Any short explanation for what Reporting's "Section using master/details" is?

[FerdH4]

Hi All,

I've search through a couple of IBM's 11.x Report User Guides and run Google searches on "Section using master/details" without finding any general explanation for same.

I'm not certain the condition(s) when this function would be required or even just useful.

[cognostechie]

Not sure what you mean by 'Section' but Master/Detail means a query inside a query.

Ex: If the user wants to see Total Sales for all Projects then you can make a List report to show Project ID, Project name, Total Sales and then include another query which will then show Invoice Nos, date, Invoice Amt etc. The 2nd query will show the detail and the 1st one summary. The detail query is a List report which is put in a column of the 1st List report (List inside a List) and then from the properties of the 2nd List, you can specify a Master Detail relationship in the form f a join between two queries.

This is useful when the detail and master queries are not joined in your package.

[FerdH4]

Holy smokies cognostechie - that's an incredibly specific use case.  I appreciate you sharing that info.

As for the word "Section" - I included it in my original post because it's under the "Section / Unsection" icon on the toolbar where I can see the Master/Detail options.

[MFGF]

Holy smokies cognostechie - that's an incredibly specific use case.  I appreciate you sharing that info.

As for the word "Section" - I included it in my original post because it's under the "Section / Unsection" icon on the toolbar where I can see the Master/Detail options.

Hi,

When you create sections in a report, you are essentially performing a sort of "super-grouping". Think of a list report - if you group on a column, the list is ordered and can be summarized based on the item or items you are grouping on. All the items (grouped and non-grouped) still appear within the list, though.
When you section, the difference is that the item or items you choose become headings that are moved outside of the list. You end up with a heading followed by a list containing the items within the section, then another heading followed by a list containing the items within the section, etc.
When you are defining the sectioning, you can either do a "normal" section operation, or you can do a "Master/Detail" section operation. The difference is (as cognostechie said) in the way the query is configured and executed.
With a "normal" section, everything is done within a single query at runtime - the section headings and the sub-lists. With a Master/Detail section, the headings are fed by a master query, and the sub-lists are fed by a detail query (and the runtime queries are linked).
You can see this if you click on the ellipsis (three dots) on the Navigation Bar and choose the "Show generated SQL/MDX" option after defining the section operation. With a "normal" section, you see just one query (Query1.0), whereas with a Master/Detail section, you see two queries (Query1.0 and Query1.1).

Cheers!

MF.

[FerdH4]

Got it - thanks MFGF.

Is there any clear Report-Author or Report-Consumer value to the Master/Detail option?