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ctodd99 — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:32:11 GMT

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How do I add alternating colors to my rows in my table?

ctodd99 — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:57:09 GMT

Adding color highlights to a report can help to point out areas of interest, such as an expense amount that has exceeded budget, or simply assist the reader of the report in staying focused on the numbers in complex and visually crowded reports. In the "old days" we had greenbar paper - alternating color bands designed to help analyze those reams of numbers created by countless 9-pin dot matrix printers. Today, we can add just a little embelishment to our reports in the form of an expression, and derive a similar effect. This really helps to step your reports up to "board-quality" presentation and truly assists the reader of the report in better understanding the numbers.

To add conditional formatting to your detail rows in a table, move the mouse to the leftmost position on the table detail row. Your cursor should change to a right-pointing arrow with a dot on the left side of it. Click the mouse to select your entire row. Alernatively, you could use a Shift-click mouse action to select adjacent cells in a row or Ctrl-click mouse action to select individual cells.

Once your cells have been selected, click the Format tab beneath the ~~Table~~ Text Box Tools group on the Ribbon. From there, click the arrow to the immediate right of the Shape Fill button and select "Expression" from the dropdown menu. With the Expression Editor open, add the following expression:

=IIf(RowNumber(Nothing) Mod 2,"White","#D6E0EC")

The expression counts the current row number and evaluates whether it is even or odd, by determining if it can be divided evenly by the number 2. If even, the color is white, otherwise whatever color you desire. The expression allows for color constant names that are consistent with the CSS specification or equivalent hexadecimal values. Examples of both are shown above.

Why aren't there any menus in Radius for c360?

ctodd99 — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:41:28 GMT

You may have noticed that Radius for c360 doesn't have any menus. Where have they gone?

Radius for c360 uses the same results-oriented user interface style that is employed in the new Microsoft Office 2007 product suite. Menus and toolbars have been replaced with an intuitive design called the Ribbon. The Ribbon is designed to help you quickly find the commands that you need to complete a task. Commands are organized in logical groups, which are collected together under tabs. Each tab relates to a type of activity, such as working with a database or formatting a chart. To reduce clutter, some tabs are shown only when needed. For example, the Table Tools tab is shown only when a table is selected.

You can minimize the Ribbon by double-clicking any one of the tabs on the Ribbon. Once minimized, the Ribbon will appear only when clicking a tab and selecting a function from the Ribbon. To restore it, simply double-click any one of the tabs once again.

Keyboard commands on the Ribbon will appear and be activated by pressing the Alt key on your keyboard.

Some buttons on the Ribbon have extended functionality dialogs associated with them. If this is the case, such as with the Padding collection on the Format tab for the Textbox Tools group, you will notice a small arrow in the lower right corner of the button. You can click that arrow to bring up the properties dialog.

How do I add new fields to my table?

ctodd99 — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 11:27:37 GMT

I built a table using the wizard and now I need to add some more fields to the layout. How do I do this?

If you wish to add new fields to your table, select the table, click a cell close to where you would like the new field to go, then select the Layout tab from beneath Table Tools on the ribbon menu. There is a “Rows and Columns” collection of functions that will allow you to add rows and columns, either left, right, above or below, the cell you are in. Once the row or column has been added to a table, you can then drag fields from the Field Browser into your table. To do so, click the Data tab on the ribbon menu, then click the Field Browser button in the Report Data collection.

Blank pages when printing

ctodd99 — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:45:19 GMT

Occasionally, I notice blank pages when I first print out a new report I am designing. There are a couple of different scenarios in which this could happen:

One reason that there are alternating blank pages is because the page width in the report is currently set to wider than the physical paper size in the printer. As you add objects to a page, Radius for c360 will automatically adjust the page size to fit the objects if they exceed the current page width. Then, just like in Excel, if the print area exceeds the available paper width in the printer, the overflow is printed on the second page. If your table or matrix itself does not exceed that page width, there is nothing but blank space to print on the overflow pages.

Another case might be when the first page is printing blank. This is usually because the “page break at start” attribute has been turned on for the group header, rather than “page break at end”, if the intent was to print a new page for each new group.

To change the page size issues, right-click anywhere on the page body in layout mode and choose “Properties” from the menu that appears.

Set the height and width of your page appropriately. Keep in mind that there is typically a quarter-inch non-printable margin, imposed by most printers, when laying out your report objects.

To change the page break properties of your grouping, click anywhere on your table, the click the Layout tab under the Table Tools heading on the ribbon and select “Edit Table Groupings”. Click on your group you wish to change and then click the Options button below it. You can then deselect “page break at start” and select “page break at end” and then click OK to apply those changes and exit.

Supporting MSCRM Security in your reports

ctodd99 — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:36:08 GMT

Microsoft CRM operates fundamentally on the concept of entities and when we understand what those are, it makes locating and reporting from the information that much easier. Each major classification of information can be considered as an Entity in Microsoft CRM. For example, “Contact” is an entity that describes information about people: their names, addresses, telephone numbers, personal information and so forth. “Account” is an entity typically used to describe a business or institution, allowing for more address information, primary contact information, annual sales, telephone numbers and more. “Opportunity” is the entity that collects and describes information about sales opportunities in your system. Salespeople working on deals typically will use Opportunities to track the different sales stage of the deal, the products involved, the potential revenue and close dates associated with the deal.

Each of these entities has one or more database views, and also specially created database views called filtered views, associated with in the database. The latter of these SQL database views, called "filtered views," are provided with the Microsoft CRM database to enable access to business data according to the user's Microsoft CRM security role. When a user runs a report that obtains data from filtered views, the user's Microsoft CRM security role determines the data to be included in the report. Data in filtered views is restricted at three levels: the organization, the business unit, and the owner. Filtered views exist for all Microsoft CRM business objects (entities). Your reports should not read data directly from the Microsoft CRM database tables. Instead, use the filtered views.

Supporting Dynamic Filtering with Advanced Find

ctodd99 — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:31:18 GMT

Reports that return huge data sets can be difficult to use and can cause performance problems. To limit the amount of data presented in a report in Microsoft CRM 3.0, use data filters when designing your report in Radius for c360.

In addition to query and data region filtering supported by Radius for c360, Microsoft CRM supports data pre–filtering through the CRM Advanced Find feature. In general, this feature is available for all entities in Microsoft CRM, although some entities can be set to not be searchable using Advanced Find. Reports designed with the following concepts in mind can be filtered within the CRM application using the results of queries built using the CRM Advanced Find feature, allowing users to quickly and easily select only the information that is important to them.

Filtering Data using CRMAF_FilteredEntity
One method to enable a report for filtering is to alias entity tables using an alias name in the format "CRMAF_FilteredEntity".

For example, to alias a table name through code in an SQL query, use the following SQL statement:

SELECT column1, column2, columnN
FROM FilteredAccount AS CRMAF_FilteredAccount

When any entity table names are aliased, the Advanced Find user interface is automatically included in the deployed report when run from within Microsoft CRM.

There are two methods you can use in Radius90 to add the CRMAF_ alias to a Filtered View:

The first is to use the table alias feature of the Query Wizard in Radius90 for c360, V1.5. With the select tables window open in the Query Wizard, right-click on the Filtered View(s) you intend to use and choose “Create Alias” from the local menu that appears beneath your mouse pointer. You will be presented with a dialog that allows you to add the correct alias for your view, as described above.

Once you have created the correct alias for each of the Filtered Views you intend to use in your query, you can then select the appropriate fields from the aliased views and proceed to build your query as normal.

To manually add this functionality on reports created using Radius90, simply click the Data tab on the Ribbon, click the Report Queries button and click on the name of the query you would like to amend with the CRMAF_ prefix.

With the Edit Query dialog open, you need to perform the following edit:

Add the alias name to your SQL view using the CRM-recognized syntax of CRMAF_”FilteredEntity” so that a view called FilteredOpportunity will also have an alias name in the query of CRMAF_FilteredOpportunity.

Adding a recognized alias for your Filtered Views ensures that Microsoft CRM will be able to dynamically filter your reports at runtime, based on your use of Advanced Find.

Installation problems

Myk — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 10:22:36 GMT

When installing hte reporting application I get an installation faile message. No other help is provided.

My laptop has 2GB of memeoryand running Vista 64bit OS and Office 2007, It is a new laptop.

Is ther a log file or any other way to find out why the install is failing?