Customized reports

Creating custom reports with QMF is easy; you can start with a template report that has default column headings and a tabular layout. Tailor the default report with QMF forms that control different detail areas of the report.

Using QMF forms, you can do the following tasks:

• Group information into categories
• Generate summary columns
• Add page headings and footings
• Change column headings
• Perform calculations on your data and display the results
• Display data as freeform text
• Place tabular data from one row on more than one line
• Combine text lines with tabular data
• Produce address labels, form letters, and detailed reports

When you make changes to a form, you can see the results immediately on the report without having to repeatedly fetch information from the database.

You can save the form for future use, or as a prototype for creating another report; just save the report under a new name.

The following example shows a typical QMF report form.

Entry areas  A  through  J  correspond to the entry areas on the FORM.MAIN panel in QMF. If all the columns in the form are not visible on the panel, you can scroll forward and backward to see the ones you want.

FORM.MAIN                                            MODIFIED
 
COLUMNS:               Total Width of Report Columns: 23 + (N X 15)
          
 A                         
 B       
 C       
 D      
 E      
 F 
NUM  COLUMN HEADING                  USAGE    INDENT   WIDTH   EDIT   SEQ
---  ------------------------------  -------  ------   -----   -----  ---
  1  DEPT                            GROUP    2        6       L       1
  2  JOB                             ACROSS   2        5       C       2
  3  SALARY                          SUM      2        11      D2      3
 
  PAGE:       HEADING  ===>       
 G 
              FOOTING  ===> COMPANY NAME
  FINAL:      TEXT     ===>       
 H 
  BREAK1:     NEW PAGE FOR BREAK? ===> NO
              FOOTING  ===> DEPT. &2 TOTALS    
 I 
  BREAK2:     NEW PAGE FOR BREAK? ===> NO
              FOOTING  ===>
  OPTIONS:    OUTLINE? ===> YES      DEFAULT BREAK TEXT? ===> NO      
 J 
 
 1=Help        2=Check     3=End     4=Show        5=Chart       6=Query
 7=Backward    8=Forward   9=       10=Insert     11=Delete     12=Report
 OK, FORM.MAIN is displayed.
 COMMAND ===>                                            SCROLL ===> PAGE
 

With these entry areas, you can do the following:

 A 

Assign column headings

 B 

Choose how to process columns

 C 

Adjust indentation of columns

 D 

Adjust width of columns

 E 

Specify formatting of columns

 F 

Change the sequence of columns

 G 

Specify a heading and footing for the top and bottom of each page

 H 

Specify the final text at the end of the report

 I 

Enter footing text to use when the value in the control column changes

 J 

Specify the formatting of repeated values within a control break