Activity Overview

This document provides you with a brief overview for each activity that can be performed in the designer mode:

Order Reports

When you click Order Reports it will open reports that has been published using Publish Reports. This activity is performed in the end user mode.

Load Report from Database

Use this functionality to retrieve saved reports. This activity is performed in the end user mode.

Report Book

The report book comprises of the following features:

Customize Data Access Type

Design Sheet

Design sheets are Microsoft Excel worksheets with additional IFS defined design controls.

Pivot

Use the pivot feature to design a pivot table or a pivot chart.

Select Information Sources

Click Select Information Sources to select an information source to use in the report design.

Refresh Information Sources

If an information source has changed, click Refresh Information Sources to update the information source. For example, if a dimension item is added to an information source you should use Refresh Information Sources before you can see the new dimension item in the information source navigator.

Grid

Use Grid to display the display item tree navigator in the Document Actions pane. You can also access design sections through this.

View Executed Report

Use View Executed Report to view the most recently executed reports. This will be displayed in the Recent Reports pane. Usually this holds a maximum of four reports and more recent reports are found within the More folder.

Execute

Click Execute in order to view results of the latest design changes done for the report. At the point of execution a dialog box would prompt you to enter parameter values if parameters are used in the report. Select the parameter values from the List of Values and then execute the report. After selecting the parameters, another dialog box will prompt you to choose the type of data to be used for the report. This will be displayed depending on the Cache Options specified in the Options pane.

Cache Data: Select this option to use the already retrieved information in the changed design.
Refresh Data: Select this option to retrieve information from the database and use in the changed design.

Online or Data Mart can be selected as the data access type at the Report Book level. If Online is selected, online information is included in the executed report. If Data Mart is selected, data is extracted from materialized views to the executed report.