Creating application groups

An application group is a container that holds report data.

You store reports and the index data used to retrieve and maintain them in an application group. You define database fields for each application group. The database fields represent categories of information in a report. When you load a report into an application group, you store index information about the report in the database.

When you define database fields, you specify attributes of the fields. Attributes include the field name, type, and length. For character data, the field length must specify the number of bytes required to hold the field data in the database. For multi-byte languages, character string conversion between code pages might result in either an increase or decrease in the length of the string when data is loaded into the database. For example, the client might require two bytes to display a double-byte character and the server might require three bytes to store the character in the euc code page of the database. In the example, the string length must be increased so that the database field is large enough to hold the converted string. The maximum length of a string field in Content Manager OnDemand is 254 bytes. Verify the length of each database (string) field you define:

If you use the Report Wizard to generate application groups, the Report Wizard converts strings you select to the code page of the database and displays the number of characters required to hold the string in the database. You can accept the value generated by the Report Wizard or replace it with another value.
If you use the Add an Application Group command to add application groups, you must calculate the number of bytes required to hold the field in the database and enter the value on the Field Information page.