Jinfonet Software has announced the general availability of JReport 7.2, the latest release of their embedded reporting solution for Java applications. JReport is designed to integrate reporting functionality within any enterprise application. Companies that build Java applications can deliver data in precise, pixel-perfect and intuitive reports for their end users. JReport 7.2 continues to power business-critical applications with sophisticated reporting.

With JReport 7.2, companies can design, manage, and deliver interactive reports that deliver critical business information managed by enterprise applications to all business users who need it. JReport’s 100% Java architecture offers the flexibility for JReport to be integrated right out-of-the-box or fully customized to meet customer needs. The new version delivers features that simplify the process of embedding reports into enterprise applications.

The JReport 7.2 release enhances embedded reporting functionality in the following areas:

Usability

Using JReport 7.2, reports can be generated in any format including dynamic HTML (DHTML), HTML, Microsoft Excel, Adobe PDF, text, rich text format (RTF) and comma separated value (CSV) files. JReport 7.2 provides one-click export functionality for Excel and PDF, enabling fast and simple exporting of any DHTML report. JReport 7.2 is optimized to ensure exact precision between the original report design and the exported version.

JReport’s interactive DHTML output allows end users to modify report views and create ad hoc reports via a 100% pure thin-client interface that requires no applets or plug-ins.  End users can now save the results locally on client machines for access later.

JReport 7.2 also includes support for national languages to assist with the language- and location-specific needs of JReport users around the world.

In order to fully support the increasing number of customers using Firefox, Jinfonet optimized the JReport report format to ensure reports are rendered accurately in this browser.

Additionally, JReport 7.2 includes enhancements to further automate the deployment of reports to a cluster of application servers. Often, customer projects require use of multiple JReport servers in a runtime environment. Using RealPath technology, when an update is made to a report on one server, it is replicated across all of the servers in the cluster automatically. This new capability prevents developers from having to make changes to each server separately.

Scalability

Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI)-based connection pooling allows JReport 7.2 to share a cached set of connection objects for access to the database. This allows more report requests to run concurrently and access to larger data sets without overloading systems. This reduces application server overhead associated with multiple requests to the database, and it increases the number of concurrent system users.

To improve support of large-scale deployments of JReport, Jinfonet enhanced fail-over functionality to periodically check if any unavailable servers exist in a cluster using Java’s RMI (Remote Method Invocation) technology to optimize dispatching of tasks within the application server cluster.

Ease of Integration

Through expanded support of the J2EE environment, JReport 7.2 can be embedded directly into Java-based applications, reducing integration and maintenance burdens. JReport 7.2 can be deployed as Web Application Archive (WAR) files or Enterprise Application Archive (EAR) files to support J2EE standards. JReport 7.2 now includes scripting technology to generate the WAR and EAR files with minimum application developer effort. For the developer, this represents a significant time savings when integrating JReport into an application environment.

Now, everything the application developer needs to define the JReport runtime environment is automatically generated and maintained in one file. It contains all the files and methods that JReport needs to run a report from an application, and it can be deployed within an application with minimal effort.

JReport 7.2 is currently available from Jinfonet Software. More information and a free fully-functional evaluation copy of JReport are available at www.jinfonet.com.