Hi,
I was having problems with Business Objects templates recently, and have now managed (after much trial and error) to solve the problems. I thought I’d share the exact solution to help clarify this if anyone has similar problems in the future.
Being relatively new to Bus. Obj. I assumed that a ‘template’ would be similar to a template in a word processor. Not an unreasonable assumption as both are used to apply default formatting on a document. In a word processor you would create a document, apply the formatting and save the new template. The business objects help documents give the same instructions. Create a report, adjust it to how you want, and then save it as a template.
However theres a subtle difference here which is pretty un-intuitive. In Bus. Objs. you don’t just create a new report, add a few headers and footers and save as a template - you have to create a whole report including data. Without this data when you apply the template, your report ‘disappears’ (although the data is still there somewhere). And this is happens with setting style or structure or both.
There has to be data on your template. Even if its meaningless. This because when your template is applied, the data formatting is applied too. If theres no data in the template, then the data in your report disappears too. So the simplest option is to create a table which consists of (for example) ‘select sysdate from dual;’. This is a one column, table which can be formatted. Save this and everything will be fine.
Also another tip. Templates can’t be edited, so this means that when you create a report which is saved as a template - save it as a report as well. You can re-edit this report and re-save it as a template if changes are required. Otherwise you have to start from scratch every time - and for reports with logos, headers, footers, calculated fields, etc. this is a pain.
Anyway thought I’d share this as the documentation is far from clear on this area.
L.
Listserv Archives (BOB member since 2002-06-25)