Focal Point
Report Caster & Drilldowns

This topic can be found at:
https://forums.informationbuilders.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/7971057331/m/6591035341

December 14, 2005, 03:47 PM
S.J. Kadish
Report Caster & Drilldowns
We use WF 5.3.3 in a Windows 2000 environment. We understand that at present it is not possible to distribute drillable outputs through Report Caster.

1.) Does IBI have plans to include drillable outputs distributed by Report Caster in 7.1.3 or thereafter?

2.) Does anybody have a McGyver for distributing drillable output, especially EXL2K, through Report Caster?

Rock on FOCUS Nation!

Cool


Sandy Kadish
Dev: 8.2.04- PostgreSQL
Test: 8.2.04 - PostgreSQL
Prod: 8.2.04 - PostgreSQL
December 14, 2005, 07:05 PM
susannah
Yikes, thats alarming, Sandy.
in 527, every email i send is loaded with drilldowns. html, tho, not exl2k. I can't distribute multi-drills via email, unless i send as an attachment..which we don't do. But just regular drills in a castered html works fine. Are you stuck on that part? if so, you just can include a line in your fex (i make it its own fex and include as a pre-processing step) that tells the email where the ibi server is.
SET FOCEXURL = HTTP://servername/ibi_apps/WFServlet
or if you use isapi
SET FOCEXURL = http: //servername/cgi-bin/ibi_cgi/webapi.dll
any help?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: susannah,




In Focus since 1979///7706m/5 ;wintel 2008/64;OAM security; Oracle db, ///MRE/BID
December 20, 2005, 02:14 PM
Kerry
Hi Sandy,

Can you please be more specific on what you would like to drill down to? For example: Sent report via email that has a drill down to a WF Server FEX? Or sent a Report to the Report Library that has a drill down to?

The following documentation may be of interest:
Best Practices: Considerations When Using ReportCaster 7.1

For release 533, the content still applies. Please review the section titled ‘Using SET commands to access live links and drill downs’ on pg. 8.

Hope this helps. Big Grin

Cheers,

Kerry

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,


Kerry Zhan
Focal Point Moderator
Information Builders, Inc.
December 21, 2005, 02:57 PM
debbiej
Hi Sandy.

The problem with accessing a drilldown from a ReportCaster report, is that the report has no reference back to WebFOCUS (domains, folders, etc).

Here's the instructions that we give our developers (Sorry it still references the cgi-bin/ibi_cgi, I haven't updated the instructions for servlet):

In order to execute a drilldown report from a report ran via the ReportCaster (scheduled report), the drilldown report (.fex) must be copied from the MRE domain and moved to a "known" (edasprof-defined) folder on your server.

Then, the drilldown definition in the scheduled report must be modified to execute the drilldown report via a URL instead of a FOCEXEC command. Replace the "standard" MRE drilldown definition (commented out with -* below) with the drilldown definition shown in below.


TABLE FILE MYFILE
SUM . . .
BY . . .
WHERE . . .
ON TABLE SET STYLE *
TYPE=DATA,COLUMN=N3,
URL=http://yourserver/cgi-bin/ibi_cgi/ibiweb.exe? \
(IBIF_ex='xoeq2nq4' CUST=N4),$
-*TYPE=DATA, FOCEXEC=app/xoeq2nq4(CUST=N4),
-*COLUMN=N3, $
ENDSTYLE
ON TABLE PCHOLD FORMAT EXL2K
END

These were the instruction for 4.3.6.
For Versions 5.2 and up, the drilldown report must still exist outside of the MRE (FOCEXEC= should not have app/ before the focexec report name), in the APPPATH. You now need to add the statement:

SET FOCEXURL=http://webserver/ibi_apps/WFServlet
to your report.

For more info, see DOCID 82651089 in TechSupport, Symptom/Problem/Solution Techniques.

Hope that helps.
Deb

This message has been edited. Last edited by: debbiej,


WebFOCUS 7.6.11 on Win2003 Server
WebFOCUS 7.7.03 on Win2003 Server
Published, AdHoc, ReportCaster
Output in all variants of Excel
December 22, 2005, 05:12 PM
susannah
deb, you can just run the SET FOCEXURL command as a pre-processing condition in your caster setup. easy. then your fex is usable both ways, live or memorex.




In Focus since 1979///7706m/5 ;wintel 2008/64;OAM security; Oracle db, ///MRE/BID
December 26, 2005, 01:49 PM
S.J. Kadish
Clarification:

The reports that have the drilldowns are currently executed from our BI dashboard and require temporary hold files. While we have Excel, PDF and HTML reports with dropdowns we would limit the report caster outputs to EXL2K.

Thanks for all your help on this one.

All the best in 2006.
Sandy


Sandy Kadish
Dev: 8.2.04- PostgreSQL
Test: 8.2.04 - PostgreSQL
Prod: 8.2.04 - PostgreSQL