About report criteria forms

Report criteria forms are specialized forms that can be used to specify how reports are to be generated. Most reports are launched and generated from these report criteria forms.

Note: When you create a report-type form using the Report Builder wizard, the report criteria form is created automatically by the wizard.

On report criteria forms, typically, you can:

Select what data is to be included in the generated report.
Specify how the data is to be arranged and laid out in the report output.
Preview the report output before you actually generate the report.
Manually generate (print) the report.
Set up the report to be scheduled for automatic and scheduled generation.

Report criteria forms are generally intended to be used by end users, such as system administrators or others who are responsible for generating reports.

These forms usually have several editable fields for the report’s parameters. These fields can include criteria such as date ranges; selection of who to include information about, such as customers or vendors; and selection of other specific criteria either to include or not include in the report output.

For a fairly typical example of a report criteria form, take a look at the User Authorization Report.

Report criteria forms are actually the "interface," as it were, between the report object itself and the report that actually gets generated. The report object itself might be a custom Report-template type form, a predefined DataView, or an SSRS report definition file.

No matter what the report object is, though, a report criteria form is required to use it most effectively.

In addition, report criteria forms can be designed in such a way that you can schedule them to be generated automatically, either a single time or on a recurring basis.