Summary

The Report Browser, introduced in V6, provides a convenient interface for creating, sharing, and using reports about work objects and business progress. The Report Browser natively supports reports based on the report definition rules. Users can add V5 list-view and summary-view reports to the Report Browser as well.

Users create or find reports using the Report Browser. They can then review, modify, or extend a selected report in the associated Report Viewer.

The standard Manager composite portal includes the Report Browser. You can adapt the Manager portal to suit your application's needs, or you can add the Report Browser to a composite portal of your own design.

Composite portals have one or more "spaces". Each space references a harness, and each harness can display sections in one of 13 available layouts. The developer chooses a layout from a palette of option.

The Report Browser is defined standard section rules that can be added to the harness layout very simply. The procedure below outlines how to have the Report Browser appear in a layout with two panes.

For more about composite portals, see About composite portals.

Suggested Approach

For example, you can build a portal for some "observers", who will review various reports but will not create, assign, or process work objects. For this example, assume the new portal is to contain only the Report Browser.

1. In the Application Explorer, right-click on User Interface and select New > Portal from the context menu.
2. In the New Rule panel, name the portal and click Create.
3. On the Skins tab of the portal rule, select User in the Role field and Composite in the Type field. In the Skin field select EndUserPortal or CompositeBrand if you have not created your an application-specific portal skin.
4. If this portal were for users who would open, create, or update work items, one space on the Spaces tab would must be named Work, and would include the harness and sections that handled work items. As this portal will only have the Report Browser, choose a name of your preference for the single space. Set the Harness Class as Data-Portal.
5. Click the edit (pencil) icon to the right of the Harness Name field to display the list of available harnesses. Click Create New... to create a new harness. Set the Applies To field to the appropriate class in your application, name it in the Purpose field, and click Create. The Spaces tab in the portal rule should look like this, with your own name choices in the first and third fields:
   
6. In the Layout tab of the new harness rule, select the Layout dropdown menu, and from it drag a Panel Set onto the part of the harness marked <drag section here>:
   
   When you drop the Panel Set onto the harness, a screen appears allowing you to select one of 13 panel sets to use. In V6.1, the Report Browser requires two panels aligned horizontally, so Left Column is a good choice:
   
7. The harness now looks like this:
   
8. Select the left-side panel and click the magnifying-glass icon to display its properties panel. In the Use Section field enter pzRBLeftPanelContainer. Click OK or Apply.
9. Following the same procedure, assign to the right panel the section pzRBRightPanelContainer. The harness now looks like this:
   
10. To test the layout, click the Run icon ( ) on the toolbar . The harness appears in a new window, displaying the Report Browser. Save and close the harness and portal rules.
11. Add the portal to the access group for the observers: Open the access group and, on the Settings tab, select the new portal as the Default Portal Layout, or add the new portal to the list under Secondary Portal Layouts. Those users using Operator IDs associated with this access group can now see the portal.

The portal is now ready for observers to use. When you discover what additional features belong in the portal, you can add them by adding spaces to the portal and populating the spaces with the appropriate harnesses and sections.