Chapter 16 - Sharing Report URLs


Remote URLs

BIRT reports have a concrete URL on JIRA and they can be shared among users (by email, as links on the Internet, etc):

${JIRA BASE URL}/plugins/servlet/birt/run?__report=${report.rptdesiign}


Encode Report Names

Of course, you have to replace the variables above ${} by their values according to your JIRA instance. The ${report.rptdesign} variable must be encoded to avoid issues with special characters like blank spaces, etc. You may want to use online services like this to encode BIRT report names easily.


Configure the final report

The BIRT Viewer supports some parameters in the URL to configure some report details like hiding some buttons and other options. Those parameters are described in this page


Security

Sure you are concerned about security. What it happens when a BIRT report link is shared?, who can view it?, what do others see? Well, all the BIRT reports displayed anywhere (JIRA Dashboards, Confluence pages, etc.) are BIRT reports URLs embedded in iframes. Therfore sharing BIRT reports URLs is the deault and the unique way to view reports anywhere, including JIRA Dashboards and Confluence pages. So no worry about sharing  BIRT report URLs.

 As BIRT reports rely on the SQL for JIRA Driver to fetch data in a secure and private way, a valid JIRA user's session is always required. In other words, the users have to be logged in JIRA prior to see any data on a BIRT report and, of course, all those data are fetched under theirs JIRA security context:  different users may see different data if they have different permissions on JIRA. But you do not have to worry whether someone access to the BIRT report URL accidentally or by error as the app will redirect them to the JIRA login page and the user was already logged in they will be able to see only the same data that are available on JIRA but with a different format, of course: