Creating burst reports

You can design reports so that the output will be split by predefined groupings within the report. The report data must be grouped at the level at which you wish to split the output, for example by account code.

The process of breaking a larger document into smaller sub-documents is generally known as 'bursting'. For example, you can take a large general ledger report and burst it by account to segregate one account from another in terms of output so that it may be viewed by, or distributed to, different users.

Note: Use Report Manager to view the output of burst reports as the individual instances of the report output cannot be displayed on the Report Preview tab in Report Designer.

To burst report output:

  1. Select View > Properties to display the Properties tab and select the name of the current report from the drop-down list at the top of this tab to display the report's properties.
  2. From the Document Level Key property drop-down list, select one of the previously defined Order By fields as the key value, for example Account. The field you select must have unique values.
    Note: The Document Level Key property drop-down list contains all fields that you have included in grouped sections of the report. When the list contains no values, no groupings have been defined.

    When you set the Document Level Key property of a report to a key value, the Run as Batch parameter is presented to the user at runtime. When the user checks the Run as Batch check box, this generates a report for each key value, for example each account.

  3. Click OK.
  4. To specify a particular folder for the report output, from the Edit menu, select Report Parameters.
  5. Select the outputPath parameter and then click Edit. This opens the Report Parameter dialog.
    In the Report Parameter dialog, on the General tab:
    • In the Values field of the Default Value section, type a name, for example /Customer Reports/$KeyValue (where the folder Customer Reports has already been set up).
    • To select an existing output path, in the Values field, browse and then select the file output folder that was set in Report Manager, for example /Customer Reports/PK1/$KeyValue, from the list of paths.
    • In Lookup Characteristics, ensure the All possible values radio button is selected.
  6. To specify the naming of the report:
    • Either predefine the output file name
    • Or, do nothing and let the user change the default output filename at runtime.

    To predefine the output file name:

    • From the Report Parameters dialog, select the outputFilename parameter and click Edit to open the Report Parameter dialog.
    • On the General tab, in the Default Value field, the name of the report is displayed. This is the name that is used as the prefix for the report name and you can amend this if required. The suffix _KeyValue is appended to each instance of the report.
    • Close the Report Parameters dialog.
  7. Save your changes.