User Guide › Reports › Report Types › Free-Form Reports › Creating a Free-Form Report

Creating a Free-Form Report

To create a free-form report

1. From the Main Menu, click Reports, Reports Folder

   The Reports Folder page opens.

2. Click Add New and select Free-Form Report.

   The Free-Form Report Properties page opens.

3. In Name, enter a name for the Free-Form report.

   Note: Use descriptive names for Free-Form reports, so that they can be easily identified in the Reports list.

4. In Visualization, select the way the report displays (Standard or Heat Map).
5. In Description, enter a description for the Free-Form report.
6. In Chart Options, select how to scale the Y-axis on the chart from the Automatic Scaling drop-down-list.
7. In Folder, select the folder to which you want to add the Free-Form report from the drop-down list.
8. In Owner, select the owner of the report. A user or user group that is the owner of a report can view the report in the list of saved reports and modify the report, if required.

   Note: This drop-down list is disabled when creating a new Free-Form report starting from the My Reports folder.

9. In Permitted users, select the user/s permitted to view the Free-Form report from the Available list and click the arrow, or double-click the user.

   The users move to the Included list.

10. In Scheduling, click Edit to schedule the Free-Form report.

    The Scheduling window opens. For more information, see Scheduling a Free-Form Report.

11. In Connection string, enter the string required to connect to the database that is being queried. For example:

    Provider=MSDASQL;DSN=Excel; UID=userid;PWD=password

    In this example, @UID is the parameter for the user ID and @PWD is the parameter for the password.

    Note: Leave the connection string blank to use the <o> database.

12. In Query, enter the required SQL query to access the required data. For example, a valid query string that returns three contact fields from a table named t_contacts might look like this:

    SELECT contact_first_name, contact_last_name, contact_mobile FROM t_contacts

    When the report is generated, the user enters the contact type to include in the results. Each result returns the first name, last name and mobile phone number of the contact.

    -OR-

    Click Open Query Builder to open the query builder tool that helps in creating the select statement. For more information, see Data Source Interface Step.

13. In Parameters, enter the alias/displayed name (disp_name) to be used as variables in the query.

    When the Free-Form report is generated, a pop-up window opens enabling you to select values for each variable defined. This makes it possible, for example, to create a single Free-Form report that can be used on any contract party, simply by defining that value as a variable in the query.

14. In Related reports, click Add.

    The Find Target Report window opens.

    1. Click on a folder and select the related reports to include in the Free-Form report.

    Tip: Click to select all reports in the folder or to clear all check boxes.

    1. Click OK. The reports are added and shown in the Related reports list box.
    2. Arrange the order of the fields in the list by selecting a related report and clicking the arrows. The order of related reports in this list determines the order in which the reports are displayed (from left to right, or from top to bottom).

    Note: You can remove a related report from the Related reports list box by selecting it and clicking Remove.

15. Click Save to save the Free-Form report and return to the Reports Folder page.
16. Click Cancel to stop the process and return to the Reports Folder page.