Technical Blog Post
Abstract
BiLog: 50 Eggs….Extending QBR Reports to include Date Range
Body
“Seemed like a nice round number”. These were the words Paul Newman
spoke as he committed to eating 50 hard boiled eggs in an hour in the infamous scene from the movie “Cool Hand Luke”
While recently watching this classic movie – and Paul Newman’s stomach extend uncomfortably with the onslaught of the eggs – I couldn’t help but relate his adventure on how you can also extend QBR reports in Version 7 – comfortably. In previous Bilog entries, I’ve detailed how you can extend QBR reports to include long descriptions,and audit enabled values.
Another example of how you can extend QBR reports is to enable your user's date parameters to use ranges like greater than, or less than. You can easily configure this by using the Report Administration application by following the example below.
1. First create a QBR Report. Be sure that the Selected fields include the date fields you want to query on. In this example, 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)
2. Next, 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. Enter the values, and click submit.
The report displays using the inputted ranges as highlighted by the records below containing a scheduled start day for 1/5/12 (Scheduled Start > = 1/4/12) and scheduled finish < = 1/31/12.
Eating 50 eggs in an hour – whew! Modifying a QBR report to use date ranges - easy with no uncomfortable stomach expansion!
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ibm11134513