Has anyone ever done this before? I need to compare two sets of identical reports. One from 5.1.3 and other from 6.1B. It is acutally a migration that we are testing. We need to write a code to check formating between .rep files (page margins, Header and Footer Locations, centered page numbers, header and footer margins etc) and the Data (cell by cell).
The data check can be done via a VB code, but does anyone have any idea how to compare full client report foramting and output results in a file?
You should check first, before the appearance and the layout of the report, if the results are same (number of rows, sum, etc) and they are a few difference between 5.1.8 and 6.1.b (filters, for example, don’t have exactly the same behaviour)
for the appearance of reports (your question), you can for example make screenshot of 51x and 61x reports, converts it in two colors and compare it in photoshop using two layers configured with transparency…
I didn’t think i could one day speak about photoshop in BOB
The problem there is that you’re comparing an extract from a report, not the report itself. The HTML generation is probably different in V5 and V6, so you can’t really compare.
The typical concern is the numbers. As long as you get the same totals / sub-totals and so on, the rest is moot. Does it really matter if V6 moves a cell two pixels to the left or right? Not that it should, but that seems to be a bit overly restrictive to me.
Yes it does. Last year, when the company upgraded, they had to spend 2 man months comparing the layout. Since the reports go out to the senior management and external vendors/customer, keping the format or any change transparent is very important.
Run each version of the report.
Print a sampling of pages from each report.
Place the matching pages one over the other and hold up to the light.
If the two reports are identical you will see an exact overlap.
And if you don’t see an exact overlap, the second sheet of paper could have feed in slightly to the left. Ho hum.
As long as it is close enough visually and the numbers match, I’d get sign off.
Do you have acceptance criteria negotiated and documented?