Preparing to run a report with Express data on the Web

To run a report with Express data on the Web, perform the following steps:

Create a Parameter Form for the Express Server login information

When a report that contains Express data is deployed to the Web, no Express Server login box is displayed. Thus, you must create a Parameter Form to allow the end user to enter a host name, user ID, and password.

To create a Parameter Form for a report that contains Express data:
  1. Open Reports Builder and the report that you want to deploy to the Web.

  2. Create three new user parameters for host name, user ID, and password, with names such as OESHOST, OESUSER, and OESPASSWORD. For the steps to do this, refer to the topic "Creating a user parameter" under How To > Work with Parameters and the Parameter Form on the Contents tab of this online help.
  3. Choose Tools>Parameter Form Builder, then in the Parameter Form Builder, click the three parameters that you created, and modify the parameter labels as desired.

  4. Click OK to display the Paper Parameter Form view with your default Parameter Form.

  5. Map the values entered by the end user to your user-defined parameters. To do so, complete the following steps.

    1. In the Object Navigator, expand the Paper Parameter Form node, then the Fields node.

    2. For each new parameter, double-click the properties icon to display the Property Inspector.

    3. In the Property Inspector, under the Field node, set the Source property to the appropriate user-defined parameter.

Define a report trigger for the EXPRESS_SERVER command line keyword

To deploy a report that contains Express data for use with the Reports Server (for example, for running over the Web), you must include the EXPRESS_SERVER command line keyword. For example:

EXPRESS_SERVER="SERVER=ncacn_ip_tcp:my_express_server/sl=1/st=1/ct=0/sv=1/"

where

my_express_server is the host name of the machine that is running Express Server.

To set the value of EXPRESS_SERVER command line keyword during report execution, after the end user has entered the host name, user ID, and password on the Runtime Parameter Form, perform the following steps:

  1. In the Object Navigator, expand the Report Triggers node, then double-click the PL/SQL for AFTER PARAMETER FORM.

  2. Add the following code in the Program Unit editor to define a value for the EXPRESS_SERVER command line keyword:

  3. function AfterPForm return boolean is
    begin
    null; 
         :express_server:='server=ncacn_ip_tcp:'|| 
         :OESHOST|| 
         '/sl=-1/st=1/ct=0/sv=1/'|| 
         'user='|| 
          :OESUSER|| 
          '/password='|
          :OESPASSWORD|
           '/'; 
    return  (TRUE); end;}
  4. Compile the code, fix any errors, then save all the changes to the report.

  5. Add a line such as the following to the CGICMD.DAT file to run the report over the Web. Replace the sample information with your Oracle database and Reports Server connection information. The %P argument displays the Parameter Form that you defined in the previous steps.

    expresstest: report=myreport.rdf server=repserver desformat=htmlcss destype=cache %P

See also

Using the Express data source

About configuring the Express data source