Report Builder Tutorial

SME uses a tool called Report Builder to customize the report/document forms.
To see general information about Reports and custom report setup see Report Builder Module

The tutorial, available from the following link will familiarize you with the necessary steps required to create, modify, or customize existing reports however it cannot be attached to your SMP data.

 "http://www.digital-metaphors.com/download/pdf/RBuilder.pdf"

Basic report formatting in Report Designer (example is on an invoice report)

Customizing Reports with Report Builder

This tutorial assumes that you are modifying an existing report, where the settings under Customize Report are correctly set. If you wish to modify those details, read Customizing Reports. To access the Report Builder, go to Customize Reports under the Reports tab in SME and click the Open Report Designer button.

• Adding New Text Fields
• In this tutorial, the Standard Purchase Order report will have phone, fax, and due date fields added to it.
  • Step 1: making room for the new fields. Phone and fax information are only listed once per page, so they belong in the Header or Group Header. Drag the Group Header down to free up space. To move the headings for the details down, drag a box around them and drag them down to be right above the Group Header ribbon.
  • Step 2: adding new non-repeating fields. Phone and fax information can be found under the Customer table, in the Data Tree on the right side of the screen. Select the Customer table, then the Phone and Fax fields, and drag them onto an empty spot on the report.
  • Step 3: adding repeating fields. Because Due Dates show up on every item, that field belongs in the Detail tab. In this report, the details are in a SubReport. Click on the tabs on the bottom of the screen to move between the main report and subreports. The DueDate field is in the PurchaseOrders table, so select it then drag DueDate to where you want it.
  • Once you're finished arranging the text fields, save the report and make sure the Filename is specified as the new report file in the Details and Settings section of Customize Report.
• Formatting: Page Breaks: This tutorial is useful for if you only want to print one item or one customer per page, and the report is not set to page break on a change in that field. Placing a field in either the header or group header space will result in only one value being displayed. Placing the field in the details space will display all values in the table.

To print one main field (customer, item, location, etc) per page:

1. Move the field you want to page break on to the Group Header. Right-click the Group Header ribbon and select Groups, or go to Report tab and click Groups.
2. Change Break On to the data field you want to page break on.
3. Check “Start new page” under On Group Change.
4. Click Ok.