Our team recently had the opportunity to start building with Webi Extension Points and I was impressed.  The ability to manage the Web Intelligence Interface has improved greatly since the initial release.

The requirements were to create a report specific user interface that allowed the following in both the Webi Rich Client and the Webi Viewer:

1) Only rollout extension to users that need it

2) Export Panel only show if the report name matches the set of reports specified by the business

3) Actions limited if other criteria of report does not match (i.e. Record Count = 0)

If Prerequisite are met

Create an Export panel in Webi

– Populate with combo box of export formats

– Create Save Button

Gather File Name  from a variable Object value in the report

If user has selected XLS or PDF and clicked on save

– Stream IReport to XLS, PDF with file name defined in Name Object

– Provide User confirmation on download.

If user has selected ZIP

– Show password text field on panel

– Capture user password

– Stream IReport to XLS, PDF with file name defined in Name Object

– Create Zip file with password

Provide User confirmation on download.

In the initial execution we created the base functionality in Java and deployed a JAR along with the properties file.  In a production environment this is how it would be rolled out.  For moving quickly on the Prototype we shifted to Javascript which made previews a bit faster and made implementing swing almost fun.

I was amazed at how quickly that we could get the interface pulled together and working.    This opens up all types of possibilities for our Launch tools and client’s needs.  I am hoping that the Extension Points are brought back in the 4.X platform.