Reports designed in the JADE Report Writer Designer application are based on a view of the database. This view is a selective description of what is contained in the database. It includes selected classes (and selected features of those classes) from the JADE database. A view also restricts the information that is visible to JADE developers or users who design reports.
A view makes visible selected types (JADE classes) and features (JADE properties and methods) for reporting. You can use a view as the basis for a number of reports.
A view is defined by using the JADE Report Writer Configuration application.
You can define one or many views for a JADE database (for example, Payroll, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, and so on). You can include classes from several schemas in a single view but you can associate only one reporting view with each report definition. For details, see Chapter 3, "Configuring the JADE Report Writer".
The features of a report view are listed in the following table.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | A unique name for each reporting view. |
| Text | A description of the reporting view. |
| Schemas | The user schemas whose types (classes) and features (properties and methods) can be included in the report. |
| Types | The types (classes) that are part of the reporting view. Each type can have a subset of features (properties and methods) that are made available in a reporting view. For a method to be included, it must return a primitive type, and any parameters passed to the method must also be primitive types. You can give the types and features meaningful names, termed aliases, that are used in the JADE Report Writer Designer application. |
| In addition, you can define a path for a type, which contains the class extent path (for example, Root.firstInstance.allCustomers for the Customer class) that is used by the query processor for query optimization. | |
| Collections | The JADE collections that are available for reporting (for example, ProductType.instances, Root.firstInstance.allCustomers, and app.myCompany.allProducts). A Report Writer collection can be the amalgamation of several JADE collections. |
| Joins | You can join two JADE root collections for reporting purposes. You can graphically select the join keys (for example, similar classes such as names) within the two joined collections. You can also specify selection criteria for a join to take place and the relationship between the join keys. |