I want to make a report that is generic in the sense that the same report will get re-used for various fields values. E.g. a student database and the report runs either repeatedly from a list of homerooms, or specifically for a specified homeroom.
1. Can you automate the report to run monthly and be passed a Homeroom? ideally I'd like to schedule 25 reports to run, each the same report file, with 1 homeroom name from a list (e.g.).
2. How would you create the parameter in the report? Do you need to make up a dummy prompt page or can you just use the parameter in the report body somehow?
I've been reading the manual and trying to sort this out but think I am missing a piece of the puzzle. Hopefully someone knows how to do this. :)
Thanks,
Rob
Hi Rob,
Would this requirement be answered by a report with a multi-select value prompt on the Homeroom item, which then uses the Homeroom value(s) as a section heading in the report, and starts a new page for each homeroom selected?
If I have understood this correctly, you need to define a list report containing Homeroom, add a filter with the expression [Homeroom] in ?HRParam?, select the Homeroom list column and press the Section button on the toolbar, then go to Page Explorer and drag in a Page Set, define the page set grouping property as Homeroom, then drag the main report page into the Detail Pages section of the Page Set.
Apologies if I am way off track here - if I have misunderstood, post back more details of what you want to do and we will try to help further.
Regards,
MF.
Preface: "Homeroom" is just an analogy but hopefully it makes my point clear... it would be a bit confusing to describe what data I am reporting on.
What you have described is pretty much what I am after. Generally out of the 50 homerooms I have... < 10 will be reported on regularly by a scheduled process... the rest would be ad-hoc. For those 10... I want to have 10 seperate reports printed in PDF format as different people will read different homeroom reports.
So basically I'm saying I would like the flexibility to do it either as a set of homerooms, or a single value. Right now my goal is to have a report with plain text in it... and be able to specify the homeroom and have it displayed in the report.
e.g.
Reporting on Homeroom: SOME_VALUE
My weakness is that I am having trouble conceptualizing what the parameter is, where it is specified, etc. I'll give a go at what you wrote and respond. :)
So I gave it a go and ran into some issues.
I found my error though... I hadn't assigned my query elements to my chart yet. When I did that, it told me of an error in another filter (typo... missing a ')'). Apparently the queries aren't run if they aren't used in an object and thus you don't know if you should have a parameter or not. Soon as I added the elements and fixed my typo.. the prompt was shown.
- can I see a list of params the report will use somewhere and maybe define them external to a filter? Seems odd I have to introduce the parameter into a filter first.
Thanks again for all the help! I've confirmed also you can re-use the same param in different queries. Now to work out the date math based on range param (Month, Quarter, Year). :)
A dim bulb slowly brightens... ;)
Cheers,
Rob