SIMS 7 - Command Reporter (Optimising Output)

ID Fields 

In order to access ID fields the user must be a member of the Third Party Reporter permission group. Failure to grant this permission often does not stop reports from running but it does suppress the identity fields which can make the output useless.

Two sorts of ID fields usually exist for most entities:

• Internal ID - Integer which may have various names such as 'Base_Group_ID in classes' or 'Person_ID in Person'.
• External ID - GUID and did usually called external ID. Please note that there is a property called external id for an 'Aspect' which is the exception to the rule because it is not a GUID.

Unique Tag Names

Our sample report extracts two columns with the same default name 'Surname' because it lists students and their parents.  The 'Caption' must be set to a unique value for each item in the report. Failure to do so will create a run time error from command reporter.

CLR 2

Spaces/Punctuation in Tag Names

If we use an XML tag such as ‘My Name’ which has a space in it will be renamed to ‘My_X0020Name’ which may well be unexpected. The conclusion is that it is simplest to avoid spaces in Tag Names. Other punctuation such as Double Quote, Single Quote, @, > and < are also inappropriate for tag names.

Multiple record sets

Command reporter will return a row for the cross product of each row in a multiple record set.  This can cause speed and data volume problems.

If an application requires

• Students Details (Average 1 per student / 750 per secondary school)
• Exam Results (Average 10 per student)
• Classes (Average 10 per student per year)
• Achievements (Average 10 per student per year)

Then 5 reports would be recommended.

• Student Details (750 rows)
• Student Exam Results (7500 rows)
• Student Class Memberships (7500 rows(per year)) (class id and student id)
• Classes (300 rows (per year) assuming 25 pupils per class)
• Achievements (7500 rows)

Using a single report would generate 750 (students) x 10 (exams) x 10 (classes) x 10 (achievements), or 750,000 rows, most of which is duplication