Project's Report Selection Layout

[jgarry]

Hi, thanks in advace. Im working on a project (as are many people), I have come to the point where I want to improve the way I present reports to the users. Currently I have 8 areas that the users selects with in each area their is a list box of reports that they can select. This is nice but the amout of reports is getting larger and larger. I would like to see or hear how others are doing system with large amounts of reports.

I did not write the original system. I would like to combine many of the reports and use filters. instead of having a report for each type such as employee by department, employee by Supervisor, etc... Their is a lot of this combination that can take place. I feel that their has to be a beter way to present the report selection to the end users.

 

[dhookom]

First, you shouldn't have more than one report that have the same layout with the only difference being the selection of records returned. You can dynamically filter a report based on values a user enters into controls on your form.

Second, I use tables that store information about my reports. My main report table [ztblReports] will have one record per report. These are generally presented to users with a list box on the form. If I have lots of reports, I will add a table [ztblReportCategories] which is used to group reports. This results in two list boxes. When a category is selected, only the specific reports are displayed in the report list box.

I will also create a table of criteria [ztblCriteria] that includes the names of all the filtering controls on my report selection form. A junction table [ztblReportCriteria] stores which criteria are used for which report. I have some code that enables and disables controls based on the selected report.

Duane MS Access MVP
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