Creating your First Report

This section describes how to create a new Report using the Report Wizard. We will create a simple User Directory Report showing the User’s First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone Number, and Company Name.

In the Solution Explorer panel, right-click the Reports folder, and select the Add New Report context menu choice.

You can create a unique Data Source for this Report, but you would typically use the default Shared Data Source that you created.

You need to provide the SELECT SQL query that fetches data for the Report. In many cases, you can enter a simple SELECT clause directly in the dialog box.

There are two choices for the Report Type:

Tabular: column layout.

Matrix: rows and columns layout.

Select the Tabular type.

Select the fields that you want to show on the Report. In this case, we were selective about which fields to return from the query select clause, so we want all the fields.

Select the table style for the Report. This example simply uses the default State style.

The final step in the Report wizard is to name the Report.

The Report wizard builds the report, which looks like Figure 45.

Once the Report is opened in the Layout Tab, you can make further changes as required.

The Report pane has three Tabs:

• Data: for editing the query for the Report. Look at the appendix in this document to see a more complex Report query example, using the graphical query builder instead of the wizard.
• Layout: for visually designing the Report with drag and drop functionality.
• Preview: for viewing the finished report with real data.

The Properties panel on the right is used for setting fonts, color, and other visual properties.

The Fields panel on the left is used to drag database fields onto the report.

The Toolbox panel also on the left is for dragging Report controls onto the Report layout. This is how you can add tables, labels, images, and charts to the Report layout.

Once you are satisfied with the Report query and layout as viewed from the Preview Tab, you need to deploy the Report to the Reporting Service:

In the Solution Explorer panel, right-click the User Directory Report item and select the Deploy context menu choice.

Watch for error messages in the output window at the bottom of the frame.

To confirm the new Report has been deployed:

Open a browser and go to http://localhost:80/Reports.

You should see the Innovator Reports folder.

Click that link.

You should see the report you created.

Select the hyperlink for the new Report.

Run the Report.

For users to run the new Reporting Services Report from within Aras Innovator, you need to create an Innovator Report Item. The important settings to enable the Innovator Reporting Services interface are:

• The Innovator Report Item name must be the same as the Reporting Services Report name.
• The Location Field choice must be set to the new Service option.
• The Report Query Field specifies the parameters that are passed to the Report Server.

1. Log into Aras Innovator as administrator.
2. In the Navigation pane, go to Administration --> Reports. The menu shown in Figure 47 appears.



3. Click Create New Report. A blank Report form appears:



4. Enter the name of the Report.
Note
Again, this is the name you specified when you created the Report in Visual Studio.
5. Select the Report Type, which in this case is Generic, meaning this Report is always available.
6. Select the Report Location, which in this case is Service.
7. Select the Report Target, which in this case is Window.
8. Because this sample Report is of type ItemType, there is no Report query Value.
Note
If you use Firefox, you have to manually enter a stylesheet under the Stylesheet tab.
9. Test the Report by clicking the Reports main menu bar choice.
10. You should see the new User Report choice.
11. Click the menu choice.
12. You should see a new dialog opened with the User Directory Report.

As step 4 describes in section 3.1 The Reporting Services use Folders to organize Reports. The Aras Innovator integration with Reporting Services use as the default Innovator Reports Folder.

In this section, we configure the Reporting Services using the Report Manager by adding the Innovator Reports Folder and a Shared Data Source, which the Reports use to connect to the database.

Installing Reporting Services, the value of the report_query Innovator Report Item Property is appended to the ReportServer URL, providing additional parameters to control the ReportServer.

For example, the ID of the Item can be passed as the Named Parameter @ID for the SQL Select for the Reporting Services Report as in this example:

SELECT * FROM [PROJECT] WHERE id=@ID To pass the ID for the context Item (the selected Item) on the URL to the ReportServer, the Innovator Report Item report_query Property would look like this: np:id=<xsl:value-of select="@id"/> This is actually an XSLT stylesheet fragment and is the directive for Innovator to add the string &id=ACBDEF0123456789ACBDEF0123456789 to the end of the ReportServer URL (but the actual ID value is used). In this case, the Innovator Report is of the Generic type, so no ID is required, but perhaps we want the Reporting Services Report to be returned in the PDF or Excel format. We can control the ReportServer by adding the following parameter as the report_query value for the User Directory Report: rs:Format=PDF

For example, to pass the Named Parameter ID and the Format PDF in the same report_query, the value would look like this: np:id=<xsl:value-of select=”@id”/>&amp;rs:Format=PDF