BiLog: Unexpected Events..And Your Custom Report File Structure

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Unexpected events…like a snow storm in Boston in October....

Or a server outage…can cause unforeseen difficulties in what we had hoped would be a stress free, ordinary day.

But for those events that are predictable, like Version 7 Fix pack and release upgrades, you should follow a few key steps on your custom reports to avoid unnecessary losses and frustration.  Performing these steps will insure that any hot fixes, fix pack or release upgrades will not overwrite your custom reports. 

First, for any new or custom reports you create, it is highly recommended that you assign them unique report file names.  Secondly, you should create a new reports.xml file for your custom reports.  For each of these, you may want to make these names visible and unique by utilizing your company name in their file name and reports.xml.

To illustrate this, let’s imagine you modified the Work Order Details report to include a few new fields.   The delivered report’s file name is woprint.rptdesign.   To highlight this as your custom report, and to insure it will not be overwritten in future fixpacks, you may want to name the updated report woprint_abc.rptdesign, where abc is the name of your company.

Additionally, when you create its reports.xml, instead of modifying the existing Work Order reports.xml for this new report, create your own unique reports.xml titled reports_abc.xml, which is located under the directory:  <V7>\reports\birt\reports\WOTRACK

Unexpected events like snow storms in October in Boston can happen…but minimize loss of your custom report files in future upgrades by following these recommended practices.  For more details on this, access this wiki page,  or the V7 or V75 Report Development Guides referenced here.