Jama’s Self-Hosted customers have long been able to develop their own custom reports but, until now, Cloud customers have been required to have a Services Engagement if they want to upload their own reports.
However, if you are a Jama Connect Cloud customer and want to develop your own custom reports, you can now develop your own. The following describes the process for procuring your own local Jama Connect instance for development (required) and testing and the process required to have Jama upload the new report.
Skills Required
If you are considering designing reports in-house, we’ve compiled the following list of key skills needed to create reports:
Velocity
HTML: Velocity reporting is a Java-based reporting engine that uses HTML for displaying the data. A basic understanding of HTML table structure will be useful in order to properly display your data.
Java: The reports developer does not need to know Java, but does need to have a familiarity with Java or another object oriented computer language. An ability to debug the code is essential for success in programming with Velocity.
BIRT
SQL (Structured Query Language): BIRT reports are based on SQL queries that pull data directly from the Jama database. The reports developer should have a solid understanding of Selects, Inner and Outer Joins and Sub-Select queries.
Report/Development IDEs: BIRT is based on Eclipse so familiarity with an IDE (Interactive Design Environment) is very helpful. You will need to install, configure and work with the report designer.
JavaScript: Fancy report manipulation, calculated fields and other functions use JavaScript within the BIRT report. A basic understanding of JavaScript functions and syntax will be important, especially for complex reports.
Preparation
Developing custom reports requires a locally-installed sandbox environment. Contact your Account Manager to inquire about pricing for a license for your own Self-Hosted sandbox (setup services are also required). Once the installation is complete, apply the sandbox license to this instance of Jama. Now you are ready to develop and test your Jama reports!
Development
Online tutorials are available here; these are old videos, but the basic instruction is still sound.
Submitting the Report to Jama
Once you are satisfied with your report and would like to have it uploaded to your Cloud instance, you should email the following to jamareports@jamasoftware.com.
- The report file
- A .doc containing a screenshot of the report setup page and your Jama URL
This will create a ticket with the Customer Care team, who will then confirm when the report is uploaded. Since we don't access your Jama Connect instance directly, we will not check to make sure your report works once we upload it. If it doesn’t work, we can help make sure there weren't any issues configuring the report as part of the upload. You are responsible for the development and testing of your custom reports. However, we also can offer professional services assistance as part of a paid engagement.
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