Report Groups Overview

When you generate a large group of reports with a single command, you don't want to be asked to enter the options for each report. That would almost defeat the purpose of generating a group of reports at once. Memorized reports, therefore, are the logical foundation for a report group because they already contain all of the options needed to generate the report immediately.

As a result, the process of defining a group of reports begins with the creation of the memorized reports you wish to include in the group. Creating a memorized report is very easy. Begin with either a standard or custom report, choose the options, and when the report appears on the screen, click on the Memorize button and supply a name for this memorized report. You can do this in a matter of seconds.

When your memorized reports have been created, you can choose the "Report groups" command, create a new group, and add these memorized reports to that group. You choose which reports are in the group and the sequence in which they appear.

When the report group is generated, you choose whether to send the reports directly to a printer or save them in one or more files on your hard disk. The files can be in plain-text format or HTML format. And you have complete control over how many files are created, which reports go into which files, and where on your hard disk the files are stored.

Add it all up and you have almost complete control over your report groups. Because the memorized reports in the group can be based on standard reports or custom reports, and because every report has a set of options specific to that type of report, you control the structure and content of every report in the group. And you have a lot of control over how the group is organized and generated.