Report Definitions
Working with the Report Viewer

If the report developer has enabled it, a command ribbon appears at the top of the Report Viewer. The command ribbon, if it appears, provides one or more of the controls detailed below. It includes a Search box at the upper right. Typing any text into this box and hitting Enter or clicking the Search icon finds the first occurrence of the text in the body of the report, highlights it, and moves the cursor to that position in the report. Clicking the Search icon again moves the cursor to the next occurrence of the text within the report.

The command ribbon displays some or all of the following command icons:

Icon	Description
Edit	Opens the report in the Report Editor.
Summarize and Sort	Click to open the Summarize and Sort form. The form allows you to: Reorder columns: click and hold the blue box to the left of the column name, and drag it higher or lower in the list of columns to change its placement in the report. Summarize the report: For each column you can select one of the possible Summarize options. Depending on the column data type, the options include some or all of the following: GROUP BY COUNT COUNT DISTINCT SUM MAX MIN Sort the report data: For each column you can select one of the possible sorting options: No Sorting Lowest to Highest Highest to Lowest Include a column of row counts: check the checkbox to add this column to the report. Click Apply to apply your selections to the report. Click Cancel to abandon your selections and close the form. If the report is list-type, click the icon and complete the form to convert the report to summary-type.
Convert to List	Displays for a summary-type report. Click the icon to convert the report to list-type.
Print	Displays your system's normal print dialog. You can choose a printer and make other display modifications and then print the report.
Export to PDF	Exports the formatted report into a PDF document.
Export to Excel	Exports the report's data into an Excel workbook.
Save	Click to save changes you have made to the report.
Save As	Click to save this report, with any changes you have made, as a new report. A form appears that lets you modify the new report's name, title, and description; and lets you specify the report type and category to save the report in. Click OK to save the copy of the report; click Cancel to close the form without saving a copy.

A setting on the User Interactions tab of the Report Definition that generates the report controls whether the report header appears. See User Interactions tab.

The report header displays the length of the report ("Displaying 4 records"), the title of the report, the date the report ran, and a list of any filter conditions that determine which rows are included. See the next section for information about filter conditions.

Filter conditions limit the amount of data returned to the report ("only orders made by these customers", "only bug reports with a severity higher than 60", and so on).

You can access filter conditions in two ways:

• If the developer has opted to display the report header, a statement of the logic of the active conditions appears there in the form "Filters: Urgency >= 50". The statement will be as long as necessary to include all the filter conditions. Filter conditions that you can edit appear as hyperlinks. You can click a link to see the Report Filter form. The existing filter condition displays, and you can update the elements of the filter (see below).
• You can make more extensive filter edits in the Report Editor.

The developer can opt to let the report user:

• provide filter parameters before the report runs
  If the developer has selected this option, when the user runs the report a form appears letting the user provide parameters the report's filters use. The form fields display default values that the developer has set for each parameter; the user can accept some or all of the default values, and then submit the form to run the report.
  
  The parameters submitted are valid only for the current running of the report, and do not change the default parameter values.
• edit the filter conditions
  If the developer has selected this option, the report user can edit existing filter conditions (for instance, changing "less than" to "greater than"). Any changes are valid only for the current running of the report.

Modifying filter conditions:

Filter conditions that you can edit appear as hyperlinks in the header. Click a link to see the Filter form. The existing filter condition displays in the form property in report - comparison - property to compare to.

For each filter, the following elements appear:

• property name or caption: To edit the caption, see under Advanced Options, below
• Comparison: Select a logical operator for the comparison condition, such as Is Equal or Starts With. If you select Is Null or Is Not Null, further options for the current filter do not appear.
• Report property to compare to. You can
  • select a value using the SmartPrompt option, by typing some characters and clicking the down arrow.
  • create the value using the Calculation Builder by clicking the icon.
  • click Pick Value to select one or more of the values available for the property to compare to.
• Click the chevron to the right of the Advanced Options header to display further options:
  • Filter Caption: provide a caption for the comparison to appear instead of the report property name.
  • Use Null If Empty: check the checkbox to set the property value to "null" if there is no value for it in the current data row.
  • Ignore Case: check the checkbox to use case-insensitive comparisons. "TwentyFive" would generate the same result as "twentyfive" or "Twentyfive".

Click Apply to accept your changes, or click Cancel to close the form without changing the filter.

See these PDN articles:

• 26386 Reporting in V6.2 — Nine tutorial videos.
• 26095 Using the Report Viewer to define and evolve simple reports.