Infor BI Application Studio

In Application Studio you build and view reports and reporting applications. A reporting application is a suite of linked reports which support a particular business function, such as financial planning. Reports retrieve data from a database but can also be used to write data back to the database. You can also create reports that act as dialogs in reporting applications. For example, a sequence of linked series of reports can be designed for used as a report configuration wizard.

Reports are spreadsheets which contain lists of elements and associated values which are retrieved from databases through database aliases.

You can define lists in a variety of ways and display them in a variety of list objects.

You can view reports in the full client, in Infor BI Application Studio WebServices and in Infor Business Intelligence Dashboards and Infor BI Dashboards. The Infor BI Installation Guide has instructions for installing and configuring Application Studio WebServices and Dashboards. There are some differences in behavior of reports in the full client and web client. Also, there are some design techniques and features which apply particularly to designing reports for dashboards.

Reports are stored in a report catalog, in a hierarchical structure of folders and subfolders.

Reports can be accessed from the report catalog but, depending on their permissions , end-users might not have direct access to the report catalog. In this case you could, for example, specify a 'start report' for each user which includes navigation between the reports which they have permission to use.

Reports and report books can be exported and delivered to users. You can schedule report delivery with scheduled tasks.

Creating and defining a report are separate processes. You create and manage reports before you define them. That is, you can create, save, name, rename, copy, and move blank reports.

Defining a report is the process of populating it with data and specifying how that data is presented. You define reports by inserting list objects and other objects, slices, lists, actions, formulas, variables, scripts, charts etc,.

Style sheets and templates are also 'reports'. That is, they are created in the same dialog as other reports. You can apply style sheets to multiple reports to affect their visual appearance. Templates determine what data is returned by the reports that are based on them. Templates can be used to create reports which are database independent. That is, reports which can be used with different databases, without requiring changes to the structure of the reports.

There are three report modes: View, Debug, and Design. Typically, a report designer has access to all three modes. But end users might have access only to View mode.

Application Studio is supplied with a sample database called Best Practices. Installation is optional, but recommended because many of the examples in this document, and in the Application Studio Tutorial, are based on it. Another sample database referred to in this document is Tutor. Tutor is intended primarily, but not exclusively, for instructor-led training rather than self-tuition.

The path to the Application Studio Tutorial is Documentation\Application_Studio\Application_Studio_Tutorial_EN.pdf

Another sample database referred to in this document and which you might find useful is AdventureWorks for Microsoft SQL Server.

This document is written from the perspective of an administrator with access to all the options and functions of Application Studio.