Types of Output Requests

You can create the following types of output requests using the reporting language syntax:

• Tabular Report. Displays information in rows and columns. This is the basic report type, incorporating the fundamental reporting concepts. Most of the other report formats build on these concepts. You can drill down or roll up data hierarchies, pivot fields from columns to rows or from rows to columns, and separate information by filtering or querying data sources based on specified criteria or thresholds. You can display these reports in many different formats, including HTML, Excel®, PowerPoint®, and PDF.
• Drill-Down Report. Enables you to create links from report data (including headings and footings), as well as graphic images (such as a company logo or product image), to other reports, procedures, URLs, or JavaScript® functions.
• Drill-Through Report. Enables you to create a PDF document that contains a summary report plus detail reports, where the detail reports contain all the detail data for designated fields in the summary report. Clicking a Drill-Through hyperlink navigates internally in the PDF file and no additional reports are run. Drill-Through reports are static. You can save the PDF file to disk or distribute it using ReportCaster. When opened with Acrobat® Reader, it retains its full drill-through functionality.
• Accordion Report. Provides an interactive interface to data aggregated at multiple levels by presenting the sort fields within an expandable tree. By default, the report will present the highest dimension or sort field (BY value) and the aggregated measures associated with each value. You can use the tree control to open or close each dimension and view the associated aggregated values. Clicking the plus sign (+) next to a sort field value opens new rows that display the next lower-level sort field values and subtotals. The lowest level sort field, when expanded, displays the aggregated data values. Accordion reports can also be created to be opened by column, instead of by row.
• Active Technologies Report. Designed for offline analysis. When using an active report, you can interact with data, using analysis options similar to those found in an Excel workbook. Since no connection to a server is required to view the data or use the analysis options, you can save and use the report anywhere. Analysis options include filtering, sorting, charting, and much more.
• Excel Compound and Table of Contents Report. Provides a way to generate multiple worksheet reports using the XLSX output format. By default, each of the component reports from the compound report is placed in a new Excel worksheet. A Table of Contents report generates a multiple worksheet report where a separate worksheet is generated for each value of the first sort field (BY) in the report.
• Free-Form Report. Presents detailed information about a single record in a form-like context that is often used with letters and forms. If your goal is to present a detailed picture of one record per report page, you can use free-form reports to position headers, footers, free text, and fields precisely on a page. You can customize your headers and footers by including fields as display variables, and incorporate prefix operators in your headers and footers to perform calculations on the aggregated values of a single field.
• Financial Report. Specifically designed to handle the task of creating, calculating, and presenting financially oriented data, such as balance sheets, consolidations, and budgets. You design the content of the report on a row-by-row basis using a field, called a FOR field, that identifies each row, such as an account field. This organization provides a number of advantages, including easily defined inter-row and inter-column calculations, formatting on a cell-by-cell basis, and saving individual rows and row titles in extract files.
• Precision Report. Provides an additional set of tools that make it easy to control the precise placement of objects and data in the report output. With a precision report, you can quickly create a layout that is perfectly aligned for a preprinted form, such as a Bill of Sale or a tax form, and that automatically breaks out one record per report page. You can convert an existing report into a precision report or you can create a new precision report.
• Chart Request. Presents the same kinds of information as tabular reports, but in a wide variety of two-dimensional and three-dimensional chart types. Charts allow you to present information graphically, using such visual cues as color, size, and position to convey relationships between measures (numeric fields to be aggregated) and dimensions (categories) and to identify trends and outliers. Using the GRAPH command, you can easily transform almost any type of data into an effective chart that you can customize to suit your needs. You can link your chart to other resources, or feature conditional styling to highlight specific data in your chart. You may select from a multitude of chart styles, which include the standard chart formats, bar, line, pie, and scatter, as well as many variations on these types.