Providing Updated Reports to End-Users

rbuser

I am looking at providing an end-user option so the customer can build their
own reports. I would also provide a number of reports that we have defined
in the application. I would like to add the tables provided for the
end-user demo into the Advantage Database that our application uses. I have
done this with a separate database and have that working. What I am
wondering is how other developers that are doing this add new reports or
update existing reports on a customer database without loosing any reports
that the customer may have created?

Thanks in advance!!

Gary


--
HiMARKS, LLC
Gary D. Derby
Vice-President Development
2625 McGowan Blvd.
Marion, Iowa 52302
(319)491-5848
gary.derby@gmx.com

rbuser

"Gary Derby" wrote in message news:49bc05ce$1@mail....
We usually distribute .rtm files to a specific folder which our main
application looks for on startup and merges into the report db.

We do, however, have to insist that the customer always save their own
'custom' reports in their own reports folder or with a different name,
otherwise they risk losing them whenever a 'standard' report is updated and
distributed.

We have looked at adding a field in the report tables to cater for 'read
only' standard reports but haven't really had need to do so yet. The idea
with this being that it would prevent end user mods to those standard
reports, forcing them to save under a different name/folder.

Regards, Paul.

rbuser

Gary

Sorry for the delay in responding.

I use 2 end-user modules. One is called Master Reports and is read only and
the other is called User Reports which is design etc. I design and add to
the Master Reports and send out updated tables once in a while. Usually I
will annotate any new or modified report with an asterisk or put a duplicate
in a "New" folder. I provide a facility within my program to copy reports
from the Master to End User modules. My master password allows me to
override the read only setting for Master reports. Both report modules use
the same data dictionary. Hope this is of help.

Regards

Tim Murfitt

rbuser

Tim,

Thank you for the response. I have a couple questions.
1. Are you using Advantage Database? If not what database are you
using?
2. When you say you are using '2 end-user modules' what are you
referring to? Delphi data modules?

Thank you again.

Gary

rbuser

Gary

Yes I am using Advantage (a great product).

By 2 end user modules i mean 2 Report Builder Explorers. One is read only
(master reports I have supplied) and the other is editable (for user
designed reports). I have a total of 7 advantage tables for the reporting
functions: rbTable, rbField and rbJoin for the Data Dictionary;
rbFolderMaster and rbItemMaster for the master reports module; rbFolder and
rbItem for the end user reports module. I have a separate form / routine
that allows end users to easily copy reports from the Master to End User
report modules. When I supply a new user with the program the reports in
the end user module will be identical to those in the master module.

I dont know what the position is now but i used to find that ReportBuilder
and Delphi DataModules did not mix well together. With RB7 reports were
very slow whenever a datamodule was used so I have not used them with any
Report Explorers since.


Regards

Tim

rbuser

Tim,

Thank you for the information. I will give that a try. Thanks for the
information regarding the Delphi DataModules also.

Gary

nardmoseley

There are no known issues with placing a Report on a TDataModule.

I think it was the Delphi 5 IDE that had an issue with using the Report
Designer at Delphi design-time on a TDataModule. It was a Delphi IDE bug, no
other version of Delphi before or after had that issue. And the error did
not occur at run-time.


--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors
www.digital-metaphors.com

rbuser

Nard

Apologies for suggesting problems with ReportBuilder and data modules! You
are right in that I was using Delphi5 at the time and got in the habit of
avoiding mixing RB and DataModules. Old habits die hard.

Regards

Tim