Management Reports Centre User Guide Emmanuel Amekuedi
Table of Contents Introduction... 3 Overview... 3 Key features... 4 Authentication methods... 4 System requirements... 5 Deployment options... 5 Getting Started... 6 Activate application... 6 Register the default system administrator... 6 Assign application roles to the default system administrator... 7 Approve the application roles for the default system administrator... 8 Using the built-in Designers... 9 Quick tour of the Report Designer... 9 Report Designer Interface Elements... 9 Design Surface... 10 Field List... 11 Main Menu... 13 Main Toolbar... 15 Properties Panel... 17 Query Builder... 21 Report Explorer... 25 Toolbox... 26 Custom SQL Editor... 28 Expression Editor... 28 Filter Editor... 28 Format String Editor... 28 Master-Detail Relation Editor... 28 Script Editor... 28 Chart Designer... 28 Quick tour of the Dashboard Designer... 29 Appendix... 30 Report Control Elements... 30 Page 1 of 30
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Introduction Overview The Management Reports Centre is a mobile-friendly enterprise level reporting front-end solution. It can be used to design, publish and manage access to reports in your business. It includes administrative features to allow system administrators to control all the technical details, from creating and managing user groups to managing database connections and many more functions. The solution can also be used to access SSRS (SQL Server Reporting Services) reports deployed to SSRS Report servers. This facilitates control over access to such reports. It should be noted, however, that such reports are not mobile-friendly. The solution has been designed and developed using the latest Microsoft and DevExpress web technologies and can be deployed in-house or in the Microsoft Azure environment. A screenshot of the Home page is shown in Figure 1.1. Figure 1.1. Application Home page The solution includes 6 main menus which are listed below: Requests Allows users to make requests for access to reports, subscribe to reports or approve user requests. Reports Allows users to view reports, dashboards and documents targeting all devices ranging from desktops to mobile phones. Designers Allows relevant users to use the built-in designers to design ad-hoc reports and dashboards. Exports Allows relevant users to export data to Excel formats Page 3 of 30
Management This option allows relevant users to publish reports, dashboards or save documents to the Azure environment. Administration This menu option provides all the functionality needed to administer the solution. Help Various video tutorials and User Guide can be found under this menu Key features Some of the features supported are listed below: It can be deployed to an Azure environment or on-premise, and supports various user authentication methods, such as, Active Directory or Social Network authentication. When deployed to an Azure environment, it can scale up or down on demand. The reports and dashboards created using the built-in designers (DevExpress) are mobilefriendly, and can adapt to mobile device screens. NB: This does not apply to SSRS reports. It includes built-in designers, for designing reports and interactive dashboards. Email notifications sent out to appropriate users when reports are published for user groups they belong to. Users can subscribe to reports and dashboards, and select the frequency they want reports to be delivered to them. Users can export data to Excel and CSV formats. It enforces access security via user groups and roles. Users can create connections to various databases, and assign the connections to relevant user groups. To ensure the connections are protected, they are encrypted before saving to the database. The database connections can be restricted to only allow users to see selected tables and views relevant to their business area. It can be used to access Microsoft Analysis Services Cubes and Azure SQL Data Warehouse databases. Users can restore deleted reports, dashboards and document type reports. Users can amend published reports and dashboards, republish the reports or discard the changes. Users can save document type reports (eg. Excel workbooks) to Azure, so they can be shared with colleagues in the same user group. The documents are encrypted before saving to Azure. Authentication methods The solution supports the following authentication methods: Single-sign-on via on-premise ADFS servers or Azure Active Directory. ASP.Net Forms authentication. Windows authentication via on-premise Active Directory. Social network (currently only Facebook is supported) authentication. Page 4 of 30
System requirements The solution is designed to be deployed as SaaS (Software as a Service) in an Azure environment. However, if you choose to deploy the solution on-premise then the system specification must be met: IIS (Internet Information Services) 8.5 or higher. Microsoft SQL 2014 or higher. Azure storage account. Access to a Mail server. Deployment options The solution is designed to be deployed primarily in Azure and used as a SaaS application. However, the following deployment options are available: On-premise deployment - various components deployed to web servers and SQL servers located in-house. Hybrid deployment - web components deployed to web servers located in-house, accessing SQL servers in Azure. Page 5 of 30
Getting Started Activate application When you use the application for the first time, you will need to activate the application and then register the details of the default system administrator. To activate, proceed as follows. 1. Click the Activate link as shown in Figure 2.1. 2. Enter the activation code which has been supplied to you as shown in Figure 2.2. Also, notice that the installation website URL is pre-populated, and the entry box is greyed. 3. Then press the Activate button. Figure 2.1. Activate application Figure 2.2. Map activation code to application website URL Register the default system administrator Once the application is activated, you will be redirected to the registration page, where you will be required to enter the details of the default system administrator. You should see the entry form displayed in Figure 2.3. To register the details of default system administrator, proceed as follows. 1. Enter the email address of the default system administrator. As this is required during the installation process, this value is pre-populated. 2. Enter the First name. 3. Enter the Last name. 4. Enter your chosen Password. 5. Confirm your chosen Password. 6. Press the Create User button. Page 6 of 30
Figure 2.3. Create the default system administrator account Assign application roles to the default system administrator As the application enforces security via application roles and groups, you will be redirected to the appropriate page, so you can select application roles for the default system administrator. To assign application roles to default system administrator, proceed as follows. 1. Select the application roles required and press Close button, as shown in Figure 2.4. 2. Press the Save button, as shown in Figure 2.5. Figure 2.4. Select application roles Page 7 of 30
Figure 2.5. Save the selected application roles Approve the application roles for the default system administrator As the default system administrator, you must approve the roles you have selected in the previous task above. This is required for you to be able to assign roles to new users. To approve the selected application roles, proceed as follows. 1. Log in to the application, if you are not already logged in. 2. Select the Administration menu option. 3. Select App Users, and then select Maintain User Roles. 4. Select the Assign/Approve user role option. 5. Then select the required application roles, and press the Save button. See Figure 2.6 below. Figure 2.6. Approve selected application roles Page 8 of 30
Using the built-in Designers The application comes with two built-in designers you can use to design your reports and dashboards. These designers are intuitive and easy to use. Quick tour of the Report Designer Figure 3.1 below is a screenshot of the report designer which includes all the tools needed to help you design reports. Figure 3.1. Built-in report designer Report Designer Interface Elements The following main elements make up the user interface of the Report Designer. Design Surface Field List Main Menu Main Toolbar Properties Panel Query Builder Report Explorer Toolbox The following editors are available in the Report Designer. Custom SQL Editor Expression Editor Filter Editor Format String Editor Master-Detail Relation Editor Page 9 of 30
Script Editor Chart Designer Design Surface The Design Surface displays the report that is being in the Report Designer. Figure 3.2. The Design Surface The Design Surface includes the following principal elements. Rulers Band Captions In-Place Editor Rulers The horizontal and vertical rulers display tick marks in the measure units specified for your report. Click an element to evaluate its size and location using the rulers. The horizontal ruler also allows you to modify report side margins (the XtraReport.Margins property value) by moving the left and right sliders on the ruler. The vertical ruler shows resizing rectangles for every report band, which you can move to change the band height. Band Captions In the Report Designer, each report band carries a caption, the tab title and color, which depends on the band kind. These captions are not printed in the resultant report document and are only visible at design time. Page 10 of 30
You can expand or collapse band content at design time, by clicking the tab at the left side of the band. To access the properties of a band, select the band by clicking its caption, and then switch to the Properties panel. In-Place Editor Allows you to edit the content of a text-oriented control (XRBarCode, XRCheckBox, XRLabel, XRRichText, or XRZipCode) by double-clicking it. Field List Field List panel enables you to explore and manage report data sources and parameters as well as create bound report controls. This topic consists of the following sections: Manage Report Data Sources Create Bound Report Elements Manage Report Parameters Manage Report Data Sources The Field List shows available report data sources and their structure. Figure 3.3. Field List The following actions are available in the Field List for data source customization: Button Description Invokes a list of default data sources that you can add to a report. Page 11 of 30
Removes the selected data source. Invokes the Master-Details Relations Manager. Invokes the Create a Query or Select a Stored Procedure wizard page. Adds a new calculated field to the data source. The following actions are available for query customization: Button Description Removes the selected query. Invokes the Create a Query or Select a Stored Procedure wizard page. Adds a new calculated field to the query. Create Bound Report Elements The Field List allows you to create new bound report controls and bind existing controls to data. To add a new data-bound report control, drag the required data field from the Field List onto a report band. This creates a control of an appropriate type and binds it to the selected field. To select multiple data fields in the Field List, click them while holding down the CTRL or SHIFT key. After you dropped this onto a report, it creates a Table with cells bound to the corresponding data fields. Page 12 of 30
Figure 3.4. Bound report elements Manage Report Parameters To access the collection of report parameters, expand the corresponding category in the Field List. Figure 3.5. Report parameters The following actions are available for parameter customization: Button Description Creates a new report parameter. Removes the selected parameter. Enables customization of the selected parameter. Main Menu The Report Designer menu is invoked by clicking the menu button in the upper-left corner of the designer's user interfaces. Page 13 of 30
Figure 3.6. Designer main menu Note that some of the menu commands listed in this topic are only available when specific conditions are met. Visibility conditions for such commands are provided in the command description, as shown in the table below. The menu contains the following commands. Command New New via Wizard Open Design in Report Wizard Add SQL Data Source Icon Description Creates a report and opens it in a new tab. This command is only available when the Report Designer is provided with a report storage. Invokes the Report Wizard to create a new report. This command is only available when the Report Designer is provided with a report storage. Invokes the Open Report dialog to retrieve a report from the serverside report storage and open it in a new tab. This command is only available when the Report Designer is provided with a report storage. Invokes the Report Wizard to edit the current report and generate the report layout. Invokes the SQL Data Source Wizard to create a new data source and configure it. Page 14 of 30
This command is only available when the Report Designer is provided with a set of default data connections. Save Saves the current report to the report storage. Save As Exit Invokes the Save Report dialog to save the current report to the report storage under a new URL. This command is only available when the Report Designer is provided with a report storage. Closes the Report Designer. Main Toolbar The Main Toolbar provides quick access to the report editing commands in the Report Designer. The Main Toolbar commands are divided into the following sections. Clipboard Commands Edit Commands View Commands Mode Commands Scripting Commands Figure 3.7. Main Toolbar Clipboard Commands Use these commands to place the selected elements to the clipboard and paste them onto the required report bands. Command Icon Description Cut Cuts the selected control to the clipboard. Copy Copies the selected control to the clipboard. Paste Pastes a control from the clipboard to the selected report band. Page 15 of 30
Edit Commands Use the following commands to delete report elements and cancel previous actions. Command Icon Description Undo Redo Delete Cancels the last change made to the document. Reverses the results of the last undo action. Deletes the selected control. View Commands Use the following commands to adjust the report zoom factor. Command Icon Description Zoom In Increases the document's current zoom factor by 1 percent. Zoom Out Decreases the document's current zoom factor by 1 percent. Zoom Factor Zooms to a specific zoom factor selected from the dropdown list. Mode Commands Use the following command to toggle between the Design and Preview mode of a report. Command Icon Description Preview Displays the current report. Scripting Commands Use the following command to invoke the Script Editor. Command Icon Description Preview Invokes the Script Editor. Page 16 of 30
Properties Panel The Properties panel allows you to access and edit report and report elements' settings. Figure 3.8. Properties panel This topic describes different aspects of using the Properties panel and consists of the following sections: Select a Report Element Set Property Values Reset Property Values Switch Between Display Modes Search for Properties Use Actions Select a Report Element Do one of the following to select a report element and show its settings in the Properties panel: Select a required element from the drop-down list at the top of this panel, as shown in Figure 3.9. Click the required element in the Design Surface and invoke the Properties panel by clicking the button. Page 17 of 30
Select the required element in the Report Explorer and click the button. Figure 3.9. List of Report Elements Set Property Values In the Properties panel, each record consists of two parts: the header displaying the property caption and the value part. Locate the required property and specify its value using the corresponding editor, as shown in Figure 3.10. Figure 3.10. Setting property values Specific properties contain nested properties, which you can access by clicking the corresponding property header. Reset Property Values Click the button to the right of the editor and select Reset in the invoked popup menu to restore the default property values. Page 18 of 30
Figure 3.11. Resetting property values Switch Between Display Modes The Properties panel can display element properties in the alphabetical order or combine them into categories depending on their purpose. Use the dedicated buttons next to the selected element to switch between these display modes. Figure 3.12. Switching display modes Search for Properties Click the button to show the search box. When you type within this box, the Properties panel automatically searches for entered text, filters the list of available properties, and highlights the search string in located records. Figure 3.13. Searching for properties Page 19 of 30
Use Actions In the categorized mode, the Properties panel contains the context-sensitive Actions category that provides the most commonly used actions depending on the selected report element: Actions for adding new bands of particular types to a selected report, is shown in Figure 3.14. Figure 3.14. Inserting header band Actions to manage a table element s cells, rows, and columns, is shown in Figure 3.15. Figure 3.15. Inserting columns Actions to align and position report elements (align and resize elements to the snap grid, specify the horizontal and vertical alignments, etc.) for elements of other types and multiple selected report elements, is shown in Figure 3.16. Figure 3.16. Aligning multiple elements to Grid Page 20 of 30
Query Builder The Query Builder can be invoked from the SQL Data Source Wizard. It provides a visual editor to create custom queries and enables you to solve a variety of tasks. Select Tables Join Tables Filter Data Shape Data Preview Results Select Tables To include a specific table or view into a query result set, drag and drop it onto the Query Builder design surface. Enable check boxes for the table columns you want to include into the query result set, as shown in Figure 3.17. Figure 3.17. Query builder The Query Builder provides a toolbar with the following commands. Icon Description Removes the selected table or view from the query. Page 21 of 30
Reverses the most recent action. Performs the action that has previously been undone. You can search for a specific table or view by typing required text in the dedicated search box, as shown in Figure 3.18. Figure 3.18. Search for specific tables Join Tables To join separate tables and/or views, connect their corresponding columns (key fields) using drag and drop. The connected columns must have identical data types. Clicking the data relation will display the corresponding properties that define the join type (Inner or Left Outer) and applied logical operator. See Figure 3.19. Figure 3.19. Joining tables NB: A left outer join returns all the values from an inner join along with all values in the "left" table that do not match to the "right" table, including rows with NULL (empty) values in the key field. When Page 22 of 30
the left outer join is selected, the relationship line displays an arrow pointing at the "right" table of the join clause. Filter Data Clicking the Query Builder surface will display the query options, as shown in Figure 3.20. Figure 3.20. Filtering data The following options are available. Name - Specifies a custom query name (alias). Filter - Runs the Filter Editor where you can specify filter criteria against which the query result set should be narrowed down. Group Filter - Runs the Filter Editor where you can specify filter conditions for grouped and aggregated data. If data is not grouped, this option is disabled. Select All (*) - Specifies whether or not the query result set should include all columns from the selected tables and/or views, regardless of their individual settings. This option is set to No by default. Select distinct - Specifies whether or not only distinct values should be included into the result set. This option is set to No by default. Shape Data Clicking a data column of a selected table or view will display the data column options, as shown in Figure 3.21. Page 23 of 30
Figure 3.21. Data column options The following options are available. Name - Indicates the column name by which it is referred to in the database. Type - Indicates the type of data contained in the column. String columns are provided with information about the maximum string length. Alias - Specifies a custom column name (alias). This option is available only for columns that are included into a query. Output - Specifies whether or not the column is included into the query result set. Sort Type - Specifies whether to preserve the original order of data records within the column, or sort them (in an ascending or descending order). Sort Order - This option becomes available after applying sorting to the data column's records. It defines the priority in which sorting is applied to multiple columns (the less this number is, the higher the priority). For example, if column A has the sort order set to 1 and column B has it set to 2, the query will be first sorted by column A and then by the column B. Changing this setting for one column automatically updates the sort order of other columns to avoid conflict of priorities. Group By - Specifies whether or not the query result set should be grouped by this column. Aggregate - Specifies whether or not the column's data records should be aggregated. The following aggregate functions are supported: Count, Max, Min, Avg, Sum, CountDistinct, AvgDistinct, SumDistinct. Applying any of these functions to a column will discard individual data records from the query result set, which will only include the aggregate function result. NB: Use aggregation/grouping either for all selected columns or for none of them. Applying the aggregation to one column automatically applies grouping to other selected columns. If you remove all aggregation functions, grouping against other columns will be reset as well. Preview Results You can test a query at any time on a limited subset of the actual data by clicking the Preview Results button. This will open the Data Preview screen displaying the query result set limited by the first 100 data records, as shown in Figure 3.22. Page 24 of 30
Figure 3.22. Preview query data Report Explorer The Report Explorer panel shows a report's structure and provides quick access to the report elements, styles and formatting rules, as shown in Figure 3.23. Figure 3.23. Report Explorer The following actions are available for report element customization, as shown in Figure 3.24. Page 25 of 30
Figure 3.24. Using Report Explorer to manage report elements Button Description Removes the selected report element. This button is not available for the Detail, TopMargin and BottomMargin bands. Switches to the Properties panel where you can adjust the settings of the selected report element or a report itself. In the Report Explorer, you can use drag-and-drop operations to do the following: Reorder report controls and specific bands. Move report controls between bands. Toolbox The Toolbox contains elements (report controls) that can be added to a report being edited in the Report Designer. Different controls correspond to various kinds of data that can be displayed in a report. To add a new control to the report, drag the corresponding item from the Toolbox and drop it onto the required report band. The available report controls can be divided into the following categories. General Content Extended Data Page 26 of 30
Report Layout Document Statistics General Content The following controls are most commonly used to display data in a report. Bar Code Check Box Gauge Label Character Comb Picture Box Rich Text Table Zip Code Bar Code Check Box Gauge Label Character Comb Picture Box Rich Text Table Zip Code Extended Data The following controls are connected to data individually, without accessing a report's data source. Chart Pivot Grid Sparkline Report Layout The following controls allow you to draw shapes in a report and customize the report layout. Page 27 of 30
Cross-Band Line Cross-Band Box Line Page Break Panel Shape Subreport Document Statistics The dynamic content of the following controls is not obtained from a data source. Page Info Table of Contents Custom SQL Editor Expression Editor Filter Editor Format String Editor Master-Detail Relation Editor Script Editor Chart Designer Custom SQL Editor Expression Editor Filter Editor Page 28 of 30
Format String Editor Master-Detail Relation Editor Script Editor Chart Designer Quick tour of the Dashboard Designer Page 29 of 30
Appendix Report Control Elements Page 30 of 30