Roxana Popistaşu IT staff Roxana-Maria.Popistasu@bnl.etat.lu

Roxana PopistaşuIT staff

Roxana-Maria.Popistasu@bnl.etat.lu

ARC – Why Report Studio?

• Query Studio • ad hoc queries • simple reports and charts

• Report Studio • advanced reports and charts (multiple-page,

multiple-query) • specific needs (complex prompts and filters)• greater flexibility in calculating and formatting

results• re-use

Report Studio

• Challenges• complexity of the tool*• little ExLibris documentation*• knowledge of the underlying database• difficulty dealing with error messages (+ access to

the log files on the ARC server)“CM-REQ-4342 The client did something wrong.”“You do not have permission to use Report Studio. Report Studio is shutting down. For more information, contact the administrator.”

* IBM training: Cognos Report Studio (3 days)

• Environment• ALEPH: v18• (ARC) Report Studio: v8.2

ALEPH & ARC

Create new report

Create new report - List

Create new report - Blank

Open existing report

Report design - tips & tricks

• Use:• headers & footers (“Menu: Structure -> Page Header

and Footer...”) – for information that applies to the entire report and that appears on every page

• blocks and tables (“Toolbox: Insertable Objects”)– for horizontal alignment, respectively horizontal and vertical alignment in layout

– (!) blocks and table cells do not add space between objects => insert a text object with “space” character(s)

• images (for logos etc.) only when not saving the report as an Excel file

Report design - advanced

Conditional formatting

•conditional styles – better identify exceptional

or unexpected results

•conditional layouts– multilingual reports– multiformat reports (pdf,

Excel, html etc.)

Crosstabs

• Crosstab reports are used to show the relationships between three or more query items.

• Crosstab reports show data in rows and columns with information summarized at the intersection points.

Crosstabs

Crosstabs – tips & tricks

• In crosstabs only measures (no texts, no dates) can be used for the body (intersection of rows & columns)

• In order to add more than one measure for a crosstab insert all fields at the same time either as rows or as columns and do not use a default measure

• There is no grouping with crosstabs (that is done automatically when creating the crosstab).

• A list can be transformed into a crosstab, but not the other way around.

• Nested crosstabs can be created by adding more than one item to rows or columns.

Multi-page reports

Multi-page reports

Multi-page reports

Multi-page reports

Filters

By creating filters certain conditions are defined around query items in order to report on a specific subset of data.

The filter applies to all rows in the list / crosstab / chart etc.

Filters

Filters – tips & tricks

• For filters you can use:– constants (typed or selected from the data available in ARC),

data items, parameters (prompt values) etc.

• Filters can be: – optional (for prompts), required or disabled (for test purposes)– detail (on an item) or summary (on aggregate data – totals etc.)

filters

• (!) Detail filters work with the rows at the database level (before any aggregation): the values are chosen according to the filter and only afterwards combined.

Prompts

Prompts are used in order to ask the user for a report specification. They function as filters.

Prompts are useful for:•running the same report with different parameters•creating Report Views and schedules

Prompts

Prompts

Prompts

Prompts & filters

Prompts & filters - advanced

• Report views ≈ different outputs of the same report

• the same report specification as the source report• different properties:

prompt values, schedules, delivery methods, run options, languages, and output formats

• Example:• report: “Loans per month”• possible report views: “BnL - Loans per month (pdf)”, “BnL -

Loans per month (xls)”, “Uni - Loans per month (yearly)”, “Uni - Loans per month (trimester)”

ARC - Report views

ARC - Report views

Schedules & jobs

• When scheduling a report several options can be set.

• Scheduling works with reports & report views.• For multiple reports that need to run at the same

time, schedules can be grouped in a job.• (!) Several report views for the same report can

be added to a job, with different prompt values / languages / output or delivery options, but they need to have different names.

Schedules & jobs

Questions, remarks, suggestions?

Roxana Popistaşu

Roxana-Maria.Popistasu@bnl.etat.lu

ARC - Report Studio