The focus of this chapter has been on the creation of list and subsummary report layouts. There's a bit more to creating useful reports, however, than merely setting up nice-looking layouts:You have to incorporate reports into the user workflow, controlling how a user both accesses and exits a report. The methods you choose may vary from solution to solution, and your choice is a function of both what the system does and the particular audience. If the users are proficient with FileMaker, they may be comfortable manually finding and sorting a set of records and navigating to the appropriate layout. More often, however, users benefit from your taking some time to set up some infrastructure to help them access the reports properly.
There are many ways you can go about building reports into the workflow of a solution. Following are some of the most common we've seen over the years:
After the report has been generated, you'll probably want to return users to wherever they were before running the report. Try to avoid a situation in which a user gets stranded on a report layout without any tools to get back to familiar territory.
You should also strive to have some consistency in how reports look and function in your system; this will make using them easier and more intuitive for your users. For instance, you might set up as a convention that reports are always (or never) previewed onscreen, and then users are prompted as to whether they want to print a report. Similarly, place layout elements such as the title, page number, and report date and time in consistent locations on your reports so that users don't have to hunt for them.
Part I: Getting Started with FileMaker 8
FileMaker Overview
Using FileMaker Pro
Defining and Working with Fields
Working with Layouts
Part II: Developing Solutions with FileMaker
Relational Database Design
Working with Multiple Tables
Working with Relationships
Getting Started with Calculations
Getting Started with Scripting
Getting Started with Reporting
Part III: Developer Techniques
Developing for Multiuser Deployment
Implementing Security
Advanced Interface Techniques
Advanced Calculation Techniques
Advanced Scripting Techniques
Advanced Portal Techniques
Debugging and Troubleshooting
Converting Systems from Previous Versions of FileMaker Pro
Part IV: Data Integration and Publishing
Importing Data into FileMaker Pro
Exporting Data from FileMaker
Instant Web Publishing
FileMaker and Web Services
Custom Web Publishing
Part V: Deploying a FileMaker Solution
Deploying and Extending FileMaker
FileMaker Server and Server Advanced
FileMaker Mobile
Documenting Your FileMaker Solutions