Technical Blog Post
Abstract
BiLog: Unexpected Surprises...Report Update Utility
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I found $1.36 in my pocket this weekend. After experiencing mixed emotions of where did this come from and why don’t I remember to take money out of my pocket – I settled on the thrill of finding something unexpected as I detailed here last year.You also may find something unexpected in Maximo with the Report Update utilities. These utilities were introduced in June 2010, and have been enhanced in the Maximo 7.5.0.3 release. In this release, there are now two report update utilities available for Page Break and Auto Layout. Both utilities target formatting data within a report.
Additionally, within each of these two utilities are variations for the two different types of reports in Version 7 – which are Enterprise Reports, and QBR (Query Based Reporting) or Ad Hoc Reports. Also, depending on what Maximo release you are using, you may or may not want to utilize these utilities. An overview of this is detailed below, with more details available in the Report Update Utility guide.
The Page Break utility updates report design files to resolve unexpected page break issues when reports are converted to Adobe ® PDF format for printing or saving.
The unexpected page break occurs when a report is generated in the report viewer. The report engine automatically inserts page breaks after every 50 rows. This is done for viewing optimization so the user does not need to wait for the entire report to generate before viewing the contents. However, these page breaks are also used when the report is converted to PDF output, which can cause page breaks to occur in the middle of a page.
The unexpected page break occurs when a report is generated in the report viewer. The report engine automatically inserts page breaks after every 50 rows. This is done for viewing optimization so the user does not need to wait for the entire report to generate before viewing the contents. However, these page breaks are also used when the report is converted to PDF output, which can cause page breaks to occur in the middle of a page.
An example of the unexpected page break is shown here. In this case, a four page report is generated when converted to PDF. However, on page two highlighted by the red arrows, a page break unexpectedly occurs in the middle of the page.
The page break update utility will insert code into the individual report design file to remove automatic page breaks which are inserted by default after every 50 rows. This functionality has been incorporated into the delivered reports and templates after the Maximo 7.1.1.7 release, and you may only need to utilize it if you have QBR reports created prior to 7.1.1.7.
The auto layout utility updates report design files from Fixed to Auto Layout so the contents of the entire report display.
An example when the auto layout update may be needed is shown here. In this case, the report content is not fully displayed within the report viewer, and the last column text is truncated. If you have QBR or custom reports created prior to the Maximo 7.5.0.3 release, you may want to apply this utility.
More details on these utilities, including examples of when they can best be used, how backup directories are created, and the syntax variations available can be found in the document here For the version of the document prior to Maximo 7.5.0.3 click here
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ibm11134177