Configuring Reports

There are numerous items that need to be configured in IBM OpenPages® before the report author can begin.

The following list describes some of the items that you need to consider.

Framework models: The reporting framework contains a set of pre-defined framework models, which are used for the pre-defined reports that are supplied with OpenPages. In addition to the pre-defined framework models, you can create your own framework models. The ability to use multiple framework models allows you to target a framework model to specific solutions, user roles, or object profiles.
Namespaces: You will have been supplied OOB namespaces that support the reports supplied with OpenPages. These may or may not support the needs of your reporting. You can extend these namespaces or create completely new namespaces to meet your needs. If you define your own framework models, you must define namespaces for them. Namespaces are global objects.

Locales: Which languages you want your framework to support? This is a global setting that affects all namespaces.
Triangles: Does your report need to use a triangle due to a recursive object? This setting is defined at both the global and namespace level.
Auxiliary Tables: Do you need to pull tables/CQS into a namespace to support your reports? This is defined at the namespace level.
Object Prefixes: If custom objects have been added to the system, the object prefix has to be defined. These are global settings.
Business Entity Recursive Object Levels: These are the user-defined business entity hierarchies that can be used to create a legal vs. business reporting structure for example.
Entity Recursive Objects Levels: Which Business Entity Recursive Object Levels do you want in each namespace?
Index Creation: Depending on the design of the report, you might need to add an index to a field to improve performance. This will affect only the table you add the index to.

In addition to the configurable items, there are also custom field definitions that must be loaded in order to start report development. The following list describes some of these items.

Field Bundles and Groups: These are collections of fields that are assigned to an object.
Fields: This is the definition of an individual field that the customer has asked for to facilitate the configuration of their system.
Enumerated String Values: These are the list of allowable values for enumerated strings.

All of the previous items require that the framework be regenerated once a change is made to them. The goal here is to investigate what needs to be defined, make the configuration changes and then generate your framework.