Overview: Client Report Option

If you need to design reports for PC printer output using System i data, you may want to have SEQUEL ViewPoint’s Client Report Option (CRO). This optional feature provides a graphical design interface that allows you to specify fonts, colors, pictures, and other formatting (such as shading, borders, and conditional highlighting). Working with the CRO has several advantages:

• You get a faster, direct connection to System i databases—no ODBC connection required! SEQUEL views and tables provide the underlying data access capabilities. Data can be pre-summarized or reformatted before it’s delivered to the client workstation.
• You can give your users more information without extra effort. Reports you design using the CRO automatically provide full field attributes and descriptive text to users, in addition to field names.
• You can manage report objects easily. When you create a report with CRO, you save Client Report objects on the System i, making it easier to share common reports among multiple users. Plus, report objects are included in regular System i backups.
• Your reports are secure. When you create a report with CRO, you can use standard IBM i security plus SEQUEL record-level security, to restrict data access to those with the proper authority.

Let’s look at some of the powerful features of the CRO.

Dynamic Image Location
When you create an image-rich report, such as an employee or student roster, a product list, or any other report where it’s useful to show a unique picture for each different item, the CRO lets you use dynamic image locations to include them. With the CRO you can reference a server/file location where the image is stored. The image can be located on a local drive, a network drive, or referenced via a URL address. Because the location is formula-based, you can use any built-in functions to derive the location string, and you don’t have to store the image in the actual report object.

Intelligent Charting
You can create charts more quickly and easily using the CRO with features like drag-and-drop charting and cross-tabs. Your CRO charts update automatically when new variables are added. The CRO lets you create a range of chart types (such as gauge, Gantt, and funnel) that give you intelligent charting options. The CRO approximates variables when you put a chart into a section.

Formula Workshop
The Formula Workshop is the place in the CRO where you can work with all types of formulas, custom functions, and SQL expressions. The workshop provides a tool bar, a tree that lists the types of formulas you can create or modify, and an area for defining the formula.

Display String Formatting
The CRO also has a conditional formatting button that lets you enter a formula and display it as a custom string. You can display numbers, currency, date, time, date and time, Boolean values, or string fields! And, this type of conditional formatting is not limited to database fields—you can use it for running totals, formulas, parameter fields, summaries, and more.

For example, suppose you want to use a notation in your report that represents millions as ‘M’ and thousands as ‘K.’ You can create a display string formula for your report by selecting the appropriate numeric field and entering this formula in the Format Formula Editor:

if CurrentFieldValue >= 1000000

then ToText(CurrentFieldValue/1000000, 2) + "M"

else

if CurrentFieldValue >= 1000

then ToText(CurrentFieldValue/1000, 2) + "K"

else ToText(CurrentFieldValue, 2)

Sort by Parameters
You can set up formula-driven sort values for group sort order and top or bottom N reports. Then use formula parameters to fine-tune the sort. When you use this feature, you can create a single, more flexible report that meets the needs of more users, reducing the total number of reports you need.
Export to Excel

The CRO provides a richer “export to Excel” feature with support for images. The resulting Excel file looks exactly the same as the original report. You can choose between exporting the data or the fully formatted report.

RTF Export Formats
Now, there are two Rich Text Format (RTF) export options. The new RTF export format is optimized for easy editing of the files it generates. This format complements the existing RTF export format that is optimized for accuracy and forms processing. You can choose either depending on whether you need to emphasize accuracy or the ability to edit.

Powerful ActiveX Viewer
The CRO includes an ActiveX viewer with these enhancements:

• The export dialog supports the new editable RTF format.
• Page drawing performance has been improved by caching rendered output.
• The visual quality of output and printing is improved.
• Objects displayed in the ActiveX viewer can be highlighted individually, or in groups, and then copied and pasted to applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook.
• Page navigation supports the page-up and page-down keys.
• Printing supports multiple page ranges from the print dialog box.

Sharper Images for Presentation-Quality Reports
The CRO supports vector-based images so you can zoom in on charts, maps and other images without affecting the sharpness of the image.

Contributed by Steven Smith, Technical Consultant