Creating Reports

In this section:

How to:

Available as a Technical Preview, you can use WebFOCUS Designer to create reports. Reports allow you to communicate information at a high level of detail using a familiar tabular format. You can save and share reports, add saved reports to pages, or edit existing reports created in WebFOCUS Designer. The Technical Preview provides basic reporting functionality within the easy to use Designer interface.

To enable the Technical Preview so that you can create reports using WebFOCUS Designer, on the WebFOCUS Home Page, expand the User menu, point to Administration and click Administration Console. In the Administration Console, from the navigation pane on the Configuration tab, click Other. On the Other page, type ALL in the Technical Preview Features field, and then click Save.

To create a report, on the WebFOCUS Home Page, select the domain or folder in which you want to save your content, and, on the Common or Designer tab of the Action bar, click Report.

You are then prompted to select a data source, which defines the fields that you can use to build the report. You can select a Master File (.mas) or a Reporting Object (.ro) as your data source. Reporting Objects help non-technical users see their data in a manner that is already filtered and refined, allowing you to limit the information that specific users can access when creating content in WebFOCUS. You can also upload a spreadsheet, CSV file, or other local file, or connect to an external data source.

You select your data from the Open dialog box, which has two tabs: Server and Repository. These tabs list data files based on where they are stored. Master Files are typically stored on the Server, while you can access Reporting Objects and Master File shortcuts from the Repository.

Once you have selected a data source, you are ready to begin creating a report. The following image shows the default WebFOCUS Designer interface when you create a report.


WebFOCUS Designer Report interface

To populate the report, select measures and dimensions from the Fields tab, which displays the fields that were populated from your data source. You can add fields to your report in the following ways:

When you add a field to your report, the canvas updates to display the values in it.

You can define the rows and columns in a report by adding fields to the Rows and Columns buckets, respectively. Typically, these are dimension fields. The values in these fields are used to sort the report.

You can display aggregated values in a report by adding fields to the Summary bucket. This bucket is usually used to display values for measure fields. The Summary bucket displays by default, but you can change the bucket by selecting a different display option. The available display options are shown in the following image.



The Summary and Count options provide aggregated measure values for each sort value, that is, each row or column, in the report. The Detail and Detail with counter display options, on the other hand, provide a complete list of every value for the selected field or fields.

Once you have added fields to the report, you can format it to enhance its appearance or style. For example, you might want to add a header and footer to identify the information on each page of the report, or use a report template to modify the layout. You can also click the Style tab to apply a theme or change the output format of the report.

You can filter a report using a prompted filter. To create a filter, drag a field from the Fields tab to the Filter toolbar. When you click the filter on the Filter toolbar, a menu appears, allowing you to select default filter values. When content with prompted filters is added to a page, you can create filter controls to allow users to select their own filter values at run time. You can also require user selection for a prompted filter, so that the report does not run until the user makes a filter selection, by right-clicking the filter in the toolbar and clicking Require selection, as shown in the following image.


Require selection option for a prompted filter

Procedure: How to Create a Report Using WebFOCUS Designer

  1. From the WebFOCUS Home Page, click the Designer tab.
  2. Click Report.

    Note: The Report option will only be available on the Designer tab if the Technical Preview has been enabled.

  3. Select an existing data source, or connect to a new one, and click Select in the Open dialog box.
  4. Add sort fields to the report by dragging dimension fields from the Fields pane into the Rows and Columns buckets.

    Note: You can also double-click a dimension field or drag it onto the canvas to add it to the Rows bucket.

  5. Add aggregated data values to the report by dragging measure fields from the Fields pane into the Summary bucket.

    Note: You can also double-click a measure field or drag it onto the canvas to add it to the Summary bucket, or other measure bucket if you have changed the display option.

    The report displays the selected fields, based on the bucket they were placed in.

  6. The following are some of the options you have to customize the report:
    • Select a theme from the Style tab.
    • Select an output format for the report by selecting a value from the Output Format menu on the Style tab.
    • Change the layout of the report by selecting a report template from the Report picker.
    • Filter the report by dragging fields into the Filter toolbar.
    • Add subtotals, page breaks, or row breaks to the report each time the value in a field changes by right-clicking a field, pointing to Insert breaks, and selecting an option for each category.
    • Add a header or footer from the Show option menu .
    • Enable Auto Drill or Auto Linking, or make the report an Auto Link target, from the More menu .
    • Add column or row totals to the report from the More menu.
  7. To see a run-time view of the report, including behaviors such as Auto Drill or dynamic filtering that are not available in the canvas, click Preview on the Designer toolbar.
  8. On the WebFOCUS Designer toolbar, click Save to save your report to a selected location. Once saved, you can share the report and add it to a page.

    To open the report to edit it again at a later time, locate it on the Home Page, right-click it, and click Edit from the shortcut menu.

Previewing Reports

As you create reports in WebFOCUS Designer, you can preview them to see how your data displays in the report, to check the styling before publishing it or sharing it with others, and to see run time behaviors such as filter prompting, Auto Drill and Auto Linking, and offline analysis features. At any point in the development of your report, click Preview on the Designer toolbar, as shown in the following image.


Designer toolbar showing Preview button

This executes your request and presents the results in the preview window.

When previewing a report that contains filters that require selection, the autoprompt facility opens, allowing you to select filter values at run time. Once you've made your selections, you can load the report by clicking Run with filter values Run with filter values button in Autoprompt. To change your filter selections, click the hamburger control Autoprompt hamburger control to reopen the filter panel, and then change the values selected in the filter controls.

When autoprompt is present, the Esc key causes the parameter panel to open and close. In this case, you can use the blue dot to return from the preview to the design view of your report.

WebFOCUS