Kind of JIT Pipelines in End-User reports

rbuser

Hi!

I've built an application which uses the End-User capabilities of
ReportBuilder 7.02 through Delphi 7 IDE. In fact, what I've done is quite
simple since RB components are pretty much easy to handle. I used the Data
Dictionnary components so that the users of my application can build their
own queries and then use them in their own reports.

This alone work real good.

The thing is that I have some data that isn't stored in tables in my
database (I access them through a DLL). I used to insert this data in my
reports using the JIT Pipeline which always worked fine for me.

Now, how do I make this data accessible by my end users ?
I've already put a JIT Pipeline on the Datamodule holding my Report Designer
but how do I link the data between the JIT Pipeline and the data comming
from the QueryBuilder ?

Thanks!

nardmoseley

To link datapipelines in RB, the detail datapipeline must be sorted on the
linking fields.

Here is an example that shows how to define the linking relationship in
code:

http://www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/LinkDADEPipeToStandardPipe.zip



--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors Corporation
http://www.digital-metaphors.com

rbuser

I'm experiencing problems to post messagesto this newsgroup. Please accept
my appologies if you've been reading this message multiple times.



***



Thanks for the fast response!

I tried the example and it works fine for some situations.

The thing is though that I'd like the end users to be able to do about the
same thing while creating reports. In fact, THEY are going to be the ones
building the queries and I'd like them to be able to link those queries to
some pipelines on my datamodule.

The best thing I'd like to have is pre-made dataviews on the data tab module
which would represent the JITPipelines already there. The end users could
then drag/drop fields between those views and some of theirs so that
master-details links could be done.

I know that I'm asking alot (!!!) so if this can't be done, is there another
way for the end users to access data that aren't in databases (fetched using
a JITPipeline) and link this data to their own queries from the query
builder ?

Thanks!

nardmoseley

One option would be to create temp tables in the database that are populated
by the data from the .DLL. This would pretty much solve everthing.

Another option might be to to create some custom dataview templates. But
these would not be linkable to the dataviews created by the query tools.
However I think you might be able to define a custom dataview template that
contained a JITPipeline linked to a DBPipeline (i.e. linked to a hard coded
query). See RBuilder\Demos\EndUser\Custom DataViews for examples of custom
dataview templates.

The visual linking in the RB Data workspace supports linking
TdaQueryDataViews descendant classes that are created via the RB
QueryDesigner and QueryWizard.

The automatic linking and autosearch feature relay upon the ability to
dynamica generate SQL. You will notice that if you manual edit the SQL for a
dataview, you can no longer link, use autosearch, or edit the query using
the query designer.


--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors
http://www.digital-metaphors.com