Accessing Dashboard from Outside RTC

Just to clarify, you are not talking about the Dashboards component of RTC, but are wondering how you can craft some URLs to get image representations of Reports for RTC that you can use in a different context?

If so, this use case is not officially supported, but it might be possible to come up with some urls that could work. Of course, authentication would be a concern with this sort of solution.

Adam Archer
Jazz Web UI Developer

I guess so, In the dashboard for example I can see the Burndown chart, and from there I can SaveImageAs and get a png/jpg whatever, this is all I need but I want to automate the procedure.

One method (we use for other info) is to use wget which allows me to copy an image from website to local drive, wget provides various method to provide login in information. But where could I point it what would be an image file and not some special script.

Another method would be if there is anyway to automate report generation, so every day the system creates a set of reports (e.g. PDF) which can then be used by "Non-Jazz-Users" via shared drive of something like this.

At the end of the day, I want the burndown graph displayed on a cycling information screen in the office, this screen is already there and having a JPG would be perfect.

In an ideal world I could use some kind of command line thing

JazzRTCExport image="report/burndown" project="xyz" user="me" password="pwd" format="jpg" output="c:\mydrive\burndown.jpg"

But I know this does not exist so I am trying to do something like this to get the JPG.

Current Method: Open RTC, open Dashboard, open Burndown, capture screen, crop and save image as JPG. Not nice... and Not automated

Hi Chris,

The viewlet invokes a REST service call using POST parameters to get a SOAP response containing a HTML snippet that it blindly adds to the DOM.
Inside the HTML snippet you will notice an img tag pointing to a generated report png image stored on the server. From my understanding, this image is generated on the fly in response to the the report query and cached for subsequent accesses (although I don't know for how long).
As a result, I don't think you can do a wget directly on the img.
Perhaps you can do a wget to invoke the REST service instead?
I'm not familiar with using wget; but, you need to configure it to send POST parameters. I've heard cURL is a better utility for that. Also note that Adam is correct. You will definitely run into authentication problems as you will be presented with Basic or Form-based auth challenges.

REST Service Call

https://jazz.net/jazz/service/com.ibm.team.reports.common.internal.service.IReportRestService/renderQuery

POST Parameters

parameterName Zoom
parameterValue false
projectAreaUUID _1w8aQEmJEduIY7C8B09Hyw
queryUUID _KwcboJgIEd66x5TRRlopIA
serverURL
showArchived false
urlPrefix /jazz/

SOAP Response

...
<img>
...

Is it possible to display an entire dashboard on your cycling screen?
That will solve the authentication issues (unless the log-in times out ...) and each viewlet auto-refreshes at set intervals.

I'm going to have to redirect the automated report generation question to the Reports team.

Thanks,

SOAP Response

...
<img id="chart" src="/jazz/service/com.ibm.team.reports.service.internal.IReportsContentService/images/_LM5lwDjfEd6iUeGMVpU9IA/customc310c311286ed39d0b1.png" alt="" style="width: 195pt; height: 187.5pt; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 7pt; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">
...

Thanks for the detailed reply, although I am going to have to do some research to understand a lot of it and see if I can use the REST service (is there a manual for this service ?)

As for showing the whole dashboard on the display; this is a yes and no. The display needs to have simple clear images that can be seen from a distance, the dashboard (all I have seen so far) tend to have tiny text, small images in the left top corner of largely blank pages, surrounded my lots of menus, icons and other clutter that I do not want on the screen (which follows a corporate standard layout, providing a special frame for the departmental images). I find if I take the current burndown graph, and crop it to the axes (removing the key), then it is great (kind of landscape format).

However I would love to have other dashboard images on the screen, but as yet do not know how to control the format of all these pages in RTC (example how to make the JAZZ team board look like a post-it note on wall style team board), from what I can see everything produces pages that are designed for interaction, and not a suitable layout for static images.

Note I did try export (PDF=works, Excel=Failed, PowerPoint=works, Word=Failed), I was surprised there was no JPG (or other image) option.
NOTE: Excel export, I expected to get an excel file with the burndown data (could have re-formatted the graph), instead I got the text around the graph and a non-working image where the graph should have been.
Anyway that was a digression, sorry.

How about another option:

How do I automate the generated of the Exported PDF Burndown graph (for our managers, who cannot access JAZZ)

e.g. Every night export burndown PDF to c:\reports\burndown.pdf

I am going to have to do some research to understand a lot of it and see if I can use the REST service (is there a manual for this service ?)

Unfortunately no. The reason for this is that it is an internal service and can change at any moment.

However I would love to have other dashboard images on the screen, but as yet do not know how to control the format of all these pages in RTC (example how to make the JAZZ team board look like a post-it note on wall style team board), from what I can see everything produces pages that are designed for interaction, and not a suitable layout for static images.

You are right. You can mitigate some of these issues by creating a one tab, one column Dashboard layout and then collapsing the left navigation side bar; but, other than that you are stuck with something that looks like a web page

Note I did try export (PDF=works, Excel=Failed, PowerPoint=works, Word=Failed), I was surprised there was no JPG (or other image) option.
NOTE: Excel export, I expected to get an excel file with the burndown data (could have re-formatted the graph), instead I got the text around the graph and a non-working image where the graph should have been.

I'll refer this point to the Reports team to see if they have any feedback on the issue.

Hi,

Mike's given a good summary of what's available, but thought I'd follow up with answers to some specific questions:

Is there a manual for this REST service? Not currently. It was written basically as a way to implement our Reports Web UI and dashboard integration, rather than being intended to use by end users. However if you have questions about specific behaviour or methods, feel free to post them here or open work items in the Reports component, and we'll supply whatever answers you need.

Excel exporting. The Excel exported provided with BIRT has a limitation whereby images are not exported. This is a known problem in BIRT and has no workaround for now other than not using Excel as your output format.

There is currently no way to automate the generation or exporting of reports - we generate all reports on demand.

postRenderQuery or postRenderReport are likely the functions you are looking for.

james
RTC Reports Team Lead

So, if the tool cannot provide any of these, can it at least provide the data (e.g. in an XML) which can be processed, and handled by some external tools. I am perfectly happy to draw the graph myself, I just need access to the data.

I believe there is a mechanism for add-ons does this have some XML data request, can I send a request through the webserver, ???

So, if the tool cannot provide any of these, can it at least provide the data (e.g. in an XML) which can be processed, and handled by some external tools. I am perfectly happy to draw the graph myself, I just need access to the data.

I believe there is a mechanism for add-ons does this have some XML data request, can I send a request through the webserver, ???

Sure, if you create a table instead of a graph, then it can be exported to, say, Excel, either manually or (using the REST APIs) programmatically. Then you can use the data from the Excel spreadsheet to generate the graph. I don't think there's any way to get access to XML containing the data you need.