Creating visual reports

Visual reports are page-based reports that include both text and graphics.

1. Activate a visual report in the editor window. You can activate a visual report in the workstation editor window in one of the following ways:
   • Create a new visual report from a set of query results using the Display Report wizard.
   • Create a new visual report using the New Visual Report wizard.
   • Open an existing visual report.
   • Import a legacy visual report.
2. Open the Visual Designer perspective. The Visual Designer perspective presents an editor window, several views and the menus that you will use when you work with visual reports. You can open the Visual Designer perspective by using either the Open perspective toolbar button or by selecting Window > Open Perspective > Visual Designer.
3. View the key components of the visual report as listed in the Project Explorer view. Each visual report is listed under the Visual Reports node in the Project Explorer tree. Each visual report will have the following folders:
   • Connections
   • Queries
   • Globals
   • Main Page
   • Fixed Pages
4. Create data source connections. Visual reports are intended to be shared across the enterprise. In order to facilitate sharing and distributing visual reports, QMF for Workstation does not tie the queries that are included in a visual report to a specific data source. Instead it ties the query to a connection information alias. You must set up a connection information alias for each data source that will be used to obtain data for the visual report. All connection information aliases that are available for a report are listed in the Connections folder for the report in the Project Explorer view. You can set up a connection information alias for a data source using the Insert Connection dialog or by dragging the data source from the Workspaces view to the Connections folder for the visual report in the Project Explorer view.
5. Specify the main query that will supply the data for the visual report. You can specify an existing query or create a new query. When you specify the query you will be asked to associate the query with a connection information alias. The connection information alias will identify the data source against which the query will be run. The main query for a report is listed in the Queries folder for the visual report in the Project Explorer view. You can specify the query using the Insert Query dialog or by dragging the query from the Workspaces view to the Queries folder for the visual report in the Project Explorer view.
6. Design the main page of the report. The main query provides the data for the report and this data is formatted based on the design of the main page. See Designing the main page of a visual report for more information on designing the main page.
7. Design one or more fixed pages that will be included in the report. Fixed pages are single pages with unique elements that can be inserted in the visual reports. See Designing a fixed page for a visual report for more information on designing fixed pages.
8. Each time that you click the Preview button you are actually running the visual report object and you can view how your results will appear.
9. When you have completed designing or editing the visual report, you can save the report, print the report, or export the report to a HTML or PDF file.
   Restriction: In 64-bit version of the application, when visual reports are run in the PDF mode, they are opened in the third-party application.