<h2>Report format</h2>
<p>You have already selected the report that you want to configure and
the pop-up window that appears allows you to set the parameters of the report
wizard. Click on the <span class="button">Next</span> button at the bottom right of
the window, until you reach the <span class="reference">Formats</span> screen.
This section allows you to choose the output format of your report between Web,
PDF, Excel, CSV and XML. Just click on the down-arrow at the right-hand side of
the pop-up window.</p>
<img class="screenshot" src="http://www.tri-line.com/common/img/documentation/tim_plus/report_formats.png" alt="Report formats" />
<p>All the formats available are described in the table below. Note that any report can be run several times with
different formats selected for the output if required.</p>
<table class="confluenceTable">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th class="confluenceTh" width=196>Format</th>
<th class="confluenceTh">Description</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="confluenceTd"><img class="icon" src="http://www.tri-line.com/common/img/documentation/tim_plus/web_icon.gif" /> <b>Web</b></td>
<td class="confluenceTd">When a report is run, its output is displayed in the Report Output
window, which is a mini web-browser containing the HTML output generated
by the report engine. It is the common interface for all reports. The
report body is shown in a window that can be panned around by using the
horizontal and vertical scrollbars. If the report is made up of
multiple pages, you can navigate it by using the <span class="button no_margin">Back</span> and <span class="button no_margin">Fwd</span> buttons at
the bottom. You can print the report by pressing the <span class="button no_margin">Print</span> button, or
save the report to an HTML file by pressing the <span class="button no_margin">Save</span> button and choosing
a filename and location.
<p>Universally-accessible, this format provides clickable column headers
for dynamic sorting of table data, with clean graphical charts in the
popular Flash format, so you can zoom into them for more detail. Each
report is fully customisable - right down to the individual table
fields. To view these reports, all that's needed is your favourite web
browser - with no need for obscure add-ons!</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="confluenceTd"><img class="icon" src="http://www.tri-line.com/common/img/documentation/tim_plus/pdf_icon.gif" /> <b>PDF <br/>></b>(Portable Document Format)</b></td>
<td class="confluenceTd">PDF is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document
exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a
manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating
system.
<p>PDFs will run over several pages depending on the report selected.
Because of the nature of PDF reports, headers are fixed and not
selectable as in web reports above. You may however pre-sort before
running or scheduling using the filters available in the <span class="reference">Options</span>
section. PDFs are ideal for producing reports like <span class="reference">Phone Bills</span>. PDFs
are ideal when distributing to colleagues inside and outside of your
organisation - while guaranteeing they'll look identical across all
operating systems when viewed on the screen or printed out.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="confluenceTd"><img class="icon" src="http://www.tri-line.com/common/img/documentation/tim_plus/excel_icon.gif" /> <b>Excel</b></td>
<td class="confluenceTd">Select Excel as your preferred report format, if you would like to
manipulate the data and possibly integrate with data in other Excel
spreadsheets.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="confluenceTd"><img class="icon" src="http://www.tri-line.com/common/img/documentation/tim_plus/csv_icon.gif" /> <b>CSV <br/>(Comma Separated Values)</b></td>
<td class="confluenceTd">A CSV file is used for the digital storage of data structured in a table
of lists form, where each associated item (member) in a group is in
association with others also separated by the commas of its set. Each
line in the CSV file corresponds to a row in the table. Within a line,
fields are separated by commas, each field belonging to one table
column. CSV files are often used for moving tabular data between two
different computer programs, for example between a database program and a
spreadsheet program.
<p>This option is ideal for interacting with your own back office systems,
all CSV data is fully customisable using XSLT from the report's original
XML format.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="confluenceTd"><img class="icon" src="http://www.tri-line.com/common/img/documentation/tim_plus/xml_icon.gif" /> <b>XML <br/>(Extensible Markup Language)</b></td>
<td class="confluenceTd">XMLs purpose is to aid information systems in sharing structured data,
especially via the internet, to encode documents and to serialise data. XML, in combination with other standards, makes it possible to define
the content of a document separately from its formatting, making it easy
to reuse that content in other applications or for other presentation
environments. Most importantly, XML provides a basic syntax that can be
used to share information between different kinds of computers,
different applications, and different organizations without needing to
pass through many layers of conversion.
<p>Since all reports are derived from this native format, we pack each one
with all the data you'd ever need, so you'll always be able to extract
the report data into your favourite reporting packages, such as Business
Objects, Crystal Reports, or even your favourite Office spreadsheet.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2>Run/Schedule the report</h2>
<p>This is the final screen of the report wizard. To run the report without setting any further parameters,
simply click on the large <span class="button">Run now</span> button. In case that you want to schedule your
report, just click on the <span class="button">Schedule for later</span> button, respectively. To set more
parameters, click on the <span class="button">Back</span> button, which will lead you to the previous report options.</p> |