Extending QBR reports to include date ranges

As noted in the Overview page, your users can create their own QBR (Query Based Reporting - or Ad Hoc) reports to meet their individual business needs. They can select fields from a variety of database tables, and also define the sorting, grouping and filters for their reports. Additionally, they can save these reports, share them with others, as well as schedule and email them on a single or recurring basis.

However, your users may ask you to enable additional features to the ad hoc reports they create. Examples of how you can extend the ad hoc reports are given below

Extending QBR Reports to enable Date Parameters (Filters) to use Date Ranges

This example details how you can extend a QBR report to enable ranges (less than, greater than etc) for its date parameters

1. First create a QBR Report. Be sure that the Selected fields include the date fields you want to query on. In the example below, a Work Order QBR report was created. The Scheduled Start and Scheduled Finish dates were 'selected' as fields in the report- and then on the Format tab, added as Filters (Parameters)

Next, save the QBR report. When you create/save the QBR report, the capability to add operators (>, < etc) is not available from the QBR dialog. You can add the operators in the Report Administration application.

2. To do this, access the QBR report you just created from the Report Administration application. Notice that the 2 parameters you added display in the parameters section. You need to add operator values to these parameters to enable date ranges. The Scheduled Start Parameter is given the operator value > = The Scheduled Finish Parameter is given the operator value < =

Also, you can update the Parameter Display Name so the user knows how these values are being used. The Start Date parameter is renamed to 'Scheduled Start greater than or equal to', and the Finish Date parameter is renamed to 'Scheduled Finish less than or equal to'. Save the updates, and regenerate the report xml for the parameter modifications to take affect.

3. Now, go back to the application where the report is registered, and bring up its request page. Notice the display name of the parameters has been updated to reflect the text you entered in the step above. Enter your date parameter values, and click submit.

4. The report displays using the inputted ranges. You can see one of the records has a start day for 1/5/12 (Scheduled Start > = 1/4/12) and both have scheduled finish < = 1/31/12.

*Note: After verifying the modification, you should export the report, verify the parameter update in the reports.xml file, and save it to your custom report directory. If you do not save the updated report.xml file, the parameter change you made could be overwritten in future fixpack or release updates. Additional details on custom report directories and the report xml file can be found in the Report Reference worksheet