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Quick Report ​

A quick report is a "row and column" style report (although using the Advanced Report Designer, you can make the report look anyway you wish). This is the most common type of report in Student Manager Reports.

To create a Quick Report, follow the steps in the Creating a Report topic, and select the Quick Report type.

Step 1 - Main Report Information

In Step 1, enter the following information:

  • Report name: the name of the report. If you enter the name of an existing report, an error message displays. You can't use a backslash ("\") in a report name; the computer will beep if you press that key. You cannot go to the next step until you have entered a valid report name.

  • Folder: the folder this report belongs in. The default is the current folder in the Reports Explorer. You can select the desired folder by clicking the down arrow beside the folder name and choosing the folder in the list that appears. To expand a folder, click the + sign in front of the folder name; the + sign changes to a - sign. To collapse a folder, click the - sign in front of the folder name; the - sign changes to a + sign. To select the desired folder, either click it and click the down arrow again to close the list or double-click it.

  • Comments: any comments entered here appear in the Reports Explorer when the report is selected.

Step 2 - Data Selection

In Step 2, select which fields appear in the report. Note that if you turn on Advanced layout in Step 5 (see below), the options in this step are disabled (with the exception of the Advanced button) and a message appears indicating why this is the case.

The options in this step are:

Table: a drop-down list that displays the names of the tables you can select fields from.

Sort: Student Manager Reports by default displays fields in alphabetical order. This makes it easy to find a field in the list. However, sometimes it makes more sense to display fields in the order they appear in the table. For example, for typical address fields, you would see this order alphabetically:

Address
City
Contact Name
Country
Customer Name
Postal Code
Region

whereas they'd appear like this in table order:

Customer Name
Contact Name
Address
City
Region
Postal Code
Country

Click this button to display fields in table order. Click it again to display them alphabetically. The setting of this button is remembered, so if you edit a report later, it has the same setting.

Find: a long list of fields can make it difficult to find the ones you're interested in. If you know part of the field caption you're looking for (such as a field with "tax" somewhere in the caption), click this button, enter the text, and click OK. If there are any fields that match, the first one is selected. Press F3 to find the next one containing the same text.

Relation: a long list of tables can make it difficult to find the ones you're interested in. Once you've selected fields from one table, chances are you're next going to select fields from a directly-related table. For example, if you chose a field from Customers, you are more likely to choose a field from Orders than from Products. Click this button to reduce the list of tables to only those directly related to ones you've already selected fields from. Click it again to restore the list to all tables.

Available fields: a list containing all reportable fields from the table shown in the Table list that have not already been selected.

Selected fields for this report: a list showing the fields to be included in the report, with the table the field is from shown in parentheses. Fields in this list may be moved up and down to change the order in which the columns are printed on the report; to do this, click the button in front of the field to move and drag the button up or down in the list.

Add: clicking this button adds the selected field in the Available list to the Selected list. You can select several fields by holding down the CTRL key as you select them; clicking Add adds all selected fields to the Selected list. You can also add the field by double-clicking it in the Available list, selecting it and pressing ENTER, or dragging the field from the Available list to the Selected list. The field is removed from the Available list.

If you select a field from a table that is not related in any way to the other tables involved in the report, you will get a warning message.

Add all: clicking this button adds all fields from the selected table to the Selected list.

Remove: clicking this button removes the selected field (or fields if you have selected more than one) from the Selected list. You can also remove the field by dragging it from the Selected list to the Available list. The field is added to the Available list (although you may not see it if the table the field is from is not the selected table).

Remove all: clicking this button removes all fields from the Selected list, and adds them to the Available list (although you only see those fields from the selected table).

  • Advanced: click this button to customize how the report runs.

  • New Formula: click this button to define a new formula. The new formula is automatically added to the report.

  • Edit Formula: click this button, which appears instead of New Formula when you have selected an existing formula, to edit the formula.

  • Values: displays a list of the unique values in the field selected in either the Available or Selected list, depending on which one was selected last. This is handy if you're not sure what data a field contains.

  • Properties: clicking this button displays the Properties dialog. You can also display this dialog by double-clicking the field in the Selected list or selecting it and pressing ENTER. This dialog allows you to specify how the field looks, how grouping is performed, and whether summary totals are shown or not. See Field Properties below for more information.

Field Properties

The Properties dialog allows you to specify how the field looks, how grouping is performed, and whether summary totals are shown or not. You can display this dialog for the field highlighted in the Selected list in Step 2 of the Quick Report Wizard, by clicking the Properties button, double-clicking the field, or selecting the field and pressing ENTER.

See the Field Properties topic for more information.

Step 5 - Formatting Options

Step 5 allows you to specify formatting options for the report.

The options in this step are:

  • Header: text that appears at the top of every page. If you want to use an expression rather than fixed text, such as a user-defined function, add { and } around field or function names in the text. You can also click the Expression Builder button (... beside the text box) to display the Expression Builder, which is a much easier way to create the expression to use.

Here's an example of an expression that displays "Sales for <spelled out month> <year>" (such as "Sales for December 2001") in the report header:

Sales for {cmonth(date())} {year(date())}

Here's an expression that uses the built-in GetConditionValue function, which returns the value of a filter condition for the specified field, to display a header showing "Sales for " a particular country the report is filtered on:

Sales for {GetConditionValue('customers.country')}

Expressions can even include fields from the result set for the report.

  • Footer: text that appears at the bottom of every page. As with the header, you can use an expression for the report footer; click the Expression Builder button to display the Expression Builder, which is a much easier way to create the expression to use.

  • Include filter in report header: if this option is turned on, any filter you've set for the report is displayed in the header of the report.

  • Include database in header: turn this option on to include the database name in the header of the report.

  • Run report with no records: turn this option on (the default) to run the report even when there are no records that match your filter condition. This results in a blank report. If this option is turned off, rather than displaying a blank report, Student Manager Reports displays a message that there are no records.

  • Summary report: if this item is turned on, the report does not print detail information but only those fields that appear in group headers and totaled fields. This option is disabled unless there's at least one group in the report and for advanced layout reports. Note that sorting on totaled fields is given higher priority than grouped fields. This allows you to show, for example, sales by product with the biggest selling items first by using a descending sort on the sales amount field.

You are warned if you run a summary report with fields that won't appear because they aren't grouped or summed. The report still runs if you allow it.

  • Template: this specifies the overall layout of the report. The default template for a new report is determined by the Default template setting in the Options dialog, but if other templates are available, you may select the desired one from the drop-down list. Templates are created and edited using the Template Editor.

  • Subreports: click this button, which is only available if you have an Ultimate license, to display the Subreports Wizard. This wizard allows you to add subreports to the report. A subreport is a report that displays inside another one. For each record in the main report, a subreport shows related records. If a subreport has an ask-at-runtime filter condition that matches a filter condition in the main report, the value of that filter condition for the main report is used for the subreport rather than prompting you for the value (similar to the way this works for linked reports).

Reports containing subreports can output to file, but outputting to Microsoft Excel Data Only (regular and fast formats), Table, and XML outputs only the data for the main report, not the subreports. Nested subreports aren't supported; that is, a subreport can't contain subreports. Some templates work better with subreports than others: Standard, Standard - 8 pt, Elegant, and the various Stylish templates are the best choices, or of course you can edit others or create your own templates to support subreports.

In the first step of the subreport wizard, select the reports you want to use as subreports of the current one. Note that a subreport must have something in common with the current report that's used to link the two. For example, both must have a customer ID or an order ID.

After selecting the subreports you want to use, you can rearrange the order in which they appear when the report is run by clicking the button in front of the desired report and dragging the button up or down in the list.

In the second step, you specify for each subreport which field in the main report links to which field in the subreport. For example, the customer ID in the main report might link to the customer ID in each subreport. You can also specify a subreport description; this is displayed as a header for the subreport when the report is run.

Click Finish to save the subreports.

  • Orientation: the default choice, "Automatic," means that if the report is too wide to fit in portrait orientation, it automatically switches to landscape. However, you can override this by choosing either "Portrait" or "Landscape" to force the report to be printed in the desired orientation.

  • Left margin: how many characters to indent the entire report; this is handy if, for example, you want to print a report and punch holes in it so it can be inserted into a binder.

  • Allow report to be filtered: turn this option on if someone can specify a filter for the report in the Reports Explorer. This should normally be turned on, but if you specify a filter in Step 3, you may wish to turn this off.

  • Allow report to be sorted: turn this option on if someone can specify a sort order for the report in the Reports Explorer. If you group on any field, or specify a sort order in Step 4, you may want to turn this option off.

  • Show totals in group headers: if this option is turned on, group totals appear in the group header rather than the group footer. This option is disabled if there aren't any groups in the report or if any field has its Summary option set to "Count Distinct." If the report has an advanced layout and you want to change this setting, you'll have to do one of the following:

If the setting is currently off and you want to turn it on, you'll have to manually add the total to the group header band and remove it from the group footer band. Create a new field in the group header band and use this as its expression:

GetGroupCountOrTotal(1,'fieldname')

where fieldname is the real name of the field (without the table name) being summed. For example:

GetGroupCountOrTotal(1,'TOTAL_PRICE')

If the setting is currently on and you want to turn it off, you'll have to manually remove the total from the group header band and add it to the group footer band. Create a new field in group footer band and use the real name of the field (without the table name and not in quotes) being summed as the expression. In the Calculate page of the Field Properties dialog, set Calculation type to Sum and Reset based on to the field being grouped on.

  • Auto-fit to page: this option adjusts the fields so they fit the width of the page. It does this one of two ways:
  • If there are a lot of fields in the report, Student Manager Reports normally moves fields to a second row when there are too many to fit on one. If you turn this option on, it automatically reduces the font as necessary (down to 6 points) in an attempt to fit the fields on one row. Of course, it's still possible they won't fit on one row, depending on how many fields you've chosen, the paper width, the orientation, the font, and the font size.
  • If there aren't many fields in the report, Student Manager Reports adds extra space between the columns so the fields are spread evenly across the page to take up the entire width of the page.

This option is disabled for advanced layout reports.

  • Chart: if this option, which is only available if you have a Premium or Ultimate license, is turned on, you can add a chart to the report by clicking the Edit button beside this option and using the Chart Wizard. Note that if Advanced layout, described later, is turned on, you cannot turn this option on, although you can turn it off if you wish to remove the chart.

  • Edit: click this button, which is only enabled if the "Chart" option is turned on, to display the Chart Wizard. The only two steps available in the Chart Wizard are Chart Layout and Formatting Options because the rest of the steps in the Chart Wizard are used for creating stand-alone charts.

If you are defined as an advanced user in the Maintain Users and Groups dialog and you have a Premium or Ultimate license, two other options are available:

  • Advanced layout: if this option is turned on, this report's layout can be edited in the Advanced Report Designer. When this is turned on, you can no longer add or remove fields using the items in Step 2; you must add or remove them using the Advanced Report Designer instead. If this option is turned off for a report that has an advanced layout, any advanced layout for the report is discarded (you are asked to verify that you want to do this).

  • Edit: click this button, which is only enabled if the Advanced layout option is turned on, to display the Advanced Report Designer.

Step 6 - Security Options

The options in Step 6 allow you to determine who can access your report and what they can do with it.

The options in this step are:

  • Available groups: this shows which user groups do not have access to this report.

  • Selected groups: this shows which user groups have access to this report. By default, the Everyone group has access to a new report, so all users can see it. If you want only certain users to see it, remove the Everyone group from the Selected list and add the appropriate groups from the Available list. If no groups have access to the report, the report is essentially private, available only to you.

  • Add: clicking this button adds the selected group in the Available list to the Selected list. You can select several groups by holding down the CTRL key as you select them; clicking Add adds all selected groups to the Selected list. You can also add the group by double-clicking it in the Available list, selecting it and pressing ENTER, or dragging the group from the Available list to the Selected list. The group is removed from the Available list.

  • Add all: clicking this button adds all groups from the Available list to the Selected list.

  • Remove: clicking this button removes the selected group (or groups if you have selected more than one) from the Selected list. You can also remove the group by dragging it from the Selected list to the Available list. The group is added to the Available list.

  • Remove all: clicking this button removes all groups from the Selected list, and adds them to the Available list.

  • In addition to running the report, users in the selected group may modify or delete this report: turn this option on if the selected group in the Selected list can edit or delete this report; if this item is turned off, only you are able to do so.

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