Table of Contents

• You Have Existing JasperReports?
  • Step 1: Drop Your Files
  • Step 2: There Is No Step 2
• JasperReports as a Built-in Output Type
  • What This Means in Practice
  • Creating .jrxml Templates
  • How It Works
• Execution Modes
  • Direct Execution — One Report, One Output
  • Wrapper Report — One Template, Thousands of Outputs
    • Step 1: Create a ReportBurster Report Configuration
    • Step 2: Configure the Data Source
    • Step 3: Select JasperReport as the Output Type
    • Step 4: Generate
• Output Formats

You Have Existing JasperReports?

If your organization already has .jrxml templates — whether designed in Jaspersoft Studio, exported from JasperReports Server, or inherited from a legacy system — you can have them running under ReportBurster in seconds. No rewriting, no conversion, no migration project.

Step 1: Drop Your Files

Copy your .jrxml file (and any related resources like images, sub-reports, or fonts) into a folder under:

config/reports-jasper/<your-report-name>/

For example:

config/reports-jasper/monthly-payslip/
  monthly_payslip.jrxml
  company_logo.png
  department_subreport.jrxml

ReportBurster automatically discovers .jrxml files in this directory and displays them in the Reports screen with a Jasper badge.

Step 2: There Is No Step 2

That is it. Your JasperReports are now running under ReportBurster. Select the report in the Processing tab, fill in any parameters it expects, and click Generate.

Why Would You Do That?

Because you are not just moving reports to a different runner — you are upgrading from a report engine to a full BI platform. Your .jrxml templates keep working exactly as before, and on top of that you get:

• Report Distribution & Automation — split, route, and auto-deliver generated reports via email, FTP, or cloud storage — at scale, on schedule
• Self-Service Document Portals — build secure portals where employees, customers, or partners view and download their own documents
• BI Dashboards & Embeddable Analytics — interactive dashboards, data tables, charts, and pivot tables that embed as web components in your existing apps
• Data Exploration — connect to any database and explore data with plain-English queries through the built-in Chat2DB AI
• Data Warehouse & OLAP — OLTP-to-OLAP sync via CDC, powered by DuckDB, ClickHouse, and dbt
• AI Crew — a council of domain-expert AI agents (Athena, Hephaestus, Hermes, Apollo) that help design reports, build pipelines, and automate workflows

JasperReports as a Built-in Output Type

ReportBurster treats JasperReports as a first-class output type — just like HTML, DOCX, or XSL-FO. Select JasperReport (.jrxml) from the output type dropdown and the full power of the JasperReports library is available to you immediately.

This is powerful because it means whatever the JasperReports library can do, ReportBurster can do it too:

• Pixel-perfect PDF documents — precisely positioned elements, barcodes, charts, sub-reports, and complex layouts that look identical on every printer and screen.
• Complex Excel reports — multi-sheet workbooks with formulas, conditional formatting, frozen panes, and grouped rows — all driven from a .jrxml template.
• CSV and HTML output — the same template can export to CSV for data pipelines or HTML for web delivery.
• Charts and crosstabs — the full JasperReports feature set is available, including all built-in chart types and crosstab components.

What This Means in Practice

You define your data source (SQL, CSV, Excel, Groovy script, or any other supported type), select JasperReport as the output type, provide your .jrxml template (use Hey AI, Help Me... to have AI generate one for you), and click Generate. One template, one click, thousands of personalized documents if needed.

Creating .jrxml Templates

There are two ways to create .jrxml templates:

1. Let AI generate them — describe the report you need and AI can produce a complete .jrxml file in one shot. Given the declarative XML nature of .jrxml templates, AI handles them remarkably well.

2. Use Jaspersoft Studio — the traditional visual report designer. You can download Jaspersoft Studio Community Edition for free. It provides a drag-and-drop interface for designing report layouts, previewing output, and fine-tuning every detail.

Both approaches produce standard .jrxml files that ReportBurster can use directly.

How It Works

1. Create a report configuration in ReportBurster.
2. Configure your data source — SQL query, CSV file, Excel spreadsheet, Groovy script, etc.
3. Under the Output tab, select JasperReport (.jrxml) as the output type.
4. Select or specify your .jrxml template.
5. Click Generate — ReportBurster handles data filling, and export.

The output format (PDF, Excel, CSV, HTML) is determined by the file extension in your Burst File Name pattern:

• ${employee_id}.pdf — generates PDF
• ${employee_id}.xlsx — generates Excel
• ${employee_id}.csv — generates CSV
• ${employee_id}.html — generates HTML

Execution Modes

Direct Execution — One Report, One Output

This is the classic JasperReports behavior: you select a JasperReport, fill in its parameters, and generate one output file.

1. Go to the Processing tab.
2. Select your JasperReport from the report list (it appears with a Jasper badge).
3. The parameter form is displayed automatically — fill in the values the report expects (e.g., year = 2025, department = Sales).
4. Click Generate.
5. ReportBurster compiles and fills the .jrxml template with the provided parameters and exports a single output file (PDF, Excel, CSV, or HTML).

When to use this: You need a single report — for example, a monthly sales summary, a department-level financial statement, or any report that produces one document per execution.

Wrapper Report — One Template, Thousands of Outputs

This is where ReportBurster extends JasperReports. You create a ReportBurster report configuration that acts as a wrapper — it defines a data source (SQL query, CSV, etc.) that returns multiple rows and calls the JasperReport once per row, passing each row's column values as parameters.

Example: Your SQL query returns 1,000 employees. ReportBurster calls the payslip .jrxml template 1,000 times, each time passing that employee's data as parameters. You get 1,000 personalized payslip PDFs.

Step 1: Create a ReportBurster Report Configuration

Create a new report configuration (or use an existing one) in the Configuration Templates screen. This is the wrapper report — it does not contain the layout itself; it defines the data source and points to the JasperReport template.

Step 2: Configure the Data Source

In the Configuration tab, set up a data source (typically an SQL query) that returns the rows you want to generate reports for:

SELECT employee_id, employee_name, department, salary
FROM employees
WHERE pay_period = '2025-03'

This query returns 1,000 rows — one per employee.

Step 3: Select JasperReport as the Output Type

1. Under the Output tab, select JasperReport (.jrxml) as the output type.
2. A picker appears listing all available JasperReports — select the template you want (e.g., monthly_payslip.jrxml).
3. Set the Output File Name pattern in General Settings to control the format:
   • ${employee_id}.pdf — generates PDF files
   • ${employee_id}.xlsx — generates Excel files
   • ${employee_id}.csv — generates CSV files
   • ${employee_id}.html — generates HTML files

Step 4: Generate

Click Generate in the Processing tab. ReportBurster will:

1. Execute the data source query to fetch all 1,000 rows.
2. For each row, pass the column values (employee_id, employee_name, department, salary) as parameters to the selected JasperReport.
3. Export each result in the format determined by the output file name pattern.
4. Place all 1,000 generated files in the output folder.

When to use this: You need to mass-produce personalized documents — payslips for all employees, invoices for all customers, statements for all accounts, etc.

Output Formats

The output format is determined by the file extension in the Output File Name pattern:

Simply change the extension in your output file name pattern to switch formats.