I'm trying to figure out how this new document composer is supposed to work. (and it's been pretty aggravating so far!)

Here's the problem. I have a compound document that displays 12 different reports laid out on 6 page layouts. The first report (by itself on page layout 1) frequently has no data. I would like the report to begin with the second page if that is the case, but I haven't found any way to do that. I thought maybe I could set EMPTYREPORT=OFF on that first page to make it work, but what I get is a blank first page and the second page is completely missing, then pages 3,4,5,6.

Has anyone been able to accomplish something similar to what I need? What is supposed to be the default action if a single component of a compound document has no data?

This new layout tool is easier to create compound docs and nice that it has pagemaster layouts, TOC, coordination, etc. BUT it sure does not seem to be as flexible as the old COMPOUND=OPEN/CLOSE/NOBREAK syntax.

Additionally, it does NOT allow for creating documents in PS format so creating output for distribtution to a printer via ReportCaster is no longer an option. GRR!

Anyone out there with more experience using the document composer tool have any ideas or opinions??

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Darin Lee,

You might want to play around with the flowing options. If I get a minute this afternoon, I'll play with it. I've got lots of simple samples. It would be easy enough to get one to generate 0 rows.

Stay tuned.

I took a program I already had, turned EMPTYREPORT off, and put in a dummy WHERE. Then ran the compound and crashed the agent. But I still think the overflow option is the way to go. Let me know if you make any progress.

I have tried several different things with the overflow option and required height parameters, but it seems to make no difference. As long as EMPTYREPORT=OFF, the first page is blank and the second page is missing completely, but pages 3-6 are just fine.

In my fiddling around, I put a dummy WHERE into the second report in the middle of page 4 to make it empty and turned EMPTYREPORT OFF. (There are 4 of them on this page with flowing option on and relative positioning on). the missing report does not appear, the third and fourth reports are moved up, but they completely lose the margins (moved to very left edge of page.) I assume that since they use relative positioning and the report that is their "relative" is missing, that the (+0.0 +0.5) position now reverts back to the page instead of the previous or the missing report.

Now I'm wondering if I'm missing some concept completely, or if they just never tested any of these possibilities with missing components. (And I'm leaning toward the latter for the sake of my sanity.)

I am sure that you are sane and correct.

This new document composer thing works better on the newer versions, probably at least v7.6.9 for the no data pieces, called "compound coordinated report".

I dug around on I.B.'s website and though this feature was introduced in an earlier version of 7.6, a very important change was made in 7.6.9, without which Compound Coordinated Reports would be useless:

quote:

Prior to Version 7 Release 6.9, if any component report in a Coordinated Compound Report was missing any one of the common sort field values, the table request was terminated and no document was generated.

In Version 7 Release 6.9 this feature has been enhanced to generate output whether or not all of the coordinated components share exactly the same set of values for their common sort field. Now a coordinated page is generated in the designated page layout for every sort field value found in at least one of the component reports, presenting the appropriate data for those components where data exists for that value, and presenting an empty component report where data does not exist.

WebFOCUS New Features

Francis,

Thanks for the info. We actually have moved to 769 (except for production Z/OS and DevStudio) - just forgot to update my profile, which I have done now.

I am using DS Studio to try and get this to work. In my case, I am not using a coordinated report, just a compound report. So the information is something that I will file away for future reference, but doesn't help my current situation.

Darin,

Example fex on it's way via PM. More info in that PM.

T