Jorn Lindhard Mortensen's blog : native report

How can I create new Office Accounting reports that can be seen by low rights users?

Jorn — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:14:00 GMT

A few people have had this problem now: They create a report add-in for Office Accounting but when they deploy to the end users the reports does not show up in the menu. One of those ”but it works for me!!” problems…

A typical reason can be that you forgot to set the AreaAccess property when you registered the report. The value of this property determines what access rights the user needs to be able to see the report:

descriptor.AreaAccess = new PermissionArea[] {

PermissionArea.ManageCompanyFA, PermissionArea.GeneralLedgerTransactionsFA}

Naturally there is another side to this; remember to ensure that a user with the rights you assign actually has access to the data you are trying to show, if not the report may just fail when you try to get the data from the database.

My Office Accounting report’s aging filters need to add new columns

Jorn — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:41:00 GMT

I just got this question:

“The problem is that I am creating a new custom report using the INativeReportV2 interface. I am trying to apply Aging Options Filter to the report. The problem is, how I do capture those values in the CreateDesign method? The CreateDesign method only accepts the IReportDesign parameter, it does not pass in the IReportFiltersV2 parameter. If you can provide any advice on this issue, I’d really appreciate it.”

The only answer I could find is: … you don’t

You can’t do that in the CreateDesign method that is. You will have to cheat and create the columns in another method where you do have access to the IReportFiltersV2 parameter.

CreateData would be a good option for such a method – but then I don’t have access to the IReportDesign !?!

Well you will have to cheat a bit and keep a reference to the design in a class variable, the reference can be set in the CreateDesign method.

Accessing data in an Office Accounting report

Jorn — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:03:00 GMT

I was asked how you can access the data in an Office Accounting report in code. As the code shows below this is very simple – you just have to remember a few things:

· There is no guarantee that the columns in the data view won’t change between versions

· If you use the groups make sure to iterate through the sub groups as that may be where the data lives

ISmallBusinessInstance instance = (ISmallBusinessInstance)sbaObjects.SmallBusinessInstance;

IReportEngineV2 reportEngine = (IReportEngineV2)sbaObjects.ReportEngine;

// Get a report descriptor

IReportDescriptorV2 reportDescriptor

= reportEngine.ReportDescriptorView.GetByName("CustomerTransactionHistory");

// Use the report descriptor to create a report executor

INativeReportExecutorV2 reportExecutor

= (INativeReportExecutorV2)reportEngine.GetReportExecutor(reportDescriptor);

// Let's change a filter on the report

// just to show that you can modify the report before running the report

IReportFilterDateV2 filterDate =

(IReportFilterDateV2)reportExecutor

.ReportProperties.ReportFilters.GetFilter(ReportFilterEnum.DateFilter);

filterDate.DateFilter = DateFilter.All;

// Access the dataView, this will automatically

// run the report if it hasn't been run

DataView dataView = reportExecutor.ReportDocument.DataView;

// Another way To access the data would be through the groups:

foreach (IReportGroupV3 group in reportExecutor.ReportDocument.ReportGroups)

{

// A dataView with the data in this group

DateView dataInThisGroup = group.GroupDataViewRows;

// In some reports groups may have sub groups

// You can easily iterate these as well

foreach (IReportGroupV3 subGroup in group.SubGroups)

{ }

}

How can I export an Office Accounting report to Excel in code

Jorn — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:35:00 GMT

It has been a while since my last post and I have gotten a few questions. One question was related to exporting reports to Excel.

This is actually pretty simple; you may have noticed the IReportExportToExcelV2 interface. This is the key to this task.

Basically the system report executor implements this interface and therefore you can use it to export.

Time for an example:

// First we need the engine

ISbaObjects sbaObjects = loader.GetSbaObjects(.........);

ISmallBusinessInstance instance

= (ISmallBusinessInstance)sbaObjects.SmallBusinessInstance;

IReportEngineV2 reportEngine

= (IReportEngineV2)sbaObjects.ReportEngine;

// Get a report descriptor

IReportDescriptorV2 reportDescriptor

= reportEngine.ReportDescriptorView

.GetByName("CustomerTransactionHistory");

// Use the report descriptor to create a report executor

INativeReportExecutorV2 reportExecutor

= (INativeReportExecutorV2)reportEngine

.GetReportExecutor(reportDescriptor);

// Let's change a filter on the report

// just to show that you can modify the report before exporting

IReportFilterDateV2 filterDate

= (IReportFilterDateV2)reportExecutor.ReportProperties

.ReportFilters.GetFilter(ReportFilterEnum.DateFilter);

filterDate.DateFilter = DateFilter.Today;

// Now everything is ready and we can cast the

// executor to an IReportExportToExcelV2

IReportExportToExcelV2 exportToExcel

= reportExecutor as IReportExportToExcelV2;

if (exportToExcel != null)

exportToExcel.ExportToExcel();

Pretty easy eh?

How do I use the ReportColumnType and ReportColumnPreferenceType values when I build custom Office Accounting reports?

Jorn — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:29:00 GMT

The question about the ReportColumnType came up in a comment for a prior post, and yeah I guess it’s fair that I tell you about it :o)

First a brief description of the values, from the quick overview you can see that you really do not have that many ColumnTypes to choose from as many of the values are really for internal use only…

ReportColumnType values:

Value	Description
CurrencySymbolColumn	If your report supports multi currency you can use this column type for one column containing the currency symbol (like $ or £) to be used for the foreign currency columns. (See description of ReportColumnPreferenceType for how you can use this Column Type)
CustomizableColumn	This is meant as the ColumnType for customizable columns / User defined columns. The functionality behind this ColumnType is not yet implemented in the infrastructure.
Data	This is the column type used for a normal column shown in a report. Most of your columns should have this type.
GroupID	Internal use only, you should not use this value.
GroupSorting	Internal use only, you should not use this value.
NotVisible	Columns of this type will never be visible in a report. You can use this type for columns you use internally for example if you want to group your report by customer you may want a column containing the CustomerID that you can use for grouping.
Option	This is often used as the column type for the column containing the ID of something you want to drill down to. If your report is showing invoices, you could mark the DocumentID column as a Option column.
ParentColumn	Internal use only, you should not use this value.
RowID	Internal use only, you should not use this value.
RowLabel	This is the first column in the report. If the user scrolls horizontally in the report this column will stay visible. You should only mark one column with this type in your report.
SubColumn	Internal use only, you should not use this value.

So really you should focus on four Column types: RowLabel, Data, CurrencySymbolColumn and NotVisible.

To give the full story about the CurrencySymbolColumn value I need to describe another enumeration in a bit more detail:

ReportColumnPreferenceType values:

Value	Description
AccountCurrency	If your report supports multi currency and you have a column containing the currency code (like USD) you can give the column this PreferenceType and it will only be visible when the user turns on “Use Multi currencies”
AccountCurrencyAmount	If your report has a foreign currency amount (we call it account currency as in the currency of the account) you can mark the column with this preference type. The result is that the column will only be visible when the user turns on “Use Multi currencies” AND the currency symbol on this column will be taken from the column marked with ReportColumnType.CurrencySymbolColumn
CompanyCurrencyAmount	Any company currency amount in your report can be marked with this preference type, the result is that the symbol from your company currency will be used for the column when the user turns on “Use Multi currencies”.
AccountId	Setting any of these values on a column basically means that the column should only be visible if the Company preference related to that value is turned on by the user. For example: If I have a column containing the display number from a financial account I could set the PreferenceType on this column to AccountId, and the column would only be visible if the user has selected “Use account numbers” in the Company Preferences.
Class
CustomerId
EmployeeId
ItemId
Job
JobId
VendorId
None	Default value.

Hope this little overview helps a bit…

Add custom filters to your custom Office Accounting reports

Jorn — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 00:39:00 GMT

What if I have created a INativeReport and I want to filter it, but the build in filters are not exactly what I need?

Well you can create your own filters! It does require some coding though (but we like code, right?).

As an example let’s add a “Region” filter to the “Customers Grouped by Region” report I created in my last post. To do this I need to create a new class that implements IReportFilterGenericV2 and ISerializable.

If you use Visual Studio to implement the IReportFilterGenericV2 interface you will notice a few sections. I’ll run through them quickly:

IReportFilterGenericV2 Members

public void ClearAll() - This method is called if the user clicks the clear button in the filter dialog. Basically you should set the state of the filter back to the default value or “All”.
public IFilterOptionV2[] GetFilterBarOptions(IReportFiltersV2 reportFilters) - The filter can be shown in two places: the filter bar (above the report) or in the filter dialog. This method should return the options to show in the filter bar.
public IFilterOptionV2[] GetFilterDialogOptions(IReportFiltersV2 reportFilters) - This method should return the options to show in the filter dialog

IReportFilterV2 Members

public ReportFilterEnum FilterEnumValue - This Property is used to identify the filter, for Generic filters it should always return ReportFilterEnum.GenericFilter.
public string GetDisplayValue(ISmallBusinessInstance instance) - This method should return the value you want to show in the Filter text in the header of the report.
public string Label - This is the label used in the filter dialog on the left hand side
public void SetValues(IReportFilterV2 filter) - This method is used to move the values from one instance of the filter to another. Basically you should make sure all of your instance data is copied from the argument to “this”.
public bool Visible - A property used to hide the filter. You should simple save this state in a variable so you can return it in the getter.

ICloneable Members

public object Clone()- Standard implementation of ICloneable, here you would typically use the SetValue method for an easy implementation.

For the ISerializable implementation is pretty standard, the serialization is used when users save the report:

ICloneable Members

public void GetObjectData(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) - This method should add the instance data from the filter to the SerializationInfo object (used when serializing).
public ctor(SerializationInfo info, StreamingContext context) - You need to create a special constructor for the de-serialization, the constructor should set the instance data from the SerializationInfo object (this is used when the user launches the saved report).

I have put a sample implementation of IReportFilterGenericV2 on this page if you would rather look at code…

With all of that work we now have a new filter that will show in the top filter bar in a report and in the filter dialog. To use it we have to add it to the report.

First we need to add the new filter to the report, to do that we add a few lines in the CreateFilters method:

// Add the region filter to the filter collection as a generic filter

RegionFilter regionFilter = new RegionFilter();

reportFilters.AddGenericFilter(regionFilter);

To actually use the filter we will need to apply the filter in the CreateData method. Naturally the implementation here will vary based on what you expect your filter to do, but I hope you get the idea from this sample:

if (reportFilters.ContainsFilter(ReportFilterEnum.GenericFilter))

{

RegionFilter reportRegionFilter

= reportFilters.GetFilter(ReportFilterEnum.GenericFilter)

as RegionFilter;

// apply region filter

if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(reportRegionFilter.State) == false)

{

if (filterString.Length > 0)

filterString.Append(" AND ");

filterString.Append("State = '");

filterString.Append(reportRegionFilter.State);

filterString.Append("'");

}

else if (reportRegionFilter.CensusRegion != (int)CensusRegions.All)

{

if (filterString.Length > 0)

filterString.Append(" AND ");

filterString.Append(

RegionFilter.GetCensusRegion(reportRegionFilter.CensusRegion));

}

// Apply row filter

if (filterString.Length > 0)

view.RowFilter = filterString.ToString();

The result is a nice report with a custom filter:

How to create Office Accounting reports with totals?

Jorn — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 02:34:00 GMT

Ok - it’s been way too long since my last post, and I now feel forced to cover a topic that several people has asked me:

“native reports are great and all, but can I add a total to my report”.

The good news is the answer is yes, the bad news is it requires some work.

Let’s assume I want to create a report that can show customers grouped by state and zip code… After using the template to generate the class for me I start out by filling in CreateData:

return engine.SmallBusinessInstance.CustomerAccounts.DataView;

then I fill in the CreateDesign method:

// Add a title to the report

iReportDesign.ReportHeader.ReportTitle.Text = "Customers Grouped By Region";

// Add the data columns to the report

// Note: the columns must correspond to columns in the DataView returned

// by the CreateData method

// Add the Name data column to the report

groupByNameColumn = iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"Name", //Column name in the dataview

"Customer Name", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.RowLabel, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text); //Data type

// Add the Address data column to the report

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"Address", //Column name in the dataview

"Address", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text); //Data type

// Add the City data column to the report

groupByCityColumn = iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"City", //Column name in the dataview

"City", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text); //Data type

// Add the State data column to the report. Save a reference to

// the column so that it can be added to the GroupByColumns collection

// later.

groupByStateColumn = iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"State", //Column name in the dataview

"State", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text);//Data type

// Add the ZipCode data column to the report. Save a reference to

// the column so that it can be added to the GroupByColumns collection

// later.

groupByZipColumn = iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"ZipCode", //Column name in the dataview

"ZipCode", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text);//Data type

// Add the Balance data column to the report

groupByBalanceColumn = iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"Balance", //Column name in the dataview

"Balance", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Currency); //Data type

// Add the Active data column to the report

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"Active", //Column name in the dataview

"Active", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Boolean); //Data type

This is all that is needed for a regular list report but we want the report grouped so we implement the IReportHasGroupsV2 interface and fill in the CreateGroupByColumns method

/// <summary>

/// This method creates the GroupByColumns whose values are used to create

/// row groups in the report. Rows that have identical values in the first

/// column of the groupByColumns collection are grouped first. Within each

/// group, rows with identical values in the second column become subgroups,

/// and so on.

/// </summary>

public void CreateGroupByColumns(IReportGroupByColumnsV2 groupByColumns)

{

// Create groups by state

groupByColumns.CreateGroupByColumn(groupByStateColumn);

// Create subgroups by zip code

groupByColumns.CreateGroupByColumn(groupByZipColumn);

}

To sort the groups in a particular order I need to fill the CreateGroupSortByColumns method, in this case I will sort the groups by state.

public void CreateGroupSortByColumns(IReportGroupSortByColumnsV2 groupSortByColumns)

{

groupSortByColumns.CreateGroupSortByColumn(groupByStateColumn, true);

}

The report now has groups but to actually see the groups we need to put values into the group itself, that is done in the GroupAdded method. In this method I am using a couple of properties that may need a little explanation:

- reportGroup.GroupByColumnValues This is a collection on the group that contain the group by values this group is based on.

- reportGroup.Header.GroupValues This is a collection with all the values for a group header, by using the indexer with the column name you can specify a value for the group header for a specific column, below I’m setting values in the “name” column

/// <summary>

/// This method is called whenever a row group or subgroup is created.

/// It allows header and footer elements to be added to each group.

/// </summary>

public void GroupAdded(IReportGroupV2 reportGroup)

{

String stateValue = reportGroup.GroupByColumnValues[groupByStateColumn.Name] as String;

String zipValue = reportGroup.GroupByColumnValues[groupByZipColumn.Name] as String;

if (stateValue != null)

{

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(stateValue))

{

stateValue = "None";

}

// Create the report group header

// The value "Name" determines the horizontal location of each

// header value within the report. It does not indicate that the

// data in the "Name" column is available.

if (zipValue != null)

{

if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(zipValue))

{

zipValue = "None";

}

reportGroup.Header.GroupValues["Name"] = String.Format("Zip code: {0}", zipValue);

}

else

{

reportGroup.Header.GroupValues["Name"] = String.Format("State: {0}"), stateValue);

}

Yeah yeah yeah, we have seen it all before what about the total? I’m sure this is your question at this point…

OK Let’s get to the total then

The GroupAdded method is also the place you can add a total to your report! Just like you can set values for the reportGroup.Header you can also set values for the reportGroup.Footer so adding something like this to the method will actually give you a total…

reportGroup.Footer.GroupValues["Name"] = String.Format("Customers: {0}", CountGroupMembers(reportGroup));

reportGroup.Footer.GroupValues["Balance"] = GetGroupBalance(reportGroup);

Yes I know I’m cheating as I’m using a couple of methods I haven’t defined yet, The name of the methods should be pretty much self explanatory, however how to get to the values may not be. I’m sure you can find a much faster way of doing this by using the view created in CreateData but this demonstrates a few of the methods available and it works.

private int CountGroupMembers(IReportGroupV2 reportGroup)

{

int count = reportGroup.GroupDataViewRows().Count;

foreach (IReportGroupV2 group in reportGroup.SubGroups) {

count += CountGroupMembers(group);

}

return count;

}

private Decimal GetGroupBalance(IReportGroupV2 reportGroup)

{

Decimal balance = 0;

foreach (DataRowView row in reportGroup.GroupDataViewRows())

{

balance += (Decimal) row.Row["Balance"];

}

foreach (IReportGroupV2 group in reportGroup.SubGroups)

{

balance += GetGroupBalance(group);

}

return balance;

}

Let’s look at the result of our effort (Click the image to see full view):

Nice eh?

More than one report in one Office Accounting add-in

Jorn — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:21:00 GMT

I was asked If you need a new Report add-in for each report you want to add. I think it is a good question and one of the things you do not get for free in you generate your reports using the templates (there I had a chance to mention it again)

The answer is no, you can do that if you want to be able to install and remove them individually, but one driver can easily contain several reports.

The code you need to look at is the CreateReportDescriptors method in the ReportAddInDriver implementation (and the CreateReportCategories method if you want to add more than one report category).

Example:

public void CreateReportDescriptors(ISmallBusinessInstanceV2 smallBusinessInstance)

{

if (smallBusinessInstance == null)

throw new ArgumentNullException("smallBusinessInstance");

IReportDescriptorV2 descriptor

= smallBusinessInstance.CreateReportDescriptor("Report1", typeof(SBAReportAddInWithMoreReport1), SBAReportAddInWithMoreReport1.Guid);

descriptor.Caption = "Report 1";

descriptor.MappingType = ReportMappingType.NativeAddInRegistration;

descriptor.Save();

reportCategory.AddDescriptor(descriptor);

descriptor = smallBusinessInstance.CreateReportDescriptor("Report2", typeof(SBAReportAddInWithMoreReport2), SBAReportAddInWithMoreReport1.Guid);

descriptor.Caption = "Report 2";

descriptor.MappingType = ReportMappingType.NativeAddInRegistration;

descriptor.Save();

reportCategory.AddDescriptor(descriptor);

}

Simple, right? Just add a couple of lines of code adding the new report...

Do not get confused by the GUID that you have to supply here, the GUID identifies the driver not the report (you have to specify the same GUID on the category). I probably would not have put it in the member in the SBAReportAddInWithMoreReport1 class :o)

Creating reports that can access data in SQL

Jorn — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:48:00 GMT

I got a comment on one of the prior post asking if I would create a new post on how to query the data in the Office Accounting database directly, thank you for the question. I would like to encourage other readers to ask for other posts on other things that could help you. I won’t promise that I’ll get around to create posts on everything but I will do my best…

Back to accessing data directly from SQL.

Really if we compare that to any other Native Report, the only difference is the way we access the data – for us that means the CreateData method

public DataView CreateData(IReportFiltersV2 reportFilters, IReportEngineV2 engine)

{

string connectionString = @"Persist Security Info=False;Integrated Security=SSPI;server={0};database={1};Connect Timeout={2};Pooling='no'";

connectionString = string.Format(

connectionString,

engine.SmallBusinessInstance.ServerName,

engine.SmallBusinessInstance.CompanyName,

30);

DataTable table = new DataTable();

string sqlStatement =

@"Select Name, TotalBalanceCompanyCurrency, CreditLimit from CustomerAccountEntityView";

if (reportFilters != null)

{

//In this section we can add a where clause to the statement

}

using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))

{

using (SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(sqlStatement, connection))

{

using (SqlDataAdapter dataAdapter = new SqlDataAdapter(command))

{

dataAdapter.Fill(table);

}

return table.DefaultView;

}

So all I’m doing is creating a new connection to the server/database from the SmallBusinessInstance and querying through that connection.

In some special scenarios this code may fail; like if the SQL server is installed as the default instance, in this case we would have to special case the naming, or if we are accessing a remote database we have to make sure the correct port number is applied to the database name.

The hardest thing about this is to write the right query against the Office Accounting database, and then handling any filters that you would want on the report.

Naturally to make things work for this report I have to add a few lines for the design:

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"Name",

"Customer Name",

ReportColumnType.RowLabel,

ReportColumnDataType.Text);

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"TotalBalanceCompanyCurrency",

"Balance",

ReportColumnType.Data,

ReportColumnDataType.Currency);

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"CreditLimit",

"Credit Limit",

ReportColumnType.Data,

ReportColumnDataType.Currency);

A quick comment on what data you can access directly: In the SDK documentation we mention 10 useful views, you can use other Entity views however potentially these views could change in future versions of Office Accounting. You should always go against the views in stead of the tables as the views have logic to only show valid data and the tables can only be accessed by the owner / administrator.

Btw. The code shown above was all the code I needed to create manually as the rest came for free from the template. (I just had to fit the link to templates in somehow :o) )

Creating Reports in Visual Basic

Jorn — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:09:00 GMT

I have been asked how to do these things if you are a VB programmer.

Well my very first comment you may have guessed already :o) Use the templates! – yes that’s right, some sweet soul has created templates for the VB side of things as well.

Back to my little example of a native report implementation, I’m not much of a VB programmer but let me see if I can pull this one off…

In VB CreateData would look like this:

Public Function CreateData(ByVal reportFilters As IReportFiltersV2, ByVal engine As IReportEngineV2) As System.Data.DataView Implements INativeReportV2.CreateData

Dim instance As ISmallBusinessInstance = engine.SmallBusinessInstance

Dim view As DataView = instance.CustomerAccounts.DataView

Return View

End Function

And Create Design would look something like this:

Public Sub CreateDesign(ByVal iReportDesign As IReportDesignV2) Implements INativeReportV2.CreateDesign

iReportDesign.ReportHeader.ReportTitle.Text = "Hello World Invoice list"

Dim columns As IReportColumnsV2 = iReportDesign.ReportColumns

columns.CreateReportColumn("CustomerName", "Customer Name", ReportColumnType.RowLabel, ReportColumnDataType.Text)

columns.CreateReportColumn("FriendlyDocumentName", "Document", ReportColumnType.RowLabel, ReportColumnDataType.Text)

columns.CreateReportColumn("SubTotalAmount", "Sub Total", ReportColumnType.Data, ReportColumnDataType.CurrencyWithoutSymbol)

columns.CreateReportColumn("Balance", "Balance", ReportColumnType.Data, ReportColumnDataType.CurrencyWithoutSymbol)

columns.CreateReportColumn("DueDate", "Due Date", ReportColumnType.Data, ReportColumnDataType.Date)

End Sub

Not too hard!

Adding reports 3 - native reports with a little more meat

Jorn — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 09:21:00 GMT

In my last post I showed that you can add a native report to Office Accounting. but really the report I created in my example was kind of bla – don’t you think?

Let’s try to add a little meat to the report!

Filtering

To add filters to the report we have to do a couple of things. First we have to add the filters in the CreateFilters method. If you want to default the filter to a specific value other than the default one this is also the place to do that.

/// <summary>

/// Add filters that this report supports.

/// </summary>

/// <param name="reportFilters">Filters collection you can add filters to</param>

public void CreateFilters(IReportFiltersV2 reportFilters)

{

reportFilters.AddFilter(ReportFilterEnum.NameFilter);

}

Now to apply the filter to the data shown in the report we have to change the CreateData method. In this example I simply do that by applying a row filter to the DataView, this may not be a very good idea if you have a lot of rows in the database as your performance would be bad … But let’s just keep it like that for now.

public DataView CreateData(

IReportFiltersV2 reportFilters,

IReportEngineV2 engine)

{

ISmallBusinessInstance instance = engine.SmallBusinessInstance;

DataView view = instance.SalesInvoices.DataView;

IReportFilterNameV2 nameFilter =

(IReportFilterNameV2)reportFilters.GetFilter(ReportFilterEnum.NameFilter);

switch (nameFilter.NameFilter)

{

case NameFilter.AllNames:

case NameFilter.AllCustomers: break;

case NameFilter.SelectedNames:

{

string filter = null;

for (int i = 0; i < nameFilter.Names.Length; i++)

{

if (filter != null)

filter += " or ";

filter += "CustomerAccountID = "

+ nameFilter.Names[i].ToString();

}

view.RowFilter = filter;

break;

}

default: view.RowFilter = "1=2"; break;

}

return view;

}

With these two changes the report now includes a name filter, filtering on the CustomerAccountID column.

Drilldown

To enable drilldown in the report you have to change two methods.

One is called per line in the report to see in drilldown is possible on that line. If you return true the curser will change into a hand when you hover the line and drilldown is enabled for the line. If you return false drilldown is disabled for the line. Let’s return true…

public bool DrilldownActive(DataRow dataRow)

{

return true;

}

The other method is called when the user drills down on a row. We don’t really know what you want to do when you drill down but the most common things to do is to open a form or a report, hence we are parsing in the forms factory and the report engine to make it easy to do that. In my example I want to show the document when the user drills down so I use the forms factory…

public void Drilldown(DataRow dataRow, object formsFactory, IReportEngineV2 reportEngine)

{

IFormsFactory factory = formsFactory as IFormsFactory;

int documentId = (int)dataRow["DocumentId"];

IBaseMasterEntity entity =

(IBaseMasterEntity)reportEngine.SmallBusinessInstance.

SalesInvoices.GetByPrimaryKey(documentId);

if (entity != null)

{

Form form = factory.CreateForm(entity);

form.Show();

}

That’s all it takes!!

Grouping

The report is very flat and simple, to give the user an easier overview of the data in the report – and to make it look better :o) - let’s add some groupings! To add grouping to the report we have to implement another interface IReportHasGroupsV2.

The methods in this interface specifies a few things:

What to group by; in this example I am grouping by an idColumn that I have added in the CreateDesign method. I use the id column as the customer name may not be unique.

public void CreateGroupByColumns(IReportGroupByColumnsV2 groupByColumns)

{

groupByColumns.CreateGroupByColumn(idColumn);

}

How to sort the groups; to make sure the groups in the report will be sorted the way you want you have to specify what you want them sorted by. In this case I want them sorted by the name column (I keep a reference to the name column in the CreateDesign method).

public void CreateGroupSortByColumns(IReportGroupSortByColumnsV2 groupSortByColumns)

{

groupSortByColumns.CreateGroupSortByColumn(nameColumn, true);

}

What to do when a group is added to the report; The GroupAdded method is called for every group break in the report. To get the groups to show up in the report you have to specify what to show in this method. In this case I put the CustomerName value from one of the rows within the group in the RowLabel of the Header of the group. You can also put values in the other columns by using this syntax: reportGroup.Header.GroupValues["columnName"] = "Some Value";

public void GroupAdded(IReportGroupV2 reportGroup)

{

if (reportGroup.GroupDataViewRows().Count > 0)

{

DataRowView row = reportGroup.GroupDataViewRows()[0];

reportGroup.Header.GroupValues.RowLabel = row["CustomerName"] as string;

}

else

{

reportGroup.Header.GroupValues.RowLabel = string.Empty;

}

To be able to reference the id and name columns in the IReportHasGroupsV2 methods I changed my CreateDesign method to keep references and to not show the Customer Name any more as it is now shown in the group header

nameColumn = iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"CustomerName", //Column name in the dataview

"Customer Name", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.NotVisible, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text); //Data type

idColumn = iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"CustomerAccountID", //Column name in the dataview

"", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.NotVisible, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.NumberInt);//Data type

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"FriendlyDocumentName", //Column name in the dataview

"Document", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.RowLabel, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text); //Data type

With these changes the report now has groupings

Add a sample bitmap

To make the report look exactly like the build in reports in the Report bucket it should have a sample bitmap. The sample bitmap is the bitmap shown on the right hand side in the report bucket showing what the report looks like in the sample company. To add that to our new report we have to implement another interface: IReportMenuItemV2

The interface is pretty simple, all it has is one property – returning the bitmap as an image

public System.Drawing.Image SampleBitmap

Result

Now the report looks much better, you will notice the name filter in the header (right now it is set to all). And the customer name is used as a header for the group.

If I can do it you can do it :o)

Adding reports 2 - simple native report

Jorn — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 05:52:00 GMT

Ok, I’m back from vacation so let’s take a look at the next thing you can do with the report SDK; adding native reports. A native report is a report that will run in the Office Accounting report engine and it will be shown in the native Office Accounting report UI. This basically means that you can create your own reports that will look and work just like any other report in the product!

Advantages

A few of the advantages of native reports:

Look and feel like any other Office Accounting report.
Is launched in the application like any build in report.
You can add drilldown.
User customizations can be saved

Implementing INativeReportV2

Before I start explaining how you do this I just want to say it once again: You can shortcut the implementation by using the templates as mentioned in a prior post in this blog!

You have to implement one interface to create a new native report. I will show this with a simple example.

In this example I will create a simple report listing invoices in the system.

The most important method to implement is CreateData. In this method you have to retrieve the data that you want to show in the report. In this simple example I will simply take the data from the SDK, but in many real world scenarios this is where the real code to query the data would be.

/// <summary>

/// In this method the data for the report is generated

/// If the report supports filters you will have to handle them here

/// </summary>

/// <param name="reportFilters">These are the filters that are applied to

/// the report right now</param>

/// <param name="engine">Reference to the report engine used to run the

/// report</param>

/// <returns>The data for the report</returns>

public DataView CreateData(

IReportFiltersV2 reportFilters,

IReportEngineV2 engine)

{

ISmallBusinessInstance instance = engine.SmallBusinessInstance;

DataView view = instance.SalesInvoices.DataView;

return view;

}

Now we have the view, but we still have to define what is going into the report. This is done in the CreateDesign method. In this case I add 5 columns to the report.

/// <summary>

/// Specify the design for the report

/// </summary>

/// <param name="iReportDesign">The design object</param>

public void CreateDesign(IReportDesignV2 iReportDesign)

{

iReportDesign.ReportHeader.ReportTitle.Text = "Hello World Invoice list";

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"CustomerName", //Column name in the dataview

"Customer Name", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.RowLabel, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text); //Data type

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"FriendlyDocumentName", //Column name in the dataview

"Document", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.RowLabel, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Text); //Data type

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"SubTotalAmount", //Column name in the dataview

"Sub Total", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.CurrencyWithoutSymbol); //Data type

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"Balance", //Column name in the dataview

"Balance", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.CurrencyWithoutSymbol); //Data type

iReportDesign.ReportColumns.CreateReportColumn(

"DueDate", //Column name in the dataview

"Due Date", //Caption for the column

ReportColumnType.Data, //Column type

ReportColumnDataType.Date); //Data type

}

The rest of the methods are not really needed for a simple list report…

/// <summary>

/// Add filters that this report supports.

/// </summary>

/// <param name="reportFilters">Filters collection you can add filters to</param>

public void CreateFilters(IReportFiltersV2 reportFilters)

{

//Right now we don't have filters in this report

}

/// <summary>

/// This method is called when the user drills down on a row,

/// it is now up to the method to do what is needed in a drilldown situation.

/// </summary>

/// <param name="dataRow">Row that the user drilled down on</param>

public void Drilldown(DataRow dataRow,

object formsFactory,

IReportEngineV2 reportEngine)

{

//Right now we don't have drilldown in this report

}

/// <summary>

/// This method is called when the user hover over a record in the report.

/// </summary>

/// <returns>return true if drilldown should be enabled on the record,

/// false if not.</returns>

public bool DrilldownActive(DataRow dataRow)

{

//Right now we don’t support drilldown in this report

return false;

}

The result is a new nice little report: