The Standard Report Designer can be used to create custom reports based on the reports displayed under your Reports tab in Project Explorer and Project Editor.
While you can create a report "from scratch" from the Standard Report Designer, we recommend using an existing report to take advantage of the coding and formatting in the existing report.
The following screenshot shows the different areas of the Standard Report Designer interface.
The following are the areas on the interface.
#1 Menus and Toolbars
This area of the interface can be used to select, save, and publish reports and format the components of the report loaded into the designer.
Here are some important actions you can perform in the menus and toolbars area.
New Report
Clicking the New button will open the New Report Wizard so you can create a report based on an existing SI report or one from scratch.
Open Report
Clicking Open Existing Report will open an existing published report.
Clicking Open Unpublished Report will open an unpublished report.
Save for Later
Clicking Save for Later will not publish the report, but will save your work for future edits.
If the report is already published, you can still use this function to edit the existing report.
Publish Report
Clicking Publish Report will only publish the report to your machine.
Publishing means that the report is available to the SI user who published it.
If you want other users to use this report, use the Export to File and Import from File features.
Publish and Export Report to Server
Clicking Publish and Export Report to Server will publish the report and copy it to your SI Server so that all other SI users can access it.
We highly recommend using this option once you have finalized your report, as only reports on your SI Server will be backed up when you run a backup.
#2 Control Toolbox
The Controls area has various controls that can be added to a report layout. Use these to customize your reports.
#3 Report Designer Canvas
The Canvas area is the Design view of the report's sections, fields, and controls (PageHeader1, GroupHeader1, Detail1, etc.)
Check out this article for more details about the sections in an SI report.
#4 Report Explorer and Data Explorer
The Report Explorer area allows users to see the sections and controls of a report in a tree format.
Report Explorer shows a hierarchy of all the report groups.
Data Explorer area lists all XML tags that can be dragged to the canvas. You can select the required fields from the XML structure.
Check out this article for more details about Data Explorer.
#5 Properties Window
The Properties Window area lists all the modifiable properties of a selected Field, Control, or Report section in the designer.
Custom Report Examples
Check out the articles in this collection for some examples of how Standard reports can be customized.