Report Design Mode

Entering Design Mode

You may only enter design mode when logged in as Administrator. enabled. Design mode is entered either by selecting the Design Report option from the report criteria entry screen.

Design Mode Overview

Use design mode to create, edit and save your reports. The design mode is organised as a tabbed menu system .

Report Manipulation

Part of Reportico's power is the ways that database data can be prepared and manipulated prior and during the main report query. Reportico provides 3 main ways to achieve this :-

1. Pre-SQLs

   These are SQL statements that are executed prior to the main report query and are used to prepare temporary tables or run other SQL statements that could set a database configuration parameter or perform UPDATEs and DELETEs. Criteria values selected by the user on the Prepare screen can be incorporated into these statements. See Query Details => Pre-SQLs for more details.

2. Custom Code

   This is your own PHP code that is executed after any Pre-SQLs and before the main report query. This is used as an alternative to Pre-SQLs or for more complex preparatory work than can be performed in Pre-SQLs. You have access to the database through the $_connection ADODB class variable where you can create SQL statements and execute them, use database cursors and transactions. And you have access to the user criteria through the $_criteria variable so that you can pull out relevant data before the main report query uses it.

   Also, this preparatory phase is a useful feature that can simplify and speed up reports that would otherwise be slowed down by a large main query consisting of many tables and many joins. It may be more sensible to place in here ( or in the Pre-SQLs if appropriate ) statements that prepare a temporary table of data from a large table that matches the user criteria which can then be linked in with the rest of the report tables in the main query. See Custom Source Code for more details.

   Also a great deal of data reformatting can be done here in database cursors that can prepare a temporary table with column values that have been reformatted.

3. Assignments

   These are snippets of PHP code that are run while the main report query is running and are used to calculate values for custom report columns based on the retrieved report data, or they can be used to transform the report data before being finally presented in the finished report.

   For example, a datetime value coming from the database can be converted to just the time elemented by entering an assignment that uses the PHP substr function to chop off the date part. Also, an assignment can concatenate or otherwise reformat many columns into a single one.

   Also, assignments can be made to custom user columns that may be calculations based on the report data such a sums, averages etc.

   Conditions may be applied to an assignment so that the assignment is only performed if a certain condition is met. For example, if a numeric column is negative it could be reformatted to show the number in brackets or in red by surrounding it in html tags that alter the colour (although that wouldn't work in PDF output). See The Assignments Menu for more details.

Top Level Menu

Top Level Menu Options

Project Menu	Returns to the project menu selection screen
Admin Menu	Returns you to the Administration Page
Run Report	Returns to the Report Criteria Entry Page
Report File	Identifies the name of the report definition currently working on.
Save button	Saves the current report to disk. The file will be saved in the projects area with the named displayed in the Report File box. To save with a different name change this text and press the Save button. From then on any modifications you will relate to that new file name.
New Report	Creates an empty report so you can start from scratch

Tab Menus

Each tabbed menu is described in detail in the following chapters. The top level tabbed menu comprises the following options :-

Format	Provides set up of general presentation parameters for the report such as report title, description, paging options and custom code.
Query Details	Entry of main report query that fetches the data for displaying on report. Set up of column labels, justification, visibility etc
Assignments	Set up of expressions such as calculations and string manipulation to be performed on the report data. Also used for reporting graphical data from database
Criteria	Set up of the criteria items and expand/lookup options that the user will use to select from on the Prepare screen.
Output	Set up of grouping, graphs, page formatting for PDF etc