More about Summary View rules
 

To present a summary view report to a user, your activity can call the standard activity Rule-Obj-SummaryView.ShowView. Through parameter options, you can choose to retrieve the data from the database and add it to the clipboard with or without displaying.

Specify one of four values for the pyAction parameter:

• Prepare — Execute all aspects of the summary view rule except the HTML display.
• Refresh — Execute the entire summary view rule, retrieving data from the database, sorting and filtering the data, and presenting the display.
• Redisplay — Execute the display aspects of the summary view rule, using data previously retrieved.
• Sort — Resort the existing data.

To specify that execution is to use a reports database (regardless of the setting of the Use reports database? check box on the Contents tab), set the pyUseAlternateDb parameter to true.

To remove the data page after the initial display (reducing the size of the clipboard), set the removeDataPage parameter to true.

To execute a summary view report or interactive chart when the user clicks a link, such as on a portal gadget, call the built-in JavaScript function showSummary(), which calls one of these two activities.

The older activities Rule-Obj-SummaryView.ShowGraph and Rule-Obj-SummaryView.ShowViewGraph. are deprecated.

Summary view rules can accept additional parameters for selection, by referencing them with the notation param.name in the Value column of the Criteria array on the Content tab. Ensure that processing sets values for these parameters before the summary view rule executes. For a similar example, see PDN article 25410 How to use parameters as selection criteria in a list view rule.

The text of the Full Description field (property pyDescription) of a summary view rule on the History tab appears to application users as a report title. Choose text that clearly describes the report contents. You can include syntax in the Full Description to include at runtime the value of a parameter or scalar property. . For example:

List of {pagename.property1} as of {pagename.property2 }

Only refer to properties that are certain to be present. The valid formats are{Param.name} and {Page.property}. This feature can support localization, through language-specific RuleSets.

If your summary view rule calls a custom getContent activity, the activity can set property values that are then displayed in the title.

The summary view facility works best for queries involving 1,000 or fewer rows. It does not support queries that contain more than 10,000 rows.

To the extent possible, design summary view reports to maximize processing by database software (based on the Content tab) and reduce processing within the PRPC server.

To execute a summary view rule, users must have the ability to search through instances of the class identified in the Applies To key part. Accordingly, users must have an access role that links to an Access of Role to Object rule (for the Applies To class or a parent class) in which the Search Instances value grants read-only access.

When processing a summary view report, the system converts DateTime values (but not Date or TimeofDay values) in the results are converted to display in the time zone of the user, based on the Time Zone value on the Availability tab of the Operator ID instance. This conversion affects selection criteria and displayed results, and so may present a different day and time for different users.

Using a summary view rule and a special section, your application can include a heat map about work items, assignments, or other application data. See PDN article 25614 How to create a heat map.

Using an agent and a Connect File rule, your application can produce PDF files of reports, on a daily or other regular schedule. See 25731 How to product reports on a nightly schedule. (The configuration tasks described in article 25731 are not needed for reports defined through report definitions. Report users or developers can directly set up automatic execution of such reports on a schedule. See Report Definitions — Scheduling reports.)

When you save a summary view rule, the system converts your HTML and JSP tags to Java source code. As a learning or debugging aid, you can review this Java code.

Click the Show Java toolbar button () to see the system-generated Java code that implements the summary view rule. The window presents a read-only preview of the Java that implements this rule instance. This Java code is not identical to the Java that executes at runtime, which includes Java code inlined from other rule instances and reflects rules in the requestor's RuleSet list.

The immediate parent class of Rule-Obj-SummaryView and Rule-Obj-ListView classes is the Rule-Obj-Report-class. At runtime, the system uses stream processing to assemble the query results.