Defining Report Formats

To output information from Aurea.CRM as an XML report, you need to define a report format.

Select Extras > Define Report Format from the menu. A dialog box opens:

The following options are available:

The order in which the fields appear in the report depends on the order specified in the transfer fields format.

Note: Reports can contain a maximum of 64 info areas. If the transfer fields format you are using for a report contains more than 64 info areas, an error message is displayed when creating the report.
  • Select Chart: If you want to output a chart, select a chart format here, see Chart Structures in the Aurea.CRM win Administrator Guide.
  • XSLT Stylesheet: Select a stylesheet used to determine the appearance of the report. You can load a stylesheet from the local or network file system, as well as from Aurea.CRM's internal documents. You can also choose an Excel file (*.xlt or *.xltx) if the XML output is the source for an Excel file, see Transferring Data to Microsoft Excel.

If no stylesheet is selected the content of the XML file is displayed, see XML Format.

  • XSLT Stylesheet 2 (optional): Enable this check box to select a second stylesheet.
  • XSLT Stylesheet Parameters/XSLT Stylesheet 2 Parameters: You specify parameters for the stylesheets. Format:

<Parameter name> = <Value>; <Parameter name> = <Value>;…

For a list of all available parameters, see  XSL Transformations.

If you specify two stylesheets (transformations), you can create two different files based on the XML data. In this case, the result of the first transformation is displayed.

  • File/Directory: You can choose to output the XML data and resulting transformations directly to file (without displaying the result in Aurea.CRM). Enable the appropriate check boxes and enter the target file and directory (or click Load instead).
Note: You can use the following placeholders in path names:$InstallDir: Aurea.CRM application directory$UserDir: Aurea.CRM user directory
  • Save as file: Enable the Save as file check box and enter a file name under File/Directory to save the output to a file.
  • Level Text: Enter the text to be displayed in the report's header. If no text is entered here, the name of the report format is used instead.
Note: This option is not available, if Save as file or Transfer to spreadsheet are selected.
  • Transfer to spreadsheet: Select this option to transfer the report data to your spreadsheet. If you do not select an Excel stylesheet under XSLT Stylesheet, the transformed data are displayed within Aurea.CRM.

The XML Names options for the Field Tags and Info Area Tags are enabled automatically when you select this option. This is necessary so that data can be allocated unambiguously in Excel.

  • Output empty values: Empty numerical, date and time fields are output as if they contained "0". If this option is not enabled, empty fields are not transferred.

To correctly transfer empty date and time fields to Microsoft Excel, you need to format the corresponding cells in the Excel template, see Transferring Data to Microsoft Excel.

  • Standard view mode: Select this option to transfer the decimal fields, percentage signs etc. to Excel exactly as displayed in Aurea.CRM (defined in the Windows regional settings). To transfer data correctly, the Excel template needs to be configured accordingly (thousands separators, decimal separator).

If this option is disabled, the template need not be customized, as data is transferred without any special formatting as follows:

  • Standard XML format: Select this option to output data in international formats:
    • Dates: YYYY-MM-DD
    • Time: HH:MM
    • Boolean fields: "true" or "false"

If you enable both Standard view mode and Standard XML format, the standard XML settings apply to date, time and Boolean fields. The Standard view mode setting applies to all other fields.

  • Open in associated application: Enable this option if you wish to display the generated file in the associated application. The associated application is determined using the "media-type" attribute in the stylesheet. If this option is disabled, the output is displayed in a browser window within Aurea.CRM.
Note: Two predefined stylesheets are supplied for output to Microsoft Word, see UpdateReportMaskWordML.xslt and UpdateReportListWordML.xslt.
  • Output link: Outputs links for the records included in the report that can be interpreted by protocol.exe, see protocol.exe in the Aurea.CRM win Administrator Guide. This provides access to the records from the XML report.
Note: Your administrator can define in which level a record is displayed when clicking on a link in a report, see Selecting the Target Level in the Aurea.CRM win Administrator Guide.Your administrator can determine that links are output in a format that can be parsed by Aurea.CRM web, see Configuration Info Area (Links category, web URL option) in the CRM.core Administrator Guide.
  • Output conditions for transfer fields: Outputs conditions for transfer fields in the report.

When using variable conditions, the values used upon starting the report are output to the report:

Output catalog information: Enable this option to output additional information on all catalog values in the report (catalog number, catalog value in the current language, catalog value in the base language, sort order and the external key, if available).

Output variables: All variables visible to the current rep are output, see Variables in the CRM.core Administrator Guide.

The variable name, type, catalog number and parent catalog value (if applicable) are output. The contents of Boolean fields are output as either '0' (false) or '1' (true). Locked variables are not output.

  • Context: You can choose which data is used to generate the report.

Select Current level to base the report on the current info area (including any defined conditions). Select Current record to output the current record, or Entire database to output the entire database.

If you leave this field empty, you can choose the context when generating the report.

  • Field Tags/Info Area Tags: These options determine how the field and info area nodes are output to the XML.
    • With <field>/<table>: Fields and info areas are output using the <field> and <table> tags.

For more information on XML names, see Text in the Data Model topic of the CRM.core Administrator Guide.

  • Shorten tags and attributes: The node names in the XML output are shortened. This can improve performance when working with large XML reports.

This option is only taken into account if the With <field> and With <table> options are enabled.

This option is not supported by the XSLT stylesheets supplied by Aurea.

The following abbreviations are used:

Catalog = c

mnr (cur. no abbreviation)

Catalogs = cs

name = nm

catNo = cn

ParCatNo = pcn

catVal = cv

ParCatVal = pcv

extKey = e

ParExtKey = pe

fid = fi

prefix = p

field = f

recid = ri

field_link = fl

sortnr = sn

field_ref = fr

table = t

fieldlength = fl

tablename = tn

fieldname = fnm

tables = ts

fields = fs

tableshort = tsr

fieldtype = ft

type = t

FixedCatalogues = fcs

value = v

langid = li

Variables = vars