Hyperlinking Studio Reports Fields

You can make a component a clickable hyperlink and link it to a URL or to another report. Using Hyperlinking feature, you can make ‘drill-down’ reports or ‘linked reports’.

Hyperlinking a field to open a specific URL

1. On the Desktop Studio screen, open the report in which hyperlinking is to be done.

2. Right click on the component to be hyperlinked, and click Hyperlink or press Ctrl+K. The Hyperlink Options screen appears.Figure 2: Opening a specific URL

3. Click URL radio button.

4. In the comment textbox provided below URL radio button, enter the URL.

5. Click Apply and click OK. When you open the report and click on the hyperlink, it directs you to the hyperlinked URL.

Hyperlinking a field to open a specific report

1. On the Desktop Studio screen, open the report in which hyperlinking is to be done.

2. Right click on the component to be hyperlinked, and click Hyperlink or press Ctrl+K. The Hyperlink Options screen appears.Figure 3:Drill down to another report

3. Click DrillDown to another report radio button.

4. Select the report to be opened when the hyperlink is clicked from Select drop-down.

5. Select the most appropriate option for Target with which the report opens. The values are New Window, Same Frame, Parent Frame, and Parent Window. Refer to the Details of hyperlink window Target.

6. Specify Report Parameter and the value field if the report needs any report parameters to run. Refer to System parameters and their values.
   
   

    

   Note:Report Parameter is the parameter in the report being set as hyperlink. Value field is the field within the report that will have the hyperlink.

7. Specify System Parameter and the value field if the report needs any system parameters to run.

8. Specify Save File Name to use when the report is implicitly published.

9. Click Apply and click OK.
   
   

10. Details of hyperlink window TargetOptionEffect in HTML ViewerNew WindowOpens hyperlinked report in a new tab in the same browser window.Same FrameOpens hyperlinked report in the same frame of browser window.Parent FrameOpens hyperlinked report in parent frame.  Hyperlink navigation panel is opened for report navigation.Parent WindowOpens hyperlinked report in the window in which application is running.Figure 4: Report Navigation Panel in HTML ViewerSystem parameters and their values

    Specify System Parameter(s) and their value(s) to be considered for the report being set as hyperlink.

    Figure 5: System parameters area of Hyperlink Options dialog box

    • Priority: low, medium, high.

    • Report Format: SYS_REPORT_FORMAT (to use the format of the report from where hyperlinked report is run), HTML, ACROBAT PDF, JVISTA, COMMA SEPARATED, TEXT, MS EXCEL, XML, INTERACTIVE, MS WORD.

    • Report Connection Name: Select the database using which the report should be run.

    • Implicit Operation: In addition to view the file, if report needs to be published, select Publish.

    • Refresh Data: Run the report with data refreshed from database server.

    • Prefetch Drilldown: To start generating hyperlinked report even if user has not clicked hyperlink to run the report. More information on this option is provided later in the chapter.

    • Pagination: Select the right option as per need to break pages by Single Page (increase page width and length to any size), Multiple Page (divide in width, divide in length as per need) and Horizontal Breaks (divide in length only, increase width to any size).

    • HTM Show toolbar: When viewed in HTML, set Yes to have HTML Toolbar, set No for not having toolbar and set Multipage to have toolbar only if report is extended to more than one page.

    • Append to Parent (For PDF): Effective only when Prefetch Drilldown is true and user has selected PDF as output type.  Let it remain True to append pdf output of all the ‘child’ reports appended in the parent report itself.  Select False to get output of parent report only.  In this case, hyperlinks in parent reports that lead to hyperlinked report may not work.

Prefetch Drilldown

On a report, when a user clicks a hyperlink, Intellicus starts generating the hyperlinked report (also known as drilldown report) and displays it.  For longer child reports, this may take some time.

Use PREFETCH_DRILLDOWN to save time taken for generation of child reports.  When this feature is turned on, Intellicus will generate drilldown report (child report) along with the parent report (even if the user has not clicked the hyperlink on the parent report).  This way since the hyperlinked report (also known as drilldown report or child report) will be already been generated before the user clicks the link, user will get a much faster response.

This is how it works

When a report that has hyperlinked report with Prefetch drilldown = true at the end of the URL, Intellicus generates the hyperlinked report and stores on report server in ‘rpg’ format. When a user clicks the hyperlink on parent report, Intellicus picks up the pre-generated report and presents in whichever format user has asked for.  This way, you get a faster response.

Note: If a parent report is saved (published), all the child reports will also be saved for the same time duration as that of parent report.  For example, if a parent report is published up to January 1 2007, all the child reports will be published up to January 1 2007,

If a parent report is only viewed (for example, HTML), all the child reports will be generated and saved.  However, in this case, they will be available only up to same day midnight.  For example, if a parent report is viewed on May 11 2006, all the child reports will be generated and will be available up to May 11 2006, 11:59:59 pm.  Intellicus will start process to delete those reports at 12 midnight.