Difference between revisions of "SUN Report Builder/Documentation"

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== Sun Report Builder ==
 
You can find the Sun Report Builder [http://extensions.services.openoffice.org/project/reportdesign here].
 
  
 
== Who Needs Reporting ==
 
== Who Needs Reporting ==

Revision as of 11:32, 13 November 2008


Who Needs Reporting

You may be forgiven for thinking that the sole purpose of reports is to provide nice-looking printouts of database records. A reporting engine provides essential tools for putting the data in a database to some practical use. Reports allow you to slice data and view them in many different ways. As a freelancer, you can use reports to keep track of the time you spend on a particular project, view your earnings during a specified month, and see which customer brings you most work. Besides that, you can use reports to generate ready-to-send invoices. If you are learning a foreign language, you can use reports to print a list of new words for a particular topic and keep track of your progress. You can also create a simple database to keep track of your achievements, and then generate a professionally-looking resume using a report. In other words, you can use reports for a wide variety of tasks.

Why Sun Report Builder

Since OpenOffice.org comes with a built-in reporting feature you might wonder why you'd want to bolt another reporting engine on top of it. For starters, the built-in reporting capabilities can't be used for anything but the most simple reports. While the Report Wizard makes the process of creating a report rather straightforward, the default reporting tools are not very intuitive and not particularly flexible, which limits your ability to customize reports to your liking. The Sun Report Builder (SRB) is designed to overcome the shortcomings of the built-in reporting capabilities by adding a powerful reporting engine and a slew of nifty tools that allow you to create rather advanced reports. The extension adds advanced sorting and grouping capabilities, as well as the ability to use SQL queries and functions in reports. More importantly, SRB makes it significantly easier to create a complex report layout via drag-and-drop. In addition to that, the extension lets you insert charts in your reports.

System Requirements

The SRB extension requires a fairly recent version of OpenOffice.org. Ideally, you should use the latest version of the productivity suite. Since SRB is written in Java, you should also check whether the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) software is installed on your machine, and whether OpenOffice.org is configured to use it. To do this, choose Tools -> Options -> OpenOffice.org -> Java. Make sure that the Use a Java runtime environment check box is ticked, and a JRE is selected in the list of installed JREs. If this list is empty, you have to install the JRE software which you can download from www.java.com.

Installing Sun Report Builder

Since SRB is just a regular OpenOffice.org extension, installing it on your machine is not particularly difficult. First of all, download the latest version of the SRB from the OpenOffice.org Extension Repository. In OpenOffice.org, choose Tools -> Extension Manager. Press the Add button, select the downloaded .oxt file, and press Open. Restart OpenOffice.org (on Windows, you have to terminate Quicklauncher, too), and you are done.

Sun Report Builder's Interface

Sun Report Builder's Interface

A - The Report Controls toolbar contains buttons you can use to add fields, labels, graphics, and graphs to the report.

B - Main toolbar that allows you to enable the Add Field, Report Navigator, and Sorting and Grouping palettes.

C - Align and Align at Section toolbar can help you to align fields and other elements in the report.

D - The blank report page is divided into three default sections: Page Header, Detail, and Page Footer.

E - Using the Add Field palette, you can quickly populate the report with fields by dragging them from the palette onto the report.

F - Sorting and Grouping pallet can be used to group and sort the report's elements.

G - The Report Navigator lets you quickly locate and select a particular element in the report.

H - The Properties pane lets you specify the properties of the currently selected control. For example, if you select a field, you can use the Properties pane to specify the field's data source and properties such as size, position, format, etc.

Conditional Print Expression

A conditional print expression allows the user to narrow the output which should be visible when executing the report. If the condition evaluates to true then the element (section or element) will be printed in the report. The syntax is the same as for functions.

Functions

A function can be created when opening the report navigator. In the context menu on the functions entry you can create one function.

This function can either be in the global context of the report itself or in any group.

The illustration below shows how subtotal fields are created in Report Builder, using functions :

SumFieldInReportBuilder.jpg

The report source table is shown on the upper left.

The resulting report layout is illustrated below the table. A group has been defined on the plProductType field. The sum field is created on the group footer. The rightmost part of the image shows the definition of a function that serves as the data source for the sum field.

Computed fields

Computed fields can be created in the way that the formula is entered directly into the data field.

E.g. 100*[Population]/[PopulationCount] to get the percentage of the current population

Syntax

  • quote for [ is \
  • \\
  • [] as reference for formula or field name
  • "" to quote strings
  • . as decimal separator
  • date as in java specific
  • parameter separator is ; (semicolon) and it is allowed to let some parameters empty inside a call like XYZ(;kk;;kkb)

Supported Functions

Generally all functions which are defined in the OpenFormula should be supported. But this is currently still ongoing work and may change after each release of the Sun Report Builder.

The Sun Report Builder Verson 1.0.x includes functions in the following categories:

Datetime
Date, Datetime, Day, Hour, Month, Now, Year, Today, Weekday, Time,

Financial
Financial

Information
Choose, HasChanged, Information, IsBlank, IsErr, IsError, IsEven, IsLogical, IsNA, IsNonText, IsNumber, IsOdd, IsRef, IsText, Na

Logical
And, False, If, Not, Or, True, Xor

Math
Abs, Average, Even, Odd, Sum

Rounding
Int

Text
Exact, Find, Left, Len, Lower, Mid, Replace, Rept, Right, Substitute, Text, T, Trim, Upper, URL

Userdefined
Mapped, Null

A detailed explanation will be found here.

EuroOffice Map Chart

One extension further extends the functionality of Sun Report Builder. A detailed description of its use together with the basic steps of creating your first report can be found here. This tutorial goes from creating your first report to defining a quite complicated new function, so it can be a useful resource for beginners and advanced users alike (not just for those looking for a way to create map charts).

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