The purpose of the Report Designer is to create and edit reports. The datasheets and overviews that can be created in the Documentation module are based on reports and are also editable from the Report Designer.
A report consists of various components. Primarily, data bands, text boxes and lines are used as components.
When you create a new report, all tables and relations are automatically created from the Docusnap database. The report is always connected to the database currently selected in Docusnap. Tables from the database as well as custom tables, which were created by means of SQL statements, may be used as data sources. In order to show the values from the data sources, you need to create data bands.
To reduce the time required for data loading, the tables are initially not connected to the database. To display the data from the table in the report, first select the table to be connected from the Dictionary tab. Then, go to the Properties tab and set the Connect on Start property of the table to true.
It is also possible to enter SQL statements and thereby build a table that contains data from several other tables. To create a new data source, click the button or right-click the Dictionary tab and select New Data Source. The connection is always an OLE DB connection. Tables that are no longer needed can be deleted by clicking the
button or by right-clicking and selecting Delete from the context menu. In addition to the tables, the relations between the tables are loaded into the Designer. You can also create new relations, if required. The columns that are used to define the relation must have the same data type.
When you create a report, three variables are created. These variables cause additional values from Docusnap to be added to the report.
In the Report Designer, two types of previews are available. When you click the Preview tab, the report will be executed.
Clicking the Full Preview icon in the status bar will execute the report using the currently selected cover page, header and footer.
For most reports, the data will be filtered using a primary key. For this reason, you must specify an existing primary key to see data on the Preview tab.