Administrator s Guide

25

Chapter Three

LIVEREPORTS

LiveReports are powerful tools that allow direct access to the RDBMS underlyingLivelink. To that end, they contain an SQL statement. You can have LiveReports returnstatistical information about the database contents (such as a pie chart showing theproportion of items owned by each user), or change the database contents (for example,re-assign all tasks of a user who left the organization). Due to this potential, carefulconsideration is necessary when allowing users to create LiveReports. On the other hand,you may want to grant users permission to run certain LiveReports, for example to list allLivelink items they own or have checked out. Granted permission, users can runLiveReports from the Status tab of their Personal or a Project Workspace.

This chapter covers the following topics:

Installing and Uninstalling the LiveReports Module on page 26

LiveReports Administration on page 27

Who Can Use LiveReports? on page 33

Examples: Creating LiveReports on page 33

Installing and Uninstalling the LiveReports Module

26

Livelink Forms and LiveReports Administrators Guide

Installing and Uninstalling the LiveReports Module

Livelinks modular structure allows you to include, exclude, or upgrade LiveReports foryour particular system.

The LiveReports module is automatically installed when you install Livelink.

Refer to the appropriate sections of the Installing, Uninstalling, and Upgrading Moduleschapter of the Livelink Installation Guide for information about installing, uninstalling, orupgrading the LiveReports module.

LiveReports Administration

LiveReports

27


Most tasks ensuring that LiveReports work smoothly in your system are done from theLivelink Intranet Administration page. For information about Accessing the LivelinkIntranet Administration page, see the corresponding section of the Introduction to theLivelink Administrators Guide.

The following sections describe how the links on the Livelink Intranet Administrationpage allow you to:

Browse the LiveReports Volume

Export LiveReports

Import LiveReports

Specifying Valid Object Input Parameters is the only LiveReports-related administrativetask that requires editing the opentext.ini file; see page 32.


28


The LiveReports Volume

This system folder initially contains a set of LiveReports provided by Open Text. You canmodify these reports to meet your users needs. New LiveReports may be added to theReports Volume either via the Add New Item menu, or by importing them from outsideyour Livelink system, as described in the Importing LiveReports section.

LiveReports may be stored anywhere in Livelink. However, only those in the ReportsVolume appear on the Personal Workspace Status pages of users who are granted Seepermission for them (see page 33 on LiveReport Permissions, and the online Help formore information).

To access the Reports Volume:

1.

Click

Browse the LiveReports Volume

on the Livelink Intranet Administration page.

The Reports Volume page appears:

2.

You can now work with the

Reports Volume

the same as with other Livelink folders, for

example create new LiveReports within, administer permissions for the volume, configure

the volume, and so on.


LiveReports

29

Exporting LiveReports

You can export LiveReports from Livelink to a text file. They can later be imported again,into a different Livelink system if you like, as described in the Importing LiveReportssection on page 31.

To export one batch of LiveReports:

1.

Click

Export LiveReports


The Export LiveReport page appears, displaying a check list of all existing LiveReports:

2.

Click the check box(es) corresponding to the LiveReport(s) you want to export into one

file.


30


3.

Click the

Export

button or the

Export and Delete

button, depending on whether you want

to keep the copy of the selected LiveReport(s) on your current Livelink system or not,

respectively.

A File Download dialog box opens.

4.

Browse to the network location where you would like to store the exported LiveReports

file. Enter a Filename with a

.txt

extension and click

Save

.

5.

Use your browsers

Back

button to return to the Livelink Intranet Administration page.


LiveReports

31

Importing LiveReports

Instead of creating LiveReports from scratch within your system, you can import reportsthat were exported earlier from Livelink (see Exporting LiveReports on page 29). This addsgreat flexibility, as it allows your LiveReports to be generated on different Livelinksystems, for example, at partner organizations, or Open Text.

To import LiveReports:

1.

Click

Import LiveReports


The Import LiveReport page appears:

2.

Click the

Browse Livelink

button corresponding to the

Create In

field.

A separate window opens.

3.

Browse to the Livelink container to which you want to add the imported LiveReport(s),

and click its Select link.

The window closes, and the Import LiveReport page reappears with the selected locations

path name in the

Create In

field.

4.

Click the

Browse

button corresponding to the

Pick or Create an Export File

field.

A File Upload dialog box opens.

5.

Select a LiveReport file to upload from your computer or the network.

After closing the File Upload dialog box, the Import LiveReport page reappears with the

selected files path name in the

Pick or Create an Export File

field.

6.

Click the

Add Item

button.

The Livelink Intranet Administration page reappears.


32


Specifying Valid

Object

Input Parameters

Optionally, you can change the list from which users select a Livelink item type whenrunning an interactive LiveReport that uses an Input parameter of type Object (see alsoInteractive LiveReports with User Inputs on page 40). The default set of available item typesis explained below.

To specify which Object types will be available in the selection lists, use a text editor toedit the [report] section of the opentext.ini file located in the /installation_path/configdirectory of your primary Livelink host.

The default set of SubType codes shown above corresponds to the following item types:

Code

Item Type

299

LiveReport

215

Discussion

202

Project

206

Task

204

Task List

144

Document

0

Folder

140

URL

207

Channel

130

Topic

For a complete list of all SubType codes in your particular Livelink implementation, referto your Livelink RDBMS tables.

Who Can Use LiveReports?

LiveReports

33

Who Can Use LiveReports?

At least a basic knowledge of SQL and the Livelink Schema is necessary to editLiveReports effectively.

Depending on their SQL statements, LiveReports have potential for altering theinformation in the system database. To ensure the integrity of your Livelink Intranet,Open Text recommends limiting item creation privileges for LiveReports to a smallnumber of individuals, typically the Admin user. To protect your database, a user cannotmodify any LiveReport unless that user is given the LiveReports creation privilege as well.

The following sections discuss the user privilege to create LiveReports, and permissionsfor LiveReports, respectively.

LiveReports Creation Privilege

By default, the privilege to create LiveReports is restricted to the Admin user.

For full details on Administering Item Creation Privileges, refer to the correspondingsection of the Administering Livelink Items chapter in the Livelink Administrators Guide.

! Warning

A user who is allowed to modify or create LiveReports may include any

kind of SQL statement, not only

select

, but also

update

or

delete

. To

ensure the integrity of your Livelink system, Open Text recommends that

you leave the privilege to create LiveReports restricted to the Admin

user, or only extend it to a very small number of users who have

knowledge of both SQL and the Livelink Schema.

LiveReport Permissions

The permissions a user may be granted for a LiveReport are the same as for most otherLivelink items: See, See Contents, Modify, Edit Permissions, Edit Attributes, and Delete.

However:

Modify permission requires a user to have the LiveReport item creation privilege aswell, in order for it to become effective.

See Contents permission is necessary for users to be able to run the LiveReport.

Examples: Creating LiveReports

34



The following sections illustrate the creation of LiveReports using a specific scenario. Tosee more sample reports, make copies of some of the provided LiveReports (from theReports Volume) and use the Edit function to look at them and experiment. For morecomprehensive general information see the online Help.

! Note

You must have the LiveReports creation privilege in order to create,

copy, and edit LiveReports as suggested in the following examples.

As an example scenario, suppose you were interested in how many items are added eachday to your Livelink database. The following sections describe how to create LiveReportsto answer that question.


LiveReports

35

Basic LiveReports

First, you can create a LiveReport that computes and lists the number of Livelink itemscreated each day:

1.

Select

LiveReport

from the

Add New Item

menu on the Home page of your Personal

Workspace.

The Add: LiveReport page appears.

2.

Make the following changes:

Change the default name in the

Name

field to:

New Items per Day

(Optional) In the Description text box, enter:

This LiveReport displays how many new Livelink items werecreated each day.

This information is only displayed on the LiveReport's General Info for page.

In the

Title

field, enter:

New Items per Day

(Optional) In the

Record Limit

field, change the maximum number of records to be

displayed. This depends on the age and size of your Livelink database, and on how

long a list you would like to see.

! Note

Carefully consider which record limit is safe, while still allowing the

LiveReport to fulfill its purpose. Too high a record limit may cause a

LiveReport to use up all resources in a large Livelink system. Too low a

limit may result in truncating the reported dataset before crucial records

are retrieved.

In the

SQL

text box, enter the following:

select count(*) "Number of Items", trunc(DTree.CreateDate)"Date" from DTree group by trunc(DTree.CreateDate) orderby trunc(DTree.CreateDate) desc

From the

Report Format

list, select

AutoLiveReport

, because the default

LiveReport

format only works for lists of Livelink items.

(Optional) Click the

Configure

button to customize the table layout in a separate

window. See the Tabular Formats online Help for more details.


36



LiveReports

37

3.

Click the

Add Item

button.

Your Personal Workspace page reappears. If you did not change the location in the

Create In

field, the New Items per Day LiveReport is listed there with your other Livelink items:

Click New Items per Day to run the LiveReport, and examine the results. The result pageshould look similar to the following:

The next section discusses the use of parameters in LiveReports.


38


LiveReports with Parameters

Parameters are placeholders whose values are filled in at the time the LiveReport is run,for example the current date, the ID number of the user running the report, etc. Someparameter types function as acronyms for long lists. For example, the Report Field type isa shorthand notation for the list of columns minimally required by the LiveReport format.

To continue the example from the previous section, suppose you wanted a LiveReport todisplay how many items were created each day by the particular user who is running thereport. Simply incorporate the system parameter representing the current user as follows:

1.

Make a copy of your New Items per Day LiveReport from the previous section, and name

it:

My New Items per Day

2.

Click the

Edit

link of the My New Items per Day LiveReport.

The Edit: My New Items per Day page appears.

3.


Change the

title

to:

My New Items per Day

Change the

SQL

statement to:

select count(*) "Number of Items", trunc(DTree.CreateDate)"Date" from DTree where DTree.UserID=%1 group bytrunc(DTree.CreateDate) order by trunc(DTree.CreateDate)desc

From the

Param %1

list, select

UserID

.


LiveReports

39

4.

Click the

Save and Execute

button.

A new page appears, showing the results of the updated LiveReport (that is, the number of

items you created on each day). At the same time, your changes are permanently stored with

the LiveReport.


40


Interactive LiveReports with User Inputs

The previous section discussed parameters that are automatically substituted by systemvalues at run time. User Input parameters are slightly differentthey allow the user tospecify interactively which value is to replace the parameter. When you run an interactiveLiveReport, Livelink displays a new page to prompt you for input. Depending on theInput parameter type, you click the provided browse link to make a selection, or enter avalue directly in the provided field.

To take the last example one step farther, suppose you wanted to be able to specify whosenew items to count, every time you run the LiveReport. This way, you could run the sameLiveReport, no matter whether you needed the number of User Xs new items per day, orthe number of User Ys new items. In the former case, you would run the LiveReport andselect X when prompted; in the latter case, you would run the same report but select Ywhen prompted.

Incorporate a User Input parameter of type User as follows:

1.

Make a copy of your My New Items per Day LiveReport from the previous section, and

name it:

[User]s New Items per Day

2.

Click the

Edit

link of the [User]s New Items per Day LiveReport.

The Edit: [User]s New Items per Day page appears.

3.


Change the

title

to:

Items created by the user with ID %1

From the first

Type

list in the

Inputs

section, select

User

.

Enter Whose items to count?

In the corresponding first

Prompt

field.

From the

Param %1

list, select

User Input 1

.


LiveReports

41


42


4.

Click the

Save and Execute

button.

A new page appears, displaying the prompt

Whose items to count?,

and a

Browse for a User

link.

At the same time, your changes are permanently stored with the LiveReport.

5.

Click the

Browse for a User

link (whenever an interactive LiveReport provides a

browse

link,

you must use it to enter a value rather than typing the value).

A new window opens.

6.

If you know (part of) the last name of the user whose items you want to count, enter it in

the

Search

field.

In any case, click the

Find

button.

A list of available users appears.

7.

Click the

Select

link of the user of your choice.

The window closes, and the LiveReport page reappears with the name of the selected user in

the

Whose items to count?

field.

8.

Click the

Update

button to pass the user ID on to the LiveReport.

A new page appears, showing the results of your LiveReport, that is, the number of items the

selected user created on each day. Notice that the question mark for the parameter in the title

banner was replaced by the user ID number once that parameter value was specified:


LiveReports

43

LiveReports with Sub-Reports

Sometimes additional questions arise when running a LiveReport and looking at itsresults. For example, when you see in the results returned by one of the earlier sampleLiveReports that a particularly high (or low) number of items was created on some days,you might wonder just which items those were. Livelink allows you to attach a sub-reportto any LiveReport, to answer such additional questions. If you attach a sub-report to aLiveReport, a Details link appears with each entry on the result page of the initial report.In the example, provided the sub-report is suitably defined, clicking the Details link of aparticular date in the initial table displays a list of all Livelink items created on that day.

In principle, any LiveReport may be attached as a sub-report, although somecoordination of parameters between the sub-report and its parent LiveReport isnecessary.

To illustrate the concept, a sample combination of a sub-report and a LiveReport using itis described in the remainder of this section.


44


A Sub-Report

In the first step, define and test the LiveReport that will become the sub-report. Itspurpose is to list all items created on a particular day by a particular user.

1.

Select

LiveReport

from the

Add New Item

menu on the Home page of your Personal

Workspace.

The Add: LiveReport page appears.

2.


Change the default name in the

Name

field to:

Items Created on Day X

(Optional) In the

Description

text box, enter:

This LiveReport lists all Livelink items that were createdon a particular day by a particular user.

This information is only displayed on the LiveReport's General Info for page.

In the

Title

field, enter:

Items created %1 by user ID %2

In the

Inputs

section:

Select

Date

from the first

Type

list, and enter Create Date?

as corresponding

Prompt.

Select

User

from the second

Type

list, and enter Whose Items?

as corresponding

Prompt.

In the

SQL

text box, enter the following:

select * from DTree where (trunc(DTree.CreateDate)=%1 andDTree.UserID=%2)

From the

Param %1

list, select

User Input 1

.

From the

Param %2

list, select

User Input 2

.


LiveReports

45


46


3.

Click the

Add Item

button.

Your Personal Workspace page reappears. If you did not change the location in the

Create In

field, the Items Created on Day X LiveReport is listed there with your other Livelink items:

Click Items Created on Day X to test-run the LiveReport. Specify date and user whenprompted (enter the date according to the Date Input Format for your Livelink system),click the Update button, and examine the results.

The result page should look similar to the following:


LiveReports

47

A

Parent

LiveReport

In the second step, you attach the sub-report to another LiveReport. To create a parentreport for the Items Created on Day X LiveReport:

1.

Make a copy of your New Items per Day LiveReport from the

LiveReports with Parameters

section, and name it:

My New Items per Day (Details)

2.

Click the

Edit

link of the My New Items per Day (Details) LiveReport.

The Edit: My New Items per Day (Details) page appears.

3.


For the

Click-thru Sub-Report

field, click the

Browse Livelink

button.

A new window opens.

Browse to the Items Created on Day X LiveReport, and click its

Select

link.

The window closes, and the Edit: My New Items per Day (Details) page reappears with

the path name of the sub-report in the

Click-thru Sub-Report

field.

In the

Sub-Report Param 1

field, enter Date

In the

Sub-Report Param 2

field, enter %1


48



LiveReports

49

4.

Click the

Save and Execute

button.

A new page appears, showing the results of the updated LiveReport (that is, the number of

items you created on each day with

Details

links). At the same time, your changes are

permanently stored with the LiveReport. The result page should look similar to the following:

5.

Click one of the

Details

links.

A new page appears, showing the results of the attached sub-report. If at least one item was

created on the day whose

Details

link you clicked, these items should be listed similar to the

following:

6.

Your browsers

Back

button will take you back to the previous page, where you can click

other

Details

links.

Documents

Administrator s Guide