Report Definition form
Completing the Design tab

Field

Description

 Choose a Single Value property, identified by a property reference.

Instead of an existing single value, you can use the Calculation Builder to select a function template and provide database columns for it to operate on. The column in the report then displays the result of the SQL function. PRPC includes an extensive set of SQL functions: see Atlas — Standard SQL function rules. If none of them exactly satisfy application requirements, you can create a custom SQL function template that can be selected in the Calculation Builder: see About Function Alias rules.

To start the Calculation Builder, click the Calculation Builder icon ( ) to the right of the column for which you want to display the results of a SQL function. See Calculation Builder.

If your application has declare index rules, you can choose one as the property for a column. Type part of the declare index name, then click the down-arrow. The rule appears as one of the "Best Bets":

Do not enter a linked property reference. You can't display properties accessed through linked properties in report definitions.

If you enter the name of property that has not been optimized, your system may experience a performance slowdown when running the report. You may want to use unoptimized properties while working out the report's structure and contents, but it's a good practice to make sure all properties are optimized before moving the code to a production system. See How to expose a property as a database column.

In many situations you can use a linked property to populate a column (or the right side of a filter condition; see below). So, if you were building a report on unresolved work items, you could include a column with the access group of the creator of the work item by using this linked property: .pxCreateOperator.pyAccessGroup.

Enter a column heading to be used for this column on the report. By default, the label defined for the selected property will appear as the Column Heading for the column.

This field is required for most columns, but is not required when the Summary Function field has a value.

Optional. Enter the desired column width for the column as a percentage of the window's width or in pixels. Enter an integer in the first field and, in the second field, select either px or %.

Choose one of the built-in functions COUNT(), COUNT DISTINCT(), SUM(), AVG(), MAX(), or MIN() if you wish to aggregate the data in the column. Depending on your choice of property for the column, some summary functions may not appear as options.

Optional. Select a control to use in formatting the values for the column. Leave blank to use the control associated with the property.
Many controls accept parameters. Click the magnifying glass icon () to the right of the control value to enter parameters for the control.
Click the pencil button () to open the control.

Optional. For each sorted column, choose one of the following:

• Ascending (default): Values for the column will be sorted in ascending order, from lowest to highest.
• Descending: Values for the column will be sorted in descending order, from largest to smallest.

Optional. If you are sorting the values for more than one column on the report, enter a unique value for each sorted column as an integer between 1 and the number of sorted columns.

Optional. If this option is checked, values for the column will be displayed horizontally.  Each value for the column will appear as a column on the report.  Displaying one or more columns horizontally lets you create cross-tab and pivot table reports.

Optional.  If this option is checked, this column is not displayed on the report.  This option lets you, for example, sort rows on a report based on a column that is not displayed.

For Report Definition rules that are saved into Rule- or a class derived from Rule-, you can opt to restrict report coverage to a certain application context. When you check this checkbox, additional fields appear to let you set application context filters:

When using the application context filtering option, you can add and sort report results by the values in a hidden column like pyRulesetVersion.

Field

Description

Enter a letter or letters that uniquely identifies this row, to reference this row in the Logic field. These can be as simple as A for the first row, B for the second row, and so on. A Condition can have letters and numbers, but no spaces; and you cannot use the words "And" or n"Or", as they are used to relate the various filters.

The Logic value must mention the condition label for each Condition in this section.

Provide a caption to identify the filter condition in the Filters list that displays above the data when the report runs.

Depending on which radio button you selected in the Filter Caption Settings control above the conditions list, the caption you set for each condition applies to the left side of the condition (if the caption is "customer", then "customer = 'brown'"), or to the entire condition ("customer").

Captions help make readable complex sets of filter conditions.

Enter a property reference for the conditions. The property referenced must be exposed as a database column in the Applies To class for the report value, or else be a fully qualified value to a clipboard page that is always present on the clipboard, such as the requestor page or process page.

You can specify only Single Value properties in the Column field. Each property you identify for selection criteria must be exposed as a column in the database table.

Note, however, that you can specify single value properties that are produced by a SQL function. To use the result of a SQL function query, click the Calculation Builder icon to the right of the field. The Calculation Builder displays, and there you can select a SQL function and specify any parameters it needs.

If the Type of this property is TextEncrypted, special instructions apply to the Condition and Value fields. See Property rules — Implementing and using the TextEncrypted type.

If you enter .pxObjClass here and the Applies To key part of this report definition is a framework class, and if the developer has checked the Report on Descendant Class Instances checkbox in the Report Definition form, at runtime the report execution can use the corresponding implementation class, not the framework class, for comparisons and report content. This feature eliminates the need to copy each framework class-based report definition into the implementation class.

Select a logical operator for the comparison condition, such as Is Equal or Starts With.

Enter one of the following options as a comparison value:

• A literal constant, formatted in accordance with the property type. See Constants in expressions. To compare the Column value with multiple literal constants, surround each with double quote characters and separate each with a comma. Place a backslash character \ before any double quote character that appears within the constant. As described below, you can click the magnifying glass icon in some situations to review current clipboard values for the property identified in the Column field.
• A fully qualified property reference to a Single Value property that is present on the clipboard at runtime. The Type of this property must match the Type of the property in the Column field.
• A fully qualified property reference to a Value List or Value Group property present on the clipboard at runtime. The Type of this property must match the Type of the property in the Column field. To compare the Column value with multiple Value List or Value Group properties, separate each property name with a comma.
• A reference to a parameter that is defined in the report's rule, in the format param.name.
• The name of another Single Value property that is exposed as a column. This allows comparison of the values of two properties in the same instance (database row), if the types are identical or comparable.
• a calculation. To compare with the result of a calculation, click the Calculation Builder icon to the right of the field. The Calculation Builder displays, and there you can select a SQL function and specify any parameters it needs.
• A symbolic date, for a Date or DateTime value. When the list value rule executes, this symbolic reference is converted to an actual date or date range based on the time zone of the user and the Condition value. For example, if the user selects Last Year and the Condition value is IS EQUAL TO, the result is a date range between January 1 and December 31 inclusive, of the previous calendar year.

If the Relationship field is set to IS NULL or IS NOT NULL, leave this field blank.

Commas correspond to an OR test: if the Value field contains two or more entries separated by commas, the comparison is true at runtime if the value of the Column field equals (or is greater than, or is contained in, and so on) any one of the entries.

When the Value field contains a Value List or Value Group property reference, the comparison is true at runtime if the value of the Column field is true for any element in the list or group.

When evaluating either of the two Condition values Greater or Greater or Equal at runtime, the result is the same as applying the test to the largest value in a list or group. Similarly, when evaluating the Condition values Less or Less or Equal at runtime, the result is the same as applying the test to the smallest value in the group or list. The Value List and Value Group options are most useful for other condition values, such as Contains or Starts with.

For guided assistance in completing this field, click the magnifying glass icon . A pop-up window appears with one or more of these tabs:

• Available Values — The system searches the column in the database corresponding to the property in the Column field to collect and display up to 1,000 values for the Column property in a new window. To add literal values to the Value field, check one or more boxes and click  OK. (You can also type literal constants directly, whether or not they appear on this list.) This tab appears at runtime only to users who hold the standard privilege @baseclass.ShowStoredValues. For such users, it is visible at runtime when the Display Available Values? box in the Prompt Settings area is selected.
• Valid Values — The system presents values determined by the Table Type specification on the General tab of the property referenced in the Column field. To add literal values to the Value field, check one or more boxes and click  Apply . This tab appears at runtime when the Display Valid Values? box in the Prompt Settings area is selected.
• Compatible Columns — The system lists exposed properties with the same Type as the property in the Column field, as candidates for this field. This tab appears at runtime when the Display Compatible Columns? box in the Prompt Settings area is selected.
• Time Periods — For a property of type Date or DateTime, allows the selection of a symbolic date such as Yesterday or Current Year.

Select a value to determine how a user of this report can modify the condition in this row when the report is run and displayed in the Report Viewer.

• Full Access — The condition appears in the Filters link in the header of the report. Users can change the Column, Relationship, and Value fields (this is the default Prompt Mode value).
• Value Only — The condition appears in the Filters link in the header of the report. User can only change the Value field within the condition.
• Read Only — The condition appears in the Filters link in the header of the report, but cannot be changed by users.
• Hide — The condition is not displayed in the Filters link in the header of the report, and cannot be changed by users.

This box is important only when there is no value at runtime specified in the Value field. By default, when the Value field is empty at runtime, the criterion defined by this row is ignored; processing is the same as if this row is not present.

For example, assume the criteria is that the customer's last name starts with a given letter, and the value set in the Value field is param.Letter. If this report rule executes at a time when Param.Letter has the value "C", this criterion limits the report to contain only instances in which the Lastname property value starts with the letter C. However, if the same rule executes again when the Param.Letter parameter has no value, this criterion is dropped, so instances with any Lastname value (or none) are selected.

In situations where this default behavior is not desirable, select the Use Null* box to force the Condition value to become Is Null when the Value value is blank at runtime. In the above example, the criterion is transformed to "Lastname is null" — which is different from having no restriction on Lastname.

Select to have runtime comparisons of the Field value and the Value value be case-insensitive; that is. "Smith" matches "SMITH" and also matches "sMiTH".

If selected, then at runtime "a" matches "A" and is less than "B".

Clear to cause tests of the Field value and the Value value to occur without case conversion. In this case, "a" is greater than both "A" and also greater than "B".

In most cases, leave this box cleared. Select this box only when necessary to obtain the rows of the report:

• If your PegaRULES database is hosted by Microsoft SQL Server, comparisons are always case-insensitive, selecting this box does not affect the report contents, but may add processing.
• If your PegaRULES database is hosted by Oracle, IBM UDB or most database vendor products, selecting this box may affect which rows appear in the report when values occur in mixed case. Conversion to uppercase can significantly slow database processing.
• Case conversion is meaningful only for properties of type Text, Identifier, or Password. Regardless of database software, case conversion is not needed for numbers, dates, or text that contains only uppercase or lowercase characters.

Field

Description

Field

Description

Enter the title of the report.

Select one of the options from the drop-down list:

• Column Headings Only (the default)
• Column Headings and Summary/Sort Options
• Summary/Sort Options Only
• Hide Column Headings

Note that if you select Hide Column Headings, context (right-click) menu options for the header are not available for the report.

Optional. Check this option to use a custom row section to format the rows in the report this rule generates. A field appears where you can select the section; select the edit icon that appears beside the selection field to create a new custom section.

If you want the user to provide values for the filters before the report runs, check the Prompt for filter changes before displaying report checkbox on the User Interactions tab.

Sections used for this purpose can have simple controls such as text fields, but cannot use complex controls such as grids or trees.

Note: test carefully any custom sections you use for displaying rows and headers. You may get unexpected results as the report definition tries to populate a section which, for instance, does not account for all the properties it is asked to display

Note: Nested sections may not render properly when used as custom sections. PRPC cannot tell the width a custom section requires. When a window is resized, PRPC does not automatically resize the width of the custom section. Design the custom section to fit into the smallest display size possible.

Optional. This checkbox appears only for list-type reports (those that have no columns using a summary function), and only when the Enable Grouping checkbox at the bottom of the Columns to Include section has been selected.

When this checkbox is checked, a field appears where you can specify the section to use to display group headers. Click the edit icon to the right of the field to create a new section for this purpose.

Sections used for this purpose can have simple controls such as text fields, but cannot use complex controls such as grids or trees.

Note: test carefully any custom sections you use for displaying rows and headers. You may get unexpected results as the report definition tries to populate a custom section which, for instance, does not account for all the columns it is asked to display

Select this option to use a custom section to display filtering options for the report user, replacing the default filter display. The custom section can include basic controls (drop-down menu, text entry field, and so on), and the controls can only provide values for the filter functions established in the Rows To Include section, above.

When the checkbox is checked, new fields appear:

• Class Name: provide the Applies To class of the custom section.
• Name: select the section using SmartPrompt; or click the edit icon to the right of the field to name and configure a new section to use.
• Prefix: Provide a unique text string (three or four characters) to identify properties in the section. Use the same string to create a unique clipboard page to hold the submitted values on the Pages & Classes tab.

To create the section, provide controls where the user can enter or select values the filter functions in this report require.

Optional. Select have a shortcut to this report display in the Report Browser. When this checkbox is selected, a field appears where you specify the Category in which the report shortcut appears in the Report Browser. See Using the Report Browser.

This checkbox operates as a one-way control:

• If the checkbox is checked and a category is selected when you save the rule, the system creates a shortcut for the report in that category, if one does not already exist.
• If you later uncheck the checkbox and save the rule again, the system does not remove the report's shortcut in the Report Browser.
• If you change the category selection and save the rule, the system creates a shortcut for the report in the newly-selected category, without removing the shortcut from the previously-selected category.
• To remove a report shortcut from the Report Browser, open the Report Browser, right-click the report shortcut, and click the Delete button.