Report designer

Report designer

With the X-ERP Report Designer you can transform company data into professional documents, lists and evaluations - from the first data field to the checked PDF.

Open Report designer on the desktop Administration.

Your goal

At the end of this learning path, you will be able to safely copy an existing X-ERP template, place data fields, set up tables and groups, calculate and format values, maintain multilingual content and technically check the result in preview and export.

Why this is crucial in the report designer

A report is the visible voice of your ERP system. He decides whether a customer understands an invoice immediately, whether production works with the right information and whether an evaluation creates trust. The designer gives you the freedom to design this voice to suit your company - without changing the X-ERP source code.

Elements and settings at a glance

• Design: Work area for structure, data binding and design of the report template.
• Preview: Generates the report with data and shows page breaks, repeats, totals and print image.
• Open / Save / Save As: Loads existing templates or saves a new variant in the X-ERP report store.
• Import/Export: Saves or transfers a template as an X-ERP-REPORT file.
• Multiple tabs: Allows you to open several reports in parallel and switch between them.

Here's how to do it

1. Choose a specific exercise report with a manageable goal, for example an internal item list or a copy of an order confirmation.
2. Save the initial template and open the copy in the Designer.
3. Complete the following lessons in the order listed: Understanding Data, Building Bands, Placing Controls, Adding Expressions and Totals, and then Designing.
4. After each major change, check the preview with representative data sets.
5. Document test cases, release and the productive purpose of the finished template.

Exercise

Create a new test variant of an existing template. First, just change the title, save under a clearly new name and make sure in the preview that only the test variant has been changed.

Check the result

• The productive initial template is unchanged.
• The test report has a unique name and can be reopened.
• Design view, preview and export show the same intended message.
• A person in charge can understand the report without explanation.

Typical errors and their solutions

• Design too early: First clarify data source, detail structure and repetitions; Colors and spacing come after that.
• Test only one data set: Check short, long, blank and multi-page cases.
• Save with wrong name: Before each save, check the active tab and the displayed report name.

Your result

You not only master individual buttons, but also a complete, secure work process from the design to the released report template.

In this chapter

• 01. Getting started and a safe workflow
• 02. Surface and operating areas
• 03. Open, copy and save report templates
• 04. Data source, data member and field list
• 05. Ribbons and print order
• 06. Controls from the toolbox
• 07. Tables and repeated detail rows
• 08. Layout, alignment and page settings
• 09. Data fields and expression editor
• 10. Calculated fields, totals and running values
• 11. Format numbers, dates and text
• 12. Sorting, grouping and pagination
• 13. Parameters and filters
• 14. Styles and conditional formatting
• 15. Images, barcodes and page information
• 16. Master detail and sub reports
• 17. Multilingual reports
• 18. Preview, print and export
• 19. Test, release and fix bugs

Further information / source

Related topics

1. For customizers – customize screens and forms › Report designer › 01. Getting started and secure workflow
2. For customizers – customize screens and forms › Report designer › 02. Interface and operating areas
3. For customizers – customize screens and forms › Report designer › 03. Open, copy and save report templates
4. For customizers – customize screens and forms › Report designer › 19. Test, release and fix errors

Frequently asked questions