How does TeamForge deliver activity reports?

The data in your reports comes from a special database that extracts live site data from the production database at intervals you specify.

You can specify the time at which the reporting data is refreshed from the production database. By default, the extraction takes place daily at 2:30 a.m. in the TeamForge application server's time zone. See Schedule data extraction for reporting.

The reporting database can be deployed on a separate machine to help channel load away from the application server. Historical data is available even if the application server no longer stores it.

Where does the reporting data come from?

An ETL application extracts data from the live production PostgreSQL or Oracle database where the TeamForge site stores most of its critical data. (Information about reporting configurations is also stored in the production database.) Some data is also gathered from the file system.

How is the production data converted into reporting data?

TeamForge extracts a snapshot of the production data, transforms it into a format that supports reporting requirements, and loads it into the datamart, which is optimized for fast retrieval. The Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) application is a Tomcat JVM running as a TeamForge service under the TeamForge integration server architecture.

Where is the reporting data kept?

After the ETL app collects and processes the live site data, it is stored in a separate database called the datamart. If the TeamForge site uses a PostgreSQL database, then the datamart is also a PostgreSQL database; likewise for Oracle. The datamart uses a Star Schema-based design for tables.

How are the reports shown in the TeamForge user interface?

The reports are rendered in the TeamForge UI using Adobe Flex.

Note: When a site is upgraded, there will be a delay before reporting data is available to users, until the scheduled ETL run has occurred. Performing a manual ETL run immediately after an upgrade is not advisable, since it could consume a lot of system resources leading to performance problems.