Miscellaneous Report Questions / Issues

[Bob Cergol]

These are rather minor, but I thought I would post the list I've accumulated so far and "reset" it. In no particular order...

1) Can I clear the version history of a report. If yes, can I delete selected revisions? I find myself saving very frequently and keeping track of many of the changes is irrelevant. Having the history is a very nice feature.

2) Clicking "apply" doesn't always apply the change, some changes must be saved before applying, others "stick", and then can be saved or not according to tested results.

3) when setting the size of a column the "wrap text" property has no effect; the data always wraps. I want to include a lot of columns, some of which are 50 characters. I want to truncate them, but taking control of the column size causes them to wrap regardless of this checkbox setting. (I know I can use a +Column and trim them myself.) [EDIT: I just used the list option "mid" format option to do what I want.]

4) I think the "Include Hidden" option on the report menu should not be available to all users on the report menu. The reports I am hiding are those I don't want ordinary users to ever see as choices. These are the reports I am assigning to everyone since various reports will use these for filter combos.

5) The "roles" check boxes in "roles maintenance" does not accept a mouse click, the space bar must be used to check/uncheck.

6) if you navigate out of the password section when entering a new user when you save, the system prompts you to enter a password for the user even though the entry appears to be there. (I attempted to set the start page prior to saving the user)

7) Does the sequence of filters affect performance? Should I try to sequence them to match an index? This is not always the sequence I might want for displaying the filters to a user -- that sequence is determined partly by priority and partly by cosmetics. (I'm very keen on minimizing the screen space occupied.)

8. Why are the filters rendered as attached, i.e. why shouldn't this fit on 2 lines instead of 3?

Filter_Positions.gif (12.69 KiB) Viewed 9147 times

9) Is there a way to get a list of all reports that use a particular DAI view, join, etc.

10) Is there a way to adjust the veritical size of the detail drill down report in a split pane. I can see where it would be useful to make it smaller than 1/2 size in certain report scenarios.

11) Is there a way to instantly reset all filter values to defaults when running a report. Our users are accustomed to having a "clear" button in similar screens in our CRM system.

Thanks and regards,
Bob

[Carsten Sørensen]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the questions!

Re.1: You can only clear the version history by saving a new copy of the report in server version. OR you can reset all versions by overwriting the dnmcvers.dai with emptydnmcvers.dai in the dat folder like:
copy emptydnmc.dai dnmcvers.dai

I guess not being able to delete a version is kind of smart when ensuring audit that versioning is intact and to be SARBOX compliant...

Re.2: Can you let me know in which cases you have experienced that? Shouldn't be!

Re.3: We have made a recent change to this - for the next version - at some columns. There is the problem of controlling wrap and width at the same time. Sometimes it takes a little trial and error to get it completely right. However in general I think the time spend on column width manipulation in Dynamic AI is reduced to a relative minimum - at least in my opinion....

Re.4: You can remove the ability to change Navigation (i.e. access to the Reports option drop-down menu) by not giving the users the right "Allow change navigation look" and set a fixed on the Users account tab (usually By User-group or Common/Own) is used for most users.

The philosophy behind "soft-hiding" the option listings used for drop-downs is that many times the option listings themselves are useful for users to get access to. I.e. a complete list of departments, divisions, currencies, customer groups, countries, accounts and name of accounts or even lots of code listings like a code for each machine along with its name etc. So by making them available in a group called Key-listings - you actually get the benefit of giving people access to that additional information at the same time as those listings are consistent with the choices that users can make on reports. As with everything here in live - there is always an additional added benefit...right

Re.5: In order to render fast in IE 3 or something we made the checkbox an image of a checkbox...you can check it by double-clicking. At least that works for me. Not a smart choice anymore really... will change it some day.

Re.6: WIll have to look into that.

Re.7: The sequence of filters might affect the way the filters are applied to the SQL - however I have never experienced that it would have a real impact on performance. I believe the DB engines are smart enough to optimize nowadays. MS SQL as you are using is definitely smart! So my recommendation would be to stick to what makes most sense from a user / cosmetic point of view.

Re.8: That is a bug. I will look into it.

Re.9: Report menu options - By Data-source - should give you that.

Re.10: There is no fixed way. You can temporarily adjust it with the mouse - however it will not currently stick (it did in older versions of Dynamic AI and that was nice...). I agree that it could be an option in Design although I think it would be rarely used. More features - more difficult to use - always tricky...

Re.11: The only way is that you can set the "Filter Preference scope" on the Options page in Design to NONE for each individual report. That will reset user set filters for that specific report whenever you run it from the menu again.

Best regards
Carsten

[Bob Cergol]

Thanks for the replies Carsten.
Like I said it was all pretty small stuff.

The design of the "include hidden" and report menu is fine -- now that I fully understand it.

I found by using field filters in the dictionary displays to limit the rows, pointing, clicking and pressing the
space bar is very speedy for checking the check-boxes.

I would rather have the "sticky" filter settings within a session than a "clear" filters behavior clicking on the report again.

I think the auto-wrapping behavior is fine, now that I saw I can so easily trim the data in list options. All the more so since the full field still displays on a form drill down.

I will start writing down the design changes that must be saved before applying to test or they get lost. I save most every time anyway (Anyone who's ever used Crystal Reports has been conditioned like Pavlov's dogs to click that save button -- and then save as with almost every other key stroke!

[BTW, I heard on the news our Congress is either thinking about, or has, included language to kill Sarbanes-Oxley in the pending financial reform package that is supposed to fix the reasons for the financial collapse (who knows what they are smoking...) The rationale is Sarbox is too costly to business. Yet it was the reason that some fraud at some pretty big companies was exposed after Enron's collapse.]

Bob

[Carsten Sørensen]

Hi Bob,

I have tried several ways to recreate:

6) if you navigate out of the password section when entering a new user when you save, the system prompts you to enter a password for the user even though the entry appears to be there. (I attempted to set the start page prior to saving the user)

I have tried from IE and Firefox + with a new fresh user and with a copy existing (clicking New User).

I Enter the userID + password + re-type password + do whatever on the TABS - like e.g. setting a start-page.

In all my test cases the password was accepted and I wasn't prompted again.

Can you maybe retry and double-check that this is not because the password entered was either used before/hitting some of the other password validation rules?

Thanks in advance,

Best regards,
Carsten

[Carsten Sørensen]

Hi Bob,

8. Why are the filters rendered as attached, i.e. why shouldn't this fit on 2 lines instead of 3?

Should be fixed in the next release.

Thanks for reporting it!

Best regards,
Carsten

[Bob Cergol]

Carsten,

I tried to duplicate this to the best of my recollection and cannot. Perhaps the one time it happened to me I had forgot to switch rendering engines in Firefox. If it happens again, and I can repeat it, I'll let you know. Thanks for taking the time to retest it.

Bob

Hi Bob,

I have tried several ways to recreate:

6) if you navigate out of the password section when entering a new user when you save, the system prompts you to enter a password for the user even though the entry appears to be there. (I attempted to set the start page prior to saving the user)

I have tried from IE and Firefox + with a new fresh user and with a copy existing (clicking New User).

I Enter the userID + password + re-type password + do whatever on the TABS - like e.g. setting a start-page.

In all my test cases the password was accepted and I wasn't prompted again.

Can you maybe retry and double-check that this is not because the password entered was either used before/hitting some of the other password validation rules?

Thanks in advance,

Best regards,
Carsten