newbie - report builder

[andersonbd1]

I used Crystal Reports last summer as an intern and was very impressed with it. It had its limitations, though like anything else. I find Report Builder to be very similar and just as good for the kind of reporting I need to do. The programming team I work with is pretty set on hand coding all the reports. I spend days working on reports that I could write in Report Builder in an hour. However, I don't know the basics of calling a Report Builder report from a procedure. Does anyone have any code I could look at or know of any good documentation?
Thanks,
Ben Anderson

 

[Jenie888]

RUN aderb\_prntrb2(
"REPORTS\SalesGold2.PRL", /* RB-REPORT-LIBRARY */
"Company Information", /* RB-REPORT-NAME */
"", /* RB-DB-CONNECTION */
"", /* RB-Include-Record */
BuildFilter, /* RB-FILTER */
"", /* RB-MEMO-FILE */
"D", /* RB-PRINT-DESTINATION */
"", /* RB-PRINTER-NAME */
"", /* RB-PRINTER-PORT */
"", /* RB-OUTPUT-FILE */
0, /* RB-NUMBER-COPIES - zero */
0, /* RB-BEGIN-PAGE - zero */
0, /* RB-END-PAGE - zero */
no, /* RB-TEST-PATTERN */
"", /* RB-WINDOW-TITLE */
yes, /* RB-DISPLAY-ERRORS */
yes, /* RB-DISPLAY-STATUS */
no, /* RB-NO-WAIT */
"", /* RB-OTHER-PARAMETERS */
""). /* OUTPUT FILE */

 

[bendaluz2]

There are two interfaces, the procedure interface and the table interface. The one mentioned above is the procedure interface. The table interface involves loading a df (dlc\bin\rbreport.df) into your database, then you create records in this table for each report you want to run and then run report builder. Personally I find the table interface a lot better to use, as you can build up batches of reports within progress and then produce them all with one report builder call. Also, there are certain limitations to the procedure interface which do not affect the table interface (such as only being able to override one database with the procedure interface).

the command to run the report builder from progress is

<code>
run aberb\_prore.p
(NO-WAIT-value, command line arguments).
</code>

The command line arguments should include a connection string to the database with the RBREPORT table defined in it.

The reports can also be generated by running

<code>
prore.exe db-connection [parameters]
</code>

from windows

 

[Jenie888]

The disadvantage of using the table interface is when you have multiple users you can not tell one print job from another it's a mess.

Our products have reporting screens and able to get just about any result needed by using the procedure interface.

 

[bendaluz2]

Ah, but if you put a tag in the table, which is the users name or number or whatever, you can use the -rbtag option on the prore command to just print that users reports, or that users that were created in the last 10 mins or whatever, depending on how you set your tags up.

 

[mi160800]

We inserted a tag field into our temp_report table, used to identify that specific run for that user/report. It works quite well, however we've noticed a HUGE increase in processing time at the stage where the report is displayed in the preview.

We added an index on that field, and re-saved our report definition to see if that made any difference. None.

I'm fairly new to Report Builder, so still learning about it's little nuances, but I wonder if other users have had this problem?