Liveware Publishing Support Forum

Hi,____I have many years of using R&R, in my new job I am no longer creating reports just for my company but for clients of my company. So I need a report writer where I can create a report for Client A and then use that same report for Client B so I don^t have to re-invent the wheel.____Some background - I^m using SQL Version 12.5 and connecting to an Oracle DB on the Cloud. All the clients that I need to support are in the same DB - they just have different schemas with different user names and passwords. I^ve installed the RSW Runtime for each of these clients (on their local workstation) and created Oracle ODBC drivers to hit their specific instance. An important note - the driver I create to hit the specific DB instance has the same name for every client - let^s call it Oracle. Their runtime icon points to a text file that grabs the report and the icon also includes the /P parameter so I can pass on the password & the user doesn^t have to worry about that. Works well if I create a report for that specific client.____However if I create a report for Client A, R&R asks for a data source- the ODBC connection. Since that ODBC connection is linked a specific User Name (let^s say Client A), if I try to use that report for Client B it won^t let me. I can try to change the username and password when I try to bring up that report for Client B, but then I get an error in R&R saying ^Cannot access master table ^Client A."MASTER". Try another Data Source?^ If I do that it pulls up the ODBC connection (it has the same name as Client A) but the report doesn^t store just the connection name, but the Owner affiliated with that data source, in this case Client A. So any report I create for Client A cannot be used by Client B or Client C.____Now I^m no DB expert and to be honest, I fairly new to SQL. Does anyone know of another way around this? I^d love to stay with R&R because I am familar with it but a colleague is suggesting we move to Crystal because he says it can do what I want.____Any suggestions would be appreciated!____Bob

As long as you have some type of a link in the databases for the customers name, you can easily do this. Well, maybe not easily, but I do it all the time.____Anyway, say I have a customer databases and in that database I use a four position unique code for each customer along with their full company name.____Cust_Code c(4)__Cust_name c(50)____Not know what you detail database looks like, I can only assume, and we all know what that means, that you have some type of a designation in there for each customer. So if the detail records you have has the Cust_Code field in it, than you can link that Customer database with the detail database and do any type of a report you want, summary or detail, for each customer. You can do each report separately, by filtering on the customer code or you can sort by Cust_Code and page after each Cust_code giving you all your reports at once.____Again, without know exactly what is in your detail records it is hard to know.

Bob:____You can change the data source for any report. Just create all of the reports for Client A and change the data source when you want it for other clients.____You can also use a control file and specify the data source in it. ____Depends on how report is being run and who runs it.____Mike