The Report
Designer department is exactly what it sounds like: it's where all
Reports, Charts and Labels are created and
which populate each Print menu on the Toolbars for each form and
Datagrid. When users choose a print option from the menu, they
may be prompted for additional information.
Overview
Any designs you build in any of the designers are stored in the same
database as your data, which means that all changes are available to
all users without manually having to distribute new print options.
The Charts tab is used to create the items you see in the
'Charts' section of a print menu. You can build multiple charts in
different formats for any Table Name.
Please click here for general
information about using the Toolbar, Form and Fields.
Creating A New Chart Design
Click the 'New' button on the toolbar; then enter:
Chart Title - This is what will be displayed in the Print
Menu in the order you specify in the 'Menu Display Order' field (see
below). If you want to put a line separator in the print menu BEFORE
this print option, put a hyphen at the end of the name. For example,
to put a line above a print option called 'Companies by State' enter
the Chart Title as 'Companies by State-' (no quotes, but note the
hyphen at the end).
Table Name - This determines in which print menu this option
will appear. For example, if you are creating a Chart with Company
information, choose the 'Company' table, which makes this report
available from the Company print menu only.
Description - This isn't displayed anywhere on the print
menu, but gives you a place to describe what the print option is.
Since you can print a report about Charts (from the Charts print
menu), users can get a short summary of what each print option is by
reading the Description.
Series Field - This is the 'group by' field. All Value Field
values will be grouped by this unique value.
Summary Type - If the Value Fields you choose are number
fields, you can choose to Sum, Average or Count the values or you
can choose 'None' to use the values themselves instead of a summary
value. If the Value Fields are NOT number values, you can only
choose 'None' or 'Count'.
Menu Display Order - This lets you manually decide what order
the print options are displayed in on the print menu. The items are
sorted first by the number value in this field, then alphabetically
by the Chart Title if the Menu Display Order numbers are the same.
Value Fields - Check at least one field name that will be
used to display its value on the chart. If you choose more than one
field, multiple groups of values will be displayed.
The Active Checkbox - When this is checked the print option
is put on the 'Table Name's' print menu. To remove a print option,
uncheck this box. This is checked by default when creating a new
record, but unchecking it gives you the opportunity to test your
print design from this tab before other users will see it on their
print menus.
Data Query - This is a standard SQL query that reads the data
you need for the chart. Users with substantial SQL skills can
manually 'tweak' this query, but the best way to start is by
clicking the 'Query Builder' button to select the query options.
When you click 'OK' on the Query Builder' the query will display in
this field. Please click the 'Help' button on the Query Builder
toolbar for assistance.
