The EQuIS Professional Report Publisher allows Database-Level Security (DLS) users or Application-Level Security (ALS) administrators to publish class (*.dll) reports, RDL Reports (*.rdl), SQL Reports (*.sql) and EDD Export formats (*.zip) to the EQuIS Database. ALS users who are not administrators may not publish a report.
The report publisher is also used to update existing reports to newer versions, modify existing copies of a report or to create multiple copies of the same report. For guidance on when reports should be republished, click here.
Note that standard function and procedure reports in the EQuIS Database (e.g. the v54.analytical_results function) cannot be published, since they are already stored in the database (in ST_REPORT and ST_REPORT_PARAMETER). Crosstab reports may also be published through the Crosstab Reports interface.
Launch Report Publisher
Launch the Report Publisher in one of three ways.
1. Click Publish > Publish Reports from the Import section on the Home ribbon.
2. Select Reports from the Open section on the Home ribbon, then click Publish at the top-right in the Open Reports dialog window.
3. Right-click within the white space on the Open Reports dialog window, and select Publish Report(s).
Note: For ALS users who are not administrators, the Reports button in the Publish section of the Home ribbon will be disabled. The Publish button on the Reports Open Dialog and the Publish Report(s) option on the right-click menu in the Reports Open Dialog will not be displayed. |
The Report Publisher Open File dialog window will open. By default, the filter is set to Other Reports (*.dll) for class reports. For other types of reports, click the down arrow to change the file type filter to RDL Reports (*.rdl), SQL Reports (*.sql) or EDD Export Formats (*.zip).
Select the desired file. The Report Publisher opens in the Professional workspace.
When the EDD Export Formats (*.zip) is chosen, it will be published immediately upon selection (following user prompts) and the Report Publisher Form will open blank. Nothing more is needed to publish the EDD Export formats.
If the Report Publisher Form is already open, click Load 
at the top-left of the form to display the report publisher open file dialog again.
Click the open dialog's Open button to clear any of the reports loaded in the Report Publisher Form. Click on the newly loaded report(s) to update the information displayed on the Report and Parameters tabs.
Report Publisher Form
Section 1: Report Publisher Toolbar
The Report Publisher Toolbar is located in the top left-hand corner of the Report Publisher window.
Load |
Opens the Report Publisher's open file dialog window. |
Opening a file from this dialog will clear any of the loaded reports and load the report(s) from the newly selected file. Click the newly loaded report(s) to update the information displayed on the Report and Parameters tabs. |
Publish
|
Publish new reports or update an existing report in the database. |
Only reports that have been checked in the list will be published or updated. |
Copy
|
Add a copy of the selected report to the list. |
This function allows users to have multiple copies of the same report. |
Section 2: Loaded Report(s)
The left pane of the form lists the currently loaded report(s) associated with an opened report file. Report names from the report file are compared to the REPORT_NAME field from ST_REPORT to determine which existing reports in the database appear in the Report Publisher form.
This can include different reports that are all defined in the same file or existing copies of the same report that have previously been published.
If none of the existing reports use the assembly's default Display Name, an additional new copy of the report with that default display name will be added to the list of reports to be imported in the panel on the left. Refer to the help topic Handling Multiple Copies of the Same Report for additional information.
The list is in the form of a tree with check boxes for each listing. Expanding a report listing will show the parameters associated with that report. Select the check boxes of the report listing(s) to be published and click Publish. The check boxes on the parameter listings are not functional and remain checked.
Click on a report from the list in the left panel to select that report, its information will be displayed in the right panel. Click on a parameter in the left panel list to load the associated report and display that parameter for the report.
If the reports have already been published, the report(s) being updated will be listed with a highlighted font if there are changes to the parameters in the new version.
Color Indicator |
Displays on... |
|---|---|
Orange font |
Minor changes |
Red font |
Significant changes |
Black Font |
No changes |
Bold Font |
New parameter(s) |
A report can contain a combination of Minor or Significant changes along with new parameters. In this case, the report will be listed in both a colored and a bold font.
Section 3: Report & Parameters Tabs
The Report and Parameters tabs, located at the top of the Report Publisher's right pane, allow toggling between viewing the report information fields and the parameter information fields.
Section 4: Referenced Assemblies
The Referenced Assemblies section, located at the bottom of the Report Publisher's right pane, displays any assemblies that the current loaded report depends on.
This list will show the referenced assembly name. This is the same as the file name of the assembly.
Note: Any report assemblies (*.dll) listed under Referenced Assemblies are report dependencies, which need the assembly to be available to the application to use the report. This means a copy of the assembly file needs to be placed in the appropriate folder. •For Professional, the appropriate folder is the EQuIS folder (the default location is C:\Program Files\EarthSoft\EQuIS or, for per-user installation, %localappdata%\Programs\EarthSoft\EQuIS\). •For Enterprise, the appropriate folder for the report dependencies is the Enterprise bin folder (the default location on the Enterprise server is C:\Program Files\EarthSoft\Enterprise7\bin). In addition, for Enterprise, any report dependency associated with the Referenced Assemblies also needs to be published. |
Section 5: Existing Report/Parameter
In the first column of the Report Publisher's right pane, the Existing Report/ Existing Parameter section (depending on which tab is selected in Section 3) show all the report and parameter information for an existing published report. The Report tab shows all version information in gray (not editable, not selectable), except for reports published prior to EQuIS Version 6.2 when ST_MODULE was added. For these older reports, the version is not available for display in the Report Publisher. The Parameters tab shows all the existing parameter information as non-editable text boxes for each selected parameter. The values are selectable and can be copied to the clipboard.
The Existing Parameter column will only be populated if the report has already been published. If the report has not yet been published, this column will be blank on both the Report and Parameter tabs.
Section 6: New Report/Parameter
In the second column of the Report Publisher's right pane, New Report/ New Parameter section (depending on which tab is selected in Section 3) show the report and parameter information that will be published on a new report or that will be updated on existing reports. On the Report tab, only the DISPLAY_NAME field is editable.
The New Report DISPLAY_NAME value must be unique. Using a display name that already exists for another report will cause the publish action to fail.
All the remaining report information is gray (not editable, not selectable).
On the Parameters tab, the existing parameter information for each parameter is in editable text box fields. These values will be used when publishing the report.
If a report has already been published and there are differences between the Existing Parameter and the Incoming Parameter, the color indicators shown in the table below will appear.
Color Indicator |
Displays on... |
Displays When... |
Affected Columns |
|---|---|---|---|
Orange font |
Parameter field label |
Minor changes |
caption remark or PARAM_ORDER |
Red font |
Parameter field label |
Significant changes |
DEFAULT_VALUE PARAM_TYPE DISPLAY_TYPE REQUIRED_YN DATA_SOURCE or visibility |
Black Font |
Parameter field label |
No changes |
n/a |
Blue-green Field |
New Parameter text box |
Matches Existing Parameter |
n/a |
Purple Field |
New Parameter text box |
Matches Incoming Parameter |
n/a |
Arrows will appear on each side of the New Parameter column. Click these arrows to update the New Parameter field value to the Existing Parameter or the Incoming Parameter.
If the new version of a report has new parameters that were not in the existing report, no highlighting will be displayed on the parameter tab's labels and fields. The Existing Parameter column will be blank.
Section 7: Incoming Report/Parameter
In the third column of the Report Publisher's right pane, the Incoming Report/Incoming Parameter section, like the Existing Report column, shows incoming, non-editable report or parameter information (depending on which tab is selected in Section 3). The values displayed are based on the selected report file.
Publishing Report(s)
After using the Report and Parameters tabs to determine and set the New Report and New Parameter values as desired, publish or update a report as follows.
1.Make sure check boxes for the reports to be published are checked in the left pane of the Report Publisher.
2.Click Publish at the top-left of the form.
3.The first time after loading reports from a report file, a prompt will be displayed asking whether the listed report assembly(s) in the database is to be stored.
a.Select Yes to store the report assembly in the database. The .dll will be copied into a binary large object field.
b.Select No to manually copy the report assembly. If that report documentation page specifies (such as for Alive or DQM reports), copy the report .dll to the Enterprise bin directory for use from Enterprise. To allow access to the report for all Professional users, distribute the .dll to all those users to install in their EQuIS Program folder.
Once the option has been selected, that same answer will be used on subsequent publish actions for the same loaded report, and the prompt will not appear. Clicking Load and loading a new report or opening a new instance of the Report Publisher will cause the prompt to appear again when Publish is clicked.
4.After the report(s) have been published or updated to the database, a final confirmation will appear indicating that the publish action is complete for each of the listed reports. Select OK.
The Publish action creates or updates the corresponding records in ST_REPORT and ST_REPORT_PARAMETER. If the report assembly was stored in the database, it will be stored in ST_MODULE.
When updating existing reports stored in the database, the previous assembly record is retained in ST_MODULE and a new record is added for the new version of the assembly.
Any related report records (e.g. for User Reports) are linked to the current version via the ST_MODULE.MODULE_ID column.
Troubleshooting
Issue: An error message appears when attempting to publish a report *.dll.
Resolution: See the Error When Publishing Report *.dll help page for more information.
Issue: A hotfix or other new .dll has been applied to the EQuIS Database and previously available reports will not publish.
Resolution: Check the items explained below.
Windows File Accessibility
1.In Windows Explorer, navigate to the folder containing the .dll files for the report(s).
2.Right-click on the .dll file and select Properties.
3.Verify that Attributes Hidden or Archive are not selected.
4.In the same Properties window, on the Security tab, verify the user has permission to use the .dll.
Confirm Report is Active in EQuIS Database
1.Verify the report is visible in ST_REPORT.
2.If the STATUS_FLAG field is populated with R, the report will not be available as a report.
3.To reactivate the report, change the R to an A and save the table.
4.Exit EQuIS Professional and reopen. The report should be visible in the Reports section.
Delete and Republish: If the above steps are not successful, delete the reports listed in ST_REPORT and follow the steps above to republish them. Deleting a report from ST_REPORT will also remove any user reports.