Using the Report Designer Display

The data fields that we will add from the Query Option Objects should be added to a Data Band. It is useful to "group" the Data Band using Group Header and Footer Bands so you can separate objects or keep them in the same group. Much more information on grouping data can be found in the Stimulsoft Reports documentation. To begin the grouping, add a "Group Header" band to the report by clicking on the "Bands" icon and selecting "Group Header". When the pencil cursor is displayed, click in the Report Designer workspace and the Group dialog will be displayed. The data sets from the Dictionary panel will be displayed and you can choose how to group your data. We will begin by creating a group associated with the Realtime Query object data, so open the Temperature_rt_items table and select ObjectName.

Assigning the group in this way means all query objects in this Realtime Query Option will be grouped together. If you added another query object to the Realtime Query Option (through the table properties dialog in the object properties panel of the Report Item) it will appear in this group. To separate the items in the same Query Option you can assign the group to the ObjectName property in the Temperature_rt_data /_items subtable.

To add a label to the group heading click on the "Components" icon in the left-hand item list and select "Text". The pencil cursor will be displayed and you can click in the group header to add a text label in the Text dialog box.

Adjust the size of the text box and change the text style using the Properties panel. You can also change the colour and style of the Group Header band in the Properties panel to make the group distinctive in the report.

Next we will add the Data band where the data from the Query objects is displayed. To do this click on the "Bands" icon and select "Data". With the pencil icon, click below the Group Header band in the workspace to add the data band. This will bring up the Data band assignment dialog where you can select the Temperature_rt_data table for the data band. Click OK to assign the data band.

Now add some property data items from the Temperature_rt_data table in the Dictionary panel into the data band by drag and drop. In the below example the ObjectName (from the rt_items subtable), the Value and the Timestamp have been added.

This group can now be closed by adding a Group Footer Band from the "Bands" menu and adding it to the reoprt design. Change the colour of the Group Footer band in the Properties panel so the group is clear in your report. When finished, the workspace should look something like below.

Save the report design layout and then click the Preview Tab to view the report design.

More Query Objects can easily be added to the report by opening the Query objects table in the Realtime Query option of the Report Item, adding a row to the tabel and dragging and dropping another object from the I/O model:

Click Apply in the object properties panel of the Report Item (this change will prompt a dialog saying that the object has been changed and needs to be reloaded, click Ok). Reopen the Preview in Report Designer and the Grouped Data band will be updated with the new query object.

We will next create a chart in the Report using the History Query data. This example will only cover the basics of creating a chart in Report Designer. For more detailed examples and a full range of configuration options, please visit the Stimulsoft Reports documentation. For this simple example we will not group the data but will need to add a "Data" band to the Report layout to contain the Chart. Select a Data band from the "Bands" menu on the left and add it to the workspace with the pencil cursor. When the Data Assignment dialog pops up, assign the Data band to the TempertureHistory_ht_items table and click OK.

Expand the size of the Data band using the resize arrows then locate the "Infographics" icon in the left hand menu bar. Click on the icon and select Line > Line from the options.

Add the chart to the data band, and drag it to the desired size.

This will open the Chart Editor dialog where the chart settings can be configured.

The "Series" options are configured first. In the Properties panel on the right the following basic chart options can be configured:

Click on the drop-down arrow next to Value Date Column to bring up the Dictionary. Under Temperature History_ht_data table, doule-click on the Value column.

Select the Argument Data Column in a similar way but this time under Temperature History_ht_data table, doule-click on the Timestamp column. In the Common properties section, select the Title property to open up the displayed series tiltle text editor. Delete 'Series 1' and then drag and drop the ObjectName column from the Dictionary TemperatureHistory_ht_items table into the Text Field. Click OK.

Set the Format property in the Common section to : N2 This will set all numbers in the chart to display 2 decimal places. The properties panel should look like below:

Click on the "Area" tab in the Chart Editor to format labels and titles of the x and y axes of the chart.

Click on "X Axis" in the middle set of options to open the properties for the x axis. Expand the "Labels" and "Title" sections.

Click on "Y Axis" and in the Title section, enter the Text property as Temperature / C.

Once finished, click OK to close the Chart Editor and return to the Report Display. Save the report layout before continuing, It should look something like the screenshot shown below.

Click on Preview to see how your Report layout will look.

This is a very simple example of how to add a chart to the report layout, there are lots of different chart and configuration options that can be applied. For more detailed examples and a full range of configuration options, please visit the Stimulsoft Reports documentation.