reporting in emu crystal != reporting or why is reporting so difficult and can we do anything about...
TRANSCRIPT
Reporting in EMu
Crystal != Reporting
or
Why is reporting so difficult and can we do anything about it?
Bernard MarshallKE Software
• Produce a document from the results of a search
• Export information, uni-directional
• Interpretation of original data source
• Formatting of information
• Possible computation of data (eg. totals, averages, counts, etc)
• Visual representation of search results (eg. table, graph, etc).
What is reporting?
Why do we need reports?
• Extract information in a portable format.
• Provide information in a “user-friendly” format.
• Interpret “raw results” in new and informative ways.
• Layout data in a specific pre-defined format.
• Supply information to third party products.
• Boss asked for it!
Why is it so difficult?
• Requires an understanding of the underlying data structures
• Different data models between EMu (object) and reporter (relational) data sources
• Different data representations (partial dates, etc)
• Need to group fields to get correct table structure
• Wide range of report writers available
• High level of skills required to master each report writer
• Need to deal with column names
Differing data models – ODBC, CSV
emultime.csv
emultimedia_key
irn
MulTitle
MulDescription
MulCreat.csv
MulCreator_jet
emultimedia_key
MulCreator
How does EMu’s reporting work?
Server generates report data in XML S
Media filter adds in media paths
Filter transforms XML to required format
Files are transferred from server to client
Report writer is invoked
Report is viewed by user
texserver
xml
Media Filter
xml
Filter
CSV/XML/Other
List of files to client
CSV/XML/Other
Action
Reporter format
Report
System|Setting|Reports|Media Filter|crystal|reportsmedia
System|Setting|Reports|Filter|crystal|texxmlodbc
System|Setting|Reports|Action|crystal|Run ODBC crystal.exe
List/Worksheet Mode Reporting
While viewing records in List/Worksheet mode select records:
• Copy onto Windows clipboard for pasting
• Select print button for “excel” like print
Summary Reporting
While viewing matching set, produce a summary:
• Copy results of summary to clipboard in a variety of formats (eg. excel, text, rtf, etc).
• Provide a nicer printing option
Admin Reports
• Ability to run server side reports
• Provides reporting across all modules and aspects of the system
• Hooks into the client reporting system to produce standard reports
• Provides sophisticated scripting for full access to server side tables
• Difficult to write reports
XML Reports (the future)?
• XML (eXtensible Markup Language) provides a simple text based format for data interchange.
• “Report writers” can process the data to produce a variety of output formats and structures.
• XSLT (eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations) provides a mechanism for transforming XML into a large variety of output formats (eg, html, pdf, PCL, etc).
• Still early days (XSLT is very ugly) but removes dependency on legacy ODBC style data formats.
XML based reporting
texserver
xml
XSLT Processor
XML/HTML/PDF/PCL/Other
List of files to client
Report
XML/HTML/PDF/PCL/Other
XSLT Document
texserver
xml
List of files to client
xml
XSLT Processor
Report
XML/HTML/PDF/PCL/Other
How can we make reporting easier?Simple reports
• Are there any features that would allow simple reports to be produced more easily?
• Are there other simple reporting mechanisms that would be useful?
Complex reports
• While recognizing that complex reporting requires powerful and possibly hard to use tools, are there features that could make this process easier?