What is ReportShell?

ReportShell™ is a lightweight embedded web reporting framework and report viewer for Spring Boot applications. It turns your compiled JasperReports® files into ready-to-use REST APIs for dynamic parameter forms, cascading controls, rendering, persistent executions, and multi-format exports.

It also includes a built-in viewer controller that serves a report viewer page, letting your users preview, run, and export reports through the same REST APIs.

Unlike a standalone reporting server, ReportShell is delivered as a Spring Boot starter. Drop it into your application, point it at your compiled reports, and you have a complete reporting backend running. This means:

• No extra reporting server to deploy and manage
• ReportShell runs inside your existing Spring application
• It naturally reuses your application’s configuration, security, and data sources

ReportShell is API-first: developers use its REST APIs to build report viewer UIs for their JasperReports reports with any frontend framework. It intentionally mirrors JasperReports® Server (JRS) endpoint names and schemas where it makes sense, so teams familiar with JRS can adopt the framework with a smaller mental-model shift.

React Viewer

ReportShell ships with a ready-to-use React-based web frontend viewer that covers core reporting tasks out of the box. It is built on the same REST APIs and JasperReports Library features you would use to roll your own. See React Viewer for more details.

Key Features

ReportShell provides REST APIs for:

• Dynamic Parameter Forms: Endpoints that return input controls list and load control data using control query definitions. These APIs enable developers to build dynamic parameter forms.
• Persistent Executions: Endpoints for managing stored print documents and related metadata for later navigation and export.
• Exports: Endpoint for exporting reports on-demand or from stored print documents associated with previously saved persistent executions.

Core Capabilities

Dynamic Parameter Forms

• Automatically resolves input control metadata by parsing JasperReports JRXML metadata and parameter Java types
• Supports cascading relationships when queries reference other parameters
• Supports multi-valued controls and simple UI data types such as Number, String, Date, etc. for implementing flexible report viewer web UIs
• Default value expression evaluation for initial control states

Flexible Report Processing

• Run and render JasperReports reports immediately with direct fill and export
• Store JasperPrint documents as persistent executions for reuse across multiple exports
• Support paginated viewing via persistent executions without re-running the report

Control Binding

• Automatic parameter conversion from web request data to report parameter types
• Binding via Spring’s standard binding constructs such as BindingResult with support for nested binding errors for multi-valued controls.
• Customizable via events published before and after binding

Export Options

• Export to all formats supported by built-in JasperReports Library exporters or your own custom exporters with format-specific export options
• Single page or page range exports
• Zoom option for HTML exports
• Customization through exporter overrides or global customizers acting on all exporters

Security

• Per-report access checks through a user-defined AuthorizationService that can easily integrate with Spring Security