About Report Definitions
A key component of TMS is the ability to view your data and create reports based upon your data. The reporting capabilities of TMS OnLine/OnSite (starting with version 2011.5.4) consist of two parts: Data Sources and Report Definitions.
Data Source
A Data Source contains information for retrieving a subset of data from any database. This general structure includes the user selected data fields, aggregated data, source tables, relationships, and filters and sort criteria.
Report Definition
A Report Definition contains information on the layout of the data from a particular data source. Many times these records will simply be referred to as reports and not report definitions. Report definitions (except those of the Template type) include a tie to a data source, and they can contain field grouping instructions, categorization fields, and security information.
Once a data source is created, the Layout Editor on the Report Definition Edit page allows the user to take the existing data source and style the report for printing. This includes adjusting field width and height, font size, font style (bold/italic/underline), data formatting (through masks), and data grouping. The editor presents a “print layout” view for the report definition and allows the user to drag and drop items on the layout. These items can include static labels, data fields, images, and special fields like page number or time stamps.
There are three types of report definitions: Designer, Standard and Template.
Standard and Designer Report Definitions
Standard and Designer Report Definitions include a reference to a specific data source and can contain field grouping instructions, categorization fields, and security information. This includes the data fields, aggregated data, source tables, relationships, filters and sort criteria.
Designer report definitions created in TMS are constructed like Standard report definitions, but the data source linked to Designer report definitions is not constructed within the Data Sources module. Data sources for use with Designer report definitions are constructed with the TMS Report Designer, which is installed as a separate entity from the main TMS application. See the Designer Reports section for information on this type of report definition.
Template Report Definitions
A Template Report Definition is a report definition which contains general items related to a report layout, but it is not linked to a data source and does not contain data fields. These are used when printing "on-the-fly" data (such as those found in query results). They can also be used as a basis for creating future reports from data sources. is a report definition which contains general items related to a report layout, but it is not linked to a data source and does not contain data fields. These are used when printing "on-the-fly" data (such as those found in query results). They can also be used as a basis for creating future reports from data sources.
Email Reports
You can think of Email Reports as schedules for your standard reports and other reports you want to be sent out on a regular basis. With Email Reports, you can bundle several data sources for delivery to one or more parties via your email system. See the Email Reports section for information on creating and utilizing Email Reports.
Standard and Template Report Definitions
In this section, we discuss code setup, and how to build a new Standard report definition and a new Template report definition.
