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Jasper Reports is a great piece of software for reporting.
Updated May 08, 2018

Jasper Reports is a great piece of software for reporting.

Peter Larabell | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with TIBCO Jaspersoft

  • This may not be an obvious one, but the installer is well done. A lot of these products that are somewhat of a combination of other "back-end" components can be a pain to install. The fact that TIBCO/Jaspersoft bundles everything required into ONE installer is a huge blessing to any IT person wanting or needing to do an installation.
  • Jasper makes upgrades VERY easy. Since the entire reporting repository can be exported in a few clicks of a mouse (or via the shell/command-line) and imported AS-IS into a newer version is a major win.
  • The configuration files for Jasper's reporting server are all XML. Human readable. That's a big plus for people used to being forced into using proprietary software with closed-format binary configurations.
  • Documentation. While *using* Jasper Reports server is super simple and probably doesn't need much in the way of documentation, the overall quantity of documentation regarding some of the smaller details is severely lacking.
  • The reports editor. JasperStudio is OK. We use it, we make loads of reports with it, it's 100 times better than what we used before. But, the documentation for the report editor is terrible, and it seems as if some things just don't make sense. For example, no quick way to signify that you just want columns of data in a delimited file, no formatting, no special spacing, no anything other than straight data. There IS a way to do that in JasperStudio, but it's time-consuming, and it's very "repeatable" in the sense that it COULD be automated fairly easily, but just isn't.
  • Virtual Data Sources. This is one of the coolest and most useful things Jasper can do, but it's crippled and no explanation is given as to WHY it is that way. Crippled in what way, you may ask? The VDS system works in the Jasper Server, but NOT in the report editor. :/ As such, you can't test a report in the editor which needs data from a VDS then import that report into Jasper and use it. You can kinda fake it with datasets and connection parameters, but it just isn't what it COULD be with a little extra development.
We do not use another product like Jasper Reports. We did use another reporting software in the past, but it was and still is so overwhelmingly inferior to TIBCO Jaspersoft Reports Server that the two cannot be "stacked up against eachother" in any way. There is literally no advantage the other software had.
If your organization needs reports in PDF, XLSx, CSV, or one of many other supported formats, and you want some of them auto-scheduled and sent to various FTP servers or email addresses, Jasper does that very well. [It's] Easy to install, easy to add a user account, and easy for end users. For any small technical things someone can say they wish Jasper did better, there are a LOT of things Jasper does REALLY well.

Jaspersoft Feature Ratings

BI Platform ()
Not Rated
Supported Data Sources ()
Not Rated
10.0
Pixel Perfect reports
10
Customizable dashboards
10
Report Formatting Templates
10
10.0
Drill-down analysis
10
Formatting capabilities
10
Report sharing and collaboration
Not Rated
10.0
Publish to Web
Not Rated
Publish to PDF
10
Report Versioning
Not Rated
Report Delivery Scheduling
10
Delivery to Remote Servers
10
10.0
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)
10
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization
10
10.0
Multi-User Support (named login)
10
Role-Based Security Model
10
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)
Not Rated
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Not Rated
10.0
Responsive Design for Web Access
10
Mobile Application
Not Rated
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile
Not Rated
10.0
REST API
10
Javascript API
Not Rated
iFrames
Not Rated
Java API
10
Themeable User Interface (UI)
Not Rated
Customizable Platform (Open Source)
10

Additional Questions

I am giving it a 10 because I like Jaspersoft. However, I really haven't had a need to "get support". Never really had a problem with it. :) I've made hundreds of reports, including ones with sub-reports. We've done schedules, dashboards, ad-hoc, manual JRXML editing and all that. We've been through a handful of version upgrades as well. Never needed to get tech-support. :/
ProsCons
None
None
  • Implemented in-house
Super easy to install and/or upgrade! For all the big name software out there that does some business critical things, Jasper is a pleasure to install and/or upgrade. The bundled installer is all ONE install (one shell script execution at least) that sets up everything. Vastly superior to most other software of this caliber.
  • Self-taught
None. I didn't need any training. The install was very easy. Using Jasper reports in the browser is so easy you don't need directions. Using JasperStudio took a little longer to figure out, but it wasn't THAT hard that I needed someone to train me. Even getting input controls to work and sub-reports and such... it isn't SUPER easy, but it certainly isn't hard if you've worked with a lot of other software.
Yes. Yes, depending on experience with using other "design" software.

Using TIBCO Jaspersoft

60 - Just about every business function.

From production of goods, to shipping good, to IT, to customer service, to sales. Business development, operational management, health and safety...

Just about any function in our company can find good uses for Jasper reports.
1 - I am the support person. :)

Really the only "support" I need to do is make a few new reports once in a while. The software itself hasn't really given me any trouble on installation or upgrade.

That being said, I am a programmer with almost 30 years of experience. I've worked with a lot of software that was WAY less reliable that Jasper. So, Jasper seems easy.
  • Reports for management. Being able to see whether or not we are making progress (via data / charts) is vital to see if our strategies actually work.
  • Reports for customers. Some of our customers like getting various types of data regarding the services we provide for them. This is very easy for us due to the ability to schedule reports in Jasper.
  • Using Jasper to out reports for our production and shipping accuracy is vital to one of our programs. Without the ability to quickly see if everything is accurate, our shipping would be greatly delayed.
  • I'm not sure we use Jasper and any innovative or unexpected ways. The reason we use Jasper is its flexibility as a software.
  • If other branches of the company used Jasper, we could use the multi-tenancy features. Right now, we just don't have a need for it.
I could not imaging trying to convert over to something else at this point.

Evaluating TIBCO Jaspersoft and Competitors

Yes - ReportSmith, because Jasper is AT LEAST 100x better.

I could make a HUGE list of reasons why. Jasper is literally better in every way in which a company would interact with reporting software.
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
Jasper did everything we needed it to do. So, features was a big one for us.
I probably wouldn't change it. I downloaded the community version of Jasper, tried it, realized it did everything we wanted, and recommended it to our organization. Simple.

TIBCO Jaspersoft Implementation

Change management was a minor issue with the implementation - Everyone was super happy about the change. Jasper's superiority over our previous reporting solution cannot be overstated.
  • None. We ran the installer, it installed. :/ Not sure if that's the answer you wanted, but it was super smooth.

Configuring TIBCO Jaspersoft

Just right for this type of product. The easy stuff is in the user interface. The admins can configure the XML on the server for the more complex stuff.
Change the default timeout. Sessions timed out VERY quickly be default.
No - we have not done any customization to the interface
No - we have not done any custom code
We changed the default timeout for sessions. It was 20 minutes by default. This was somewhat of a pain for various reasons. Changed it to 4 hours.

TIBCO Jaspersoft Support

Yes - We do pay for support (as opposed to just using the community version), but we've never actually had to use it. :) People feel safer when they pay someone else to support them if they DO need it.
I can't. But not because they wouldn't provide exceptional support. I've just never needed it.

Using TIBCO Jaspersoft

It is SUPER easy for end users, and software admins. It's also easy for people making reports. Overall, I really don't have any complaints about it. It just works well for my organization.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Running reports. :) Literally just click on them.
  • Finding reports. While I personally use the repository most frequently, I find that the majority of users just use the search.
  • This only applies to JasperStudio, so I don't know if this counts as toward the software that end-users would see... The cumbersome thing in JasperStudio is making a basic report to just output a CSV (or other delimited text file) with NO formatting, no "column width", no truncating of data. While it is doable, and not "hard", it is super time consuming compared to what you'd think...

TIBCO Jaspersoft Reliability

We've have a few hundred scheduled reports, and about 60-ish concurrent users. We've never had a performance issue with this software.
We've never had an outage of the software itself. If it was unavailable, it was due to a network outage, not a problem with Jasper.
Never have we had a performance issue with it. The "slow" reports are due to the speed of the data being returned from the database, not Jasper.

Integrating TIBCO Jaspersoft

The possible integrations look very straightforward, even though we do not use them in our organization.
  • None.
None, and not at all. :)
  • No.
We don't use Jasper integrated with anything else.
  • API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
Read the manual. :)

Relationship with TIBCO Software Inc.

We inquired about purchasing, they helped us purchase it.
Very easy. They've checked in with us from time to time. We never had to contact them with trouble.
We didn't negotiate any terms.
Luke 6:31 And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

If you treat a vendor well, they usually treat you well in return.

Upgrading TIBCO Jaspersoft

Yes - Yes. No.
  • Honestly, for we use Jasper for, the ONLY benefit we got from upgrading was a little bit nicer interface setting up FTP output, and the ability to use the Salesforce driver.
  • While there may be some things I'd LIKE, I don't expect them. So really I am not expecting anything different from what we have now.