The successful adoption of an application development initiative is dependent on its ability to expose actionable information to an end-user population. Recognizing that embedding reporting capability is a critical part of every application development initiative, BEA selected Crystal Reports as the only Java reporting solution shipping in the box. The integration with the WebLogic page flow paradigm accelerates the process of accessing, formatting, and integrating application data within JSPs, which provides a fast and easy alternative to hand coding the reporting aspect of a J2EE application.

"BEA is on a mission to reduce the cost and complexity of routine J2EE development tasks, and embedding reporting into applications in an important, routine task," said Byron Sebastian, vice president and general manager, BEA WebLogic Workshop and BEA WebLogic Portal. "We're bringing to Java what developers on other platforms have enjoyed for years - an easier way to help embed reporting into applications built with BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1."

Java Page Flow (JPF) is a BEA innovation for visually assembling Web applications with pages, actions, forms, and navigation. An implementation of the struts Model-View-Controller framework, JPFs are standard Java classes with annotations that declare Web application functionality to the WebLogic Workshop 8.1 run-time framework. Page flows control all the major features of a Web application: how users navigate from page to page, state management, sessions, user requests, and now with Crystal Reports for BEA WebLogic Workshop, embedded reports within Web applications (see Figure).

Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI) software company. Business Objects enables organizations to track, understand, and manage enterprise performance. The company's solutions leverage the information that is stored in an array of corporate databases, enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

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