “main” report and a subreport. I’ve already search the web and the solutions show in the wiki http://wiki.pentaho.org/display/Reporting does not work with me.

regards

A bit late to comment on this post I guess, but I just started to get serious with Pentaho two weeks ago.

I would like to see the Kettle parameter injection tip first since this is the start of the process in my case (after all, getting the data into the database is a pre-requisite for everything else, isn’t it?).

Rgds
V.