The following articles were written by developers like you and contain cutting-edge tips and techniques for using Information Builders' products. Let us know if you have an idea for an article. Also, be sure to check out the infamous McGuyver Technique that can solve myriad reporting problems with a DEFINE-based JOIN, and some additional DEFINEs.

What Is WebFOCUS? Grzegorz Swietlik, a freelance IT consultant and software developer, answers this question from a developer's perspective.

Generating Data/Accessing Data

• Customer Friendly Self-Service: When there are casual users trying to access many different directories, datasets, applications, etc. how to make customer friendly self-service interfaces? Harry Cleveland, Assistant Director of Enterprise Reporting Services from Temple University, explains this simple query tool with screenshots and code.
• "Poor Mans Report Library": Due to SOX regulations, the Boss wants an archive for all monthly reports ran, and an automated procedure to populate it. Plus, there is no ReportCaster or Report Library. And to top it off, he wants it completed by tonight? Peter Ellis, Software Engineer from Northrop Grumman, shows the technique of creating a quick automated report library.
• From GUI to Hand Coding 101 Wondering how JavaScript can be integrated with WebFOCUS products? Alan Bell, formally an IBIer and currently a free-lance consultant and trainer for Information Builders product set, presents an introduction on switching from the GUI tools and hand coding your web forms via JavaScripts and HTML.
• Dense Data or No Data: Tony Alsford, an IT Consultant in the UK market, explains how to produce a report using WebFOCUS that shows all possible data values within a grouping, irrespective of whether they exist.
• Search WITHIN for the answer: Mickey Grackin, IT Specialist from NIST, shows the technique using WITHIN on percentage calculations, instead of using a multiple-verb request and therefore, accomplish the result with less code.
• Using user.htm files from basedir: Jim Zimmerman from U-Haul explains a way to report on the contents of the user.htm file in basedir.
• One Access File, Multiple Databases: Geert Van Hecke, functional analyst from SECUREX Belgium, shows how to enable user’s access to different databases without change or duplicate access file. User can also choose the database he/she wants to access.
• Using IOEXIT to access MF Data: Hideki Kirihara from EXA Corporation of Japan represents a solution to produce a report from a large sequential, compressed dataset on MVS. The advantage is that, decompression and code-conversion are done at the same time without any work files, and therefore less network time, less code conversion cost.
• Creating Keys for JOIN:  Steve Simon, Senior Officer from State Street Corporation, gives us a technique that works on joining two files and creates a key.
• "Right Click Export to Excel" Builds WebQueries: A very special and exploitable relationship exists between an html page and Excel XP. The Finance Group in the Millburn, NJ, warehouse of fashion design firm Elie Tahari, Ltd. exploits this feature, and discovered a way to save 12 man-hours every day.
• Zulu Time: Susannah Jones from Elie Tahari, Ltd. tells you how to read the ReportCaster schedule file.
• Using Reg.exe to Offset Time Zones From a Windows-Based System: Information Builders' John Gray updates "Zulu Time" by showing how to automate switching time zones from EST to EDT when reading the botsched file.
• Conditional JOINs: Mohammed Zafrullah, an Information Builders contractor, explores the option of using WebFOCUS code, instead of SQL passthru, to join tables that have more than one equality condition.

Generating Data/Launching the Report

• new Designing Naming Conventions for Flexible/Powerful Reports: There are 3 Radio Buttons (only 1 can be checked) for Enforcement Actions, and for each radio button, there is a different group of Delete Reasons. Upon Submit, WEBFOCUS Fex will be called and data from two different data sources on different machines will be retrieved/merged. William Zhu, Business Intelligence Consultant from Ministry of Transportation, Ontario, shows the techniques of carefully design Naming Conventions in web page to facilitate elegant JavaScript coding.
• new Creating Flexible Reports At Run Time: When the challenges are to product reports that require detail by DAY within specified dates, and number of days will vary by request, where to start? Steve Simon, VP from State Street Corporation, explains the trick.
• HEADCOUNT Report: When the only available data is hire date and termination date, how to create a “headcount” report by month? Emily Maxwell, Report Developer from Administaff, explains how to resolve the challenge by using loops.
• Clearing the Dashboard: Tom Flynn, an independent WebFOCUS consultant, shows the techniques of clearing dashboard using JaveScript.
• Debugging - What is N5? Have you ever thought: why this is not giving me what I want? Joyce Halford, WebFOCUS Center of Excellence Consultant from U.S. Bank, explains the debugging technique to determine what is actually happening in a report when what you want to happen isn't.
• A More Meaningful Accordian Report: When viewing accordion reports, the initial results may look quite bland to the users, omitting the ‘wow’ factor that should accompany the efforts of the developer. It would be more informative for the user if the initial view gave a better introduction to the data. Alan Bell shows how to generate a more meaningful Accordian Report using JavaScript code.
• Hierarchy Drilldown Using Dialogue Manager and GUI: When there are concerns that there would not be sufficient skills to maintain the reporting application, and to ensure that everything was done within the GUI, Ken Lane, an independent Business Intelligence Consultant, presents the techniques of resolving the challenge using Jave code.
• Conditional Drilldowns with ACROSS: Impossible to have a conditional drilldown on an ACROSS value? Ken Lane will show you the technique of making it possible.
• MODIFY your thinking..let’s report with hierarchies: An age old problem for many developers: how do I get the data into the hierarchy FOCUS file? Steve Simon, Senior Officer from State Street Corporation, shows the technique step by step.
• Triggering WebFOCUS Reporting: Darin Lee, Senior Systems Analyst from Workers Compensation Fund (Utah), explains the technique of using ReportCaster and APIs to generate reports and sent the output to any desired printer.
• Dynamic Forms: Sometimes data need to be updated periodically but manual updates can be inefficient. Harry Cleveland, Assistant Director of MIS in Temple University, presents the technique of creating dynamic forms for different datasets, allowing users to choose cycles and be notified when the batch job is submitted.
• How to Automatically Delay ReportCaster Jobs: Sometimes data loads take longer than planned. Jodye Yates explains how to delay report distribution in 10-minute increments.
• UltraEdit: Kelly Snodgrass shares his tip regarding how to execute FOCEXECs from within UltraEdit.

Formatting Reports

• new Word-wrap of ACROSS Values: When using ACROSS in a report rendered in PDF format, it is often necessary to apply word-wrap to the horizontal sort values that appear over each column, in order to reduce the width of the report and avoid paneling, but there is no WebFOCUS Stylesheet syntax forces word-wrap of the Across data values. Jack Gross, IT Consultant from Midwood Data Services, explains his method of wrapping.
• new Adding Description Fields to PMF’s Measure Detail Report: Taken from a Focal Point discussion, Joey Baloun, Consultant from Information Builders, explains how to add Description Fields to PMF’s Measure Detail Report.
• Rotating Text in PDF's: How to rotate the text in titles to be rotated to 90°? How can you move text around the page? Warren Hinchliffe from Link Market Services shows some interesting examples and tricks to do so.
• How to Draw a Box Around a Column of Data in a PDF Report: Jodye Yates from Air Canada explains how to dynamically draw boxes on a PDF.
• Inserting Images Into WebFOCUS Graphs: Information Builders' John Gray shows you how to give your graphs some style with graphics in several formats.
• WebFOCUS HTML and PDF Report Design PartI and Part II: Mickey Grackin explains many of the formatting options available for designing WebFOCUS reports using the HTML and PDF output formats – and discusses the differences between them.
• Creating Excel Macros: Information Builders' John Gray explains how to create Excel macros in versions of WebFOCUS prior to 7.1.
• Rotating Column Text Title: Dennis Van der Vieren from Qwest Communications explains the technique on rotating column header text to reduce horizontal space on HTML reports with ACROSS columns.
• How to Remove the Blank Line Between Title and Data in PDF Reports: Kasi Krishnan explains this simple yet tricky process.
• Excel Colorname Key – What Is "Indian Red," Anyway?: Susannah Jones from Elie Tahari, Ltd. provides a key sheet for all of the WebFOCUS color names deriving their hex value, their RGB value, and a block of the color itself.
• GRAPHTYPE: Dressing them up, changing their colors, controlling their width, and even stacking them. Susannah Jones from Elie Tahari, Ltd. tells you how.
• Pictogram Technique: Dan Grady, a strategic engineering product leader from Information Builders, shows you how to spice up your report by using pictures, rather than simple bars, to represent your data.
• Add Pop-Up Information to WebFOCUS Reports: Dan Grady, a strategic engineering product leader from Information Builders, shows you how to reveal additional information in a report by moving the mouse over a specific record.