New Report Design - 2009

Introduction

The components/modules that are using Report engine are: Dashboard, Monitor, Tabulation Script, Report Viewer, Diagram Viewer. These modules send request of generation to report engine including:

• A data cache which contains all source data
• Stylesheets (including external and inline stylesheet) to apply
• Kind of presentation that the report should be exported as (pdf, excel, ppt, word, html, image)
• Other kinds of settings

The report engine takes the request, make calculation using the Interpreter, and then export the result into desired format.

A report consists of elements like: diagrams, images, text blocks, pages, paragraphs. The most important element is Diagram, which can be discriminated based on:

• Data
  • Cross Diagram
  • Standard Diagram
  • Tracking Diagram
  • Campaign Diagram

• Presentation type
  • Table chart
  • Image chart which include many kinds of chart like: pie, bar, line, funnel, area, radar etc.

Why a new system?

Current system drawbacks

• Heavy XML processing
• Heavy code duplication
• Inconsistent generation process

Thus it makes the cost of fixing bugs and maintain the old system greater than the cost of making an new system.

New system goals

• Remove the drawbacks of current system
• Side by side working with the old system
• Fully unit testing
• Unit/Integration tests can be run automatically
• Testing API must be simple enough for testers to join writing test cases
• Report API must be keep as simplest as possible
• Design documents must be officially registered on wiki page

Approach to new system

Steps are defined for approaching the new system, which are described below:

• Take the smallest possible case for prototyping (CrossDiagram with one axis for both row and column)
• Design the core functions to server the single case with full testing
• Approach in depth to:
  • Tabulation Script
  • Diagram Viewer
  • StyleSheet
  • Different presentation types
• Move on with Report and Report Viewer
• Move on with Monitor
• Move on with Dashboard
• Move on with data calculation optimization
• Performance refining => change design and test cases
• Full implementation for:
  • Cross Diagram
  • Other diagrams
  • All presentation types
• Replace the old system's gui components

Design details

• Report unit testing system
• Diagram generation process
• DiagramInfo
• Tabulation Script
• Tabulation Script for setting inline style to Table Chart
• Diagram viewer control
• Cross diagram settings control
• Report viewer control
• Integrating with Dashboard
• Integrating with Monitor
• Generic object visitor pattern
• Generic XML de-/serialization
• DiagramInfo de-/serialization
• Table chart builder
• Integrating Ajax.Pro and MS AJAX.NET Json Serialization
• Full CrossDigramImplementation

Lesson learn

This section lists all the:

• Mistakes
• Useful knowledge

that we have encountered during implementation.

• Code that MUST be improved
• Transferring Array object among different javascript context
• Associated array vs MS.AJAX NET vs for each loop

Current implementation status

Task name	Done	Not yet done	Time estimation
Generation process	Generation path is well defined and tested => Stable Cross diagram is fully implemented (statistic)	Apply data generation for other Diagrams Optimize values calculation Save calculation result to XML	TODO
Nevron (image) charts	Bar/Line/Pie/Radar charts have been implemented for single case of CrossDiagram All stylesheet and dom operations are split into different files to ease the maintenance, however the files are still messy and need cleanup Nevron 2009 is applied and can be deployed side-by-side with Nevron 2007	Full testing (manual) is required after DiagramViewer page have finished	TODO
Table charts	Table adaptors have been defined and tested => Stable Full support for HTML Full support for PDF Draft support for Excel and Ppt Table layout in PDF is in acceptable mode with 1x1 tables => Wait for real sample of 2x2 cases Stylesheet is fully applied => Still in testing mode	Full testing for stylesheet Full support for Excel and Ppt	TODO
Stylesheet	The stylesheet is kept as is intentionally in order to keep changing at the minimal level	Redefine the hierarchy of stylesheet classes	TODO
Tabulation Script	The main script library has been moved to CatGlobe.Report assembly The code is hacked (with minimum impact) to allow plugging of new report's script library Full support for tabulation script => Lots of unit tests have been written Tabulation script editor screen has been changed allowing running with new report code	Move all implementations to new assembly On-screen testing	TODO
Web controls	DiagramViewer control has been created DiagramSettings control has been created Diagram viewer page has also been created Diagram settings and viewer has been applied to monitor and dashboard => still in prototype phase	Full testing on Diagram viewer page Replace current diagram viewer page Implement ReportViewer control and page	TODO
Unit tests	Unit testing framework for report is created => Stable Testers have been trained for writing unit tests => Stable Unit test coverage has been checked => which part needs unit tests? Excel and Ppt table chart Pseudo calculator for displaying calculation formulas Filter Significance	Integrate with CruiseControl for running everyday Web-testing for testing controls Ppt/Excel assertion => Use new XML format of Office 3D image assertion => at last resort compare byte to byte, another approach is comparing by calculating hash value Configuration settings for hard-coded values	TODO
Optimization	Stylesheet rendering is being optimized for using with AJAX	Code profiling must be done => minor change in design Performance counter must be implemented Generation time must less than current system	TODO

Document revisions

Version No.	Date	Changed By	Description	Svn revision
0.1	27.04.2009	Nguyen Trung Chinh	Create the first version for working with a single case of CDG	NA
0.1	20.07.2009	Nguyen Trung Chinh	Refine the document	NA
0.2	30.07.2009	Nguyen Trung Chinh	Finish version 0.2	54885