Report

The Reporting Job takes an i-net Clear Reports report file and renders it in the desired output format.

Format

The format determines into which output the report is going to be rendered. It also determines the result types and therefore the actions that can be executed after the rendering process.

The following output types are available:

Report Files

Using the File Chooser will allow the task owner to select a single report file from the file system or a report repository if the task owner has access to it.

It is possible to enter multiple report file locations and have them be rendered into a single output result by concatenating the report locations using a semicolon. An example use case is to append a section of Terms and Conditions at the end of a report.

Resulting Report filename

The resulting report filename will be the title of the report together with the export format → <title>.<format>.

The title will be displayed in the overview after setting up the report job.

Additional Options and Placeholders

The output formats usually have their own settings. Please check the respective documentation to learn more about them.

A result handler will be provided with additional placeholders:

  • [report.title] - the name of the report
  • [report.path] - the original reports path or URL
  • [report.pages] - the number of pages in the report
  • [report.formula] - the value of the Formula field in the report settings. This can be used to pass one value from the report to the task scheduler or to calculate it. See Formula for details.

Prompts

The table of prompts will be filled with every prompt field from the selected report(s). The values can be entered freely.

The syntax is the same as for report URL parameters. That means that data types except numbers and strings need to be in the formula syntax, e.g.

Data type Value Description
Date Date(2016,12,31) 2016-12-31
Date formula:CurrentDate today
Date formula:Date(Year(CurrentDate),Month(CurrentDate),1) first day of current month
Date Range formula:Date(2016,12,31) to Date(2017,1,31) Dec 31, 2016 to Jan 31, 2017
Time Time(13,30,00) 13:30
Time formula:CurrentTime now

Note: If a series task is used, every report in the series has to use the same prompts.

Formula

The formula field accepts any kind of formula expression just like the prompt fields. The formula will be evaluated as if it was put into the report footer - meaning at the very end of the rendering process.

It can be used to return a single value from the report to the task planner which can then be used using the [report.formula] placeholder.

Note: If there are multiple reports with a report formula set, the last rendered report will provide the placeholder. It is recommended to only use one report formula.

Note: The formula syntax and function names are available in the i-net Designer documentation. The formula should be created and tested in advance in the i-net Designer formula editor. Here, if necessary, the formula expression can also be saved in its own formula in the report template and then used in the task planner with the reference {@TheFormula}.

Conditions

The report jobs can be configured with conditions that provide hints for subsequent actions. This is only possible if no formula is used for a placeholder. The following options are available:

  • Not empty report: job result is valid only if the report is not empty
  • Empty report: job result is valid only if the report is empty
  • Formula: evaluates a formula, that has to be set up in the condition, against the report. The formula must result in a boolean value that will be used for the condition. All other values except TRUE will evaluate to not valid.

For additional information about conditions see here.

Note: A condition can not be created, if a report formula was already created.