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I am using the N20060911 build of BIRT. I've deployed a report online using hte BIRT-viewer. When i select the export data icon the export box comes up with a drop down listing of all the datasets used in the reports. The problem is that the names of the datasets in the dropdown list names everything as ELEMENT_1146, ELEMENT_1234, ELEMENT_3456, etc... and not as the names that i used for the datasets themselves like CUSTOMER_QUERY, PAYMENTS_QUERY, etc... Is there any way to have the BIRT-viewr display the dataset names instead? Would it also be possble to hide some datasets so they don't appear in the export box?
Could you attach the report design? The solution could be naming the report items that uses the data set.
Created attachment 50901 [details] populationAnalysis.rptdesign
I've named the items that were using my datasets and that has solved the issue for me. Would it be possible to have an option to hide specific data sets from the extractions box? Some datasets are used for dynamic drop down lists in the parameters box and aren't needed for user extraction. Another thing i have noticed is that if i use the same dataset in multiple items, there are now duplicate extraction selections in the extraction box drop down. I guess the dataset/report item combination is considered unique even though the dataset information is the same. This is happening because my report has multiple pages and the header of each page displays the same information that's taken from a dataset. If there was a way to directly get the dataset itself instead of having to link it though a report item would be better. I'm not sure what the best way is to handle this but from a user standpoint having multiple instance of the same selection in the extraction box might be confusing/redundant.
There are two reasons for not using the data set directly in data extraction drop down list 1) When a data set is used (bound) to a report item (a table for example), you can specify additional filter and calculated columns in that data binding. We think using the result set matches better what user expect since it shows the filter-ed data and includes the addition calculated columns. 2) Data set is not persisted in a BIRT report document, so we do not always have the data available for data extraction from a data set. For example, if the data set has a million row, but thru filtering only 100 rows is used in a report table, then only the 100 row is persisted in the report document. +1 on the suggestions of have setting on the result set if it should be hidden from data extraction. Another potential enhancement for data engine is to allow user to give a directive to persist the entire data set (a persist setting on the data set model), such persisted data set then can be shared among all report items that bound to it, and is also available for data extraction. Not sure if such feature will confuse people, however. And which one should be the default behavior: persiset share data set, or persist each report item's result set. comments?
Part of the requirement is addressed by the result set sharing feature currently scheduled for 2.2.1 (multiple tables can share the same result set; it will only show up once in the extraction list). We will also consider adding extraction instructions to the result set. Moving this to 2.2.1 for implementation.
Discussed in BIRT bug review meeting and decided to move this to 2.3 since it does not meet the 2.2.1 criteria.
I suggest the following solution for the request to include an option to exclude certain result sets from appearing in the list for Data Extraction: *** UI Change In the property editor for elements that can have data binding (table, list, data items etc.), a new property is added to the Advanced tab: Name: Enable Data Export: Boolean Type: Boolean Default: True Also I suggest that we group properties "Data binding reference", "Data Set" and "Enable Data Export" in the Advanced tab into a subtree named "Data". ** Model Change Add new boolean property AllowExport to the data binding structure. Default value is True. ** Engine Change IDataExtractionTask.getResultSetList() will list only result sets with AllowExport set to True. IDataExtractTask.extract() returns "result set not found" error if the selected result set has AllowExport == False.
An equally important requirement is for report designer to decided which bindings in a result set are exportable. This improves usability in cases where the end user is only interested in exporting a few columns in a table with a large number of bindings.
Separate bugzillas filed for Model and UI changes. This entry will track the Engine implementation of the feature.
Use 'allowExport' in data extraction. Check in on Aug 26.
Verified in build (2.3.1.v20080827-0630).
*** Bug 189698 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
