First Guide to SQL Anywhere Studio
   PART 2. Getting Results with SQL Anywhere Studio
     CHAPTER 8. Creating Reports with InfoMaker       

Creating the basic report

Now you will create the basic report. To do this you select a report style and the data to be used for the report.

1. Click the Report painter button in the PowerBar.

   

   The Select Report dialog box displays. It lists reports in the current library (TUTOR_IM) and has a New button for creating new reports.

   

2. Click New.

   The New Report dialog box displays. It contains the data sources and the report styles you can choose.

   

   About data sources     Quick Select is for simply choosing columns and specifying selection criteria and sorting, which is what you want for this tutorial. SQL Select is for using other SQL options not available with Quick Select. Query is for specifying the name of a query that describes the data source. You define a query in the Query painter. External is for specifying data that comes from a source other than a database. Stored Procedure is for specifying data using a stored procedure.

   About report presentation styles     A report presentation style is a predefined way of presenting information in a report.

3. Click the Quick Select data source and the Tabular presentation style.

   Make sure the Preview when built checkbox is not selected and click OK.

   The Quick Select dialog box displays. In this dialog box you select the table to use and the columns you want included in the report.

   

4. Click contact.

   The contact table's columns display. For this report you will select five.

   

5. Click last_name, first_name, and title.

   Use the scrollbar to scroll the list of columns.

   Click phone and fax.

   InfoMaker moves the selected columns to the grid at the bottom. You can use this grid for reordering columns and for providing sort and selection criteria. For this report you do not need selection criteria, and you will specify sorting later.

   

6. Click OK.

   A design version of your report displays in the Report painter workspace. It uses the columns and report style you selected.

   

   The text for the column headers comes from the repository. The names of the columns appear where the data values will be displayed.

   The repository     The repository stores information about data such as labels and display formats. When you create forms and reports, InfoMaker uses repository information to create the basic report or form. You put information into the repository using the Database painter. For example, in the Table tutorial of InfoMaker's Getting Started manual, you define the label Job Role: for the title column. Then when you use the title column in a form or report, InfoMaker uses the label Job Role:.