Query-based Reporting

In Reporting Studio you can develop query-based reports that read data from the LN database. A query-based report only reads data; it does not perform any transactions or updates, and therefore cannot be part of the business process.

Architecture

The following figure shows an architectural overview of the Reporting Studio and the Enterprise Server runtime environment.

Query-based reporting architecture

Query-based reporting architecture

Reporting Studio uses the Infor JDBC driver to connect to the LN query-based data source. The Infor JDBC connector must be available on the development client machine. The JDBC connector uses the JBDB API to connect to the LN database driver.

Note:

  • In LN, the report designs are stored in the Reports (ttadv330) table. The runtime files are stored in the report sources folder and have a ".rptdesign" filename extension.
  • When you run a report, Web UI downloads the report design to your machine.
Resource files

The report designs are language independent.

When you want to insert label and text elements in a report, you specify resource keys rather than static text. The report design is linked to one or more resource files that contain the resource keys and their values.

You can create resource files per ISO 639-1 language code and ISO 3166 country code.

In this way you can localize report titles, column headings, chart titles, and other static labels.

When you print a report, Web UI passes the locale to the Report Viewer. The locale of the machine is not used. Therefore, when you create resource files, you must use the same language – country codes as Web UI does.

When you print a report, the Report Viewer uses the locale passed by Web UI, the resource keys, and resource files to find the appropriate text value to display.

See this diagram for an example.

Sample resource files

Sample resource files

The diagram shows these elements:

  • Resource files for English, German, French, and Dutch. Each file contains the resource key "customer", and the corresponding localized text value.
  • Report design. The design is linked to the resource files, and contains the resource key "customer".
  • Report output when the report is run in the English, German, French, and Dutch locales.
Note
  • In LN, the resource files are stored in the Additional Files table (ttadv270). The runtime files are stored in the additional files folder and have a ".properties" filename extension.
  • When you run a report, Web UI downloads the locale-specific resource file to your machine.
Report libraries

Reporting Studio supports the use of shared report elements through libraries: You can create report libraries that contain code you want to share in multiple reports, and link them to your query-based report designs.

Note
  • In LN, the report libraries are stored in the Reports (ttadv330) table. The runtime files are stored in the report sources folder and have a ".rptlibrary" filename extension.
  • When you run a report, Web UI downloads the report libraries, which are linked to the report design, to your machine.
Setup

To set up query-based reporting, you must:

  1. Create a report project. For details, refer to To create a report project.
  2. Create query-based report designs. For details, refer to To create query-based reports. When you design a report, you must also create the required resource files and libraries, and link them to the report design. For details, refer to To create resource files and To create report libraries.
  3. Add the report to a Web UI homepage, or create a 4GL session and link the report to this session. For details, refer to To create a print session for query-based reports.
Implementation

You can execute a query-based report from a Web UI homepage, and through a 4GL print session on the LN server.

For details, refer to To run query-based reports.