Defining a URL for a Custom Report

A URL must be defined for a new Custom Report.  This URL specifies a path to a web page that is used for viewing the report.  In addition, the URL contains definitions (in a special format) for a set of parameters that RAVE passes to the Web page when the report is called.  

The URL is defined in the Report Maintenance page in the Report Administration module.

There are two ways to define a URL for a Custom Report:

• Using a Relative URL

• Using a Full URL

When defining a Relative path

A Relative URL is used when the page that renders the report is located within the RAVE web application file tree structure (e.g. CrystalReportViewer.aspx). The URL contains the page name used to render the report and the definitions of the parameters that are passed to the report at run-time.

A Relative URL is defined as follows:

pageNameUsedToRenderTheReport.ext[?parameterName1={parameterToken1}][&parameterName2={parameterToken2}]…[&parameterNameN={parameterTokenN}]

where,

1. pageNameUsedToRenderTheReport.ext is the name and extension of the page that will be used to render the report

2. [?parameterName1={parameterToken1}] is the definition of the first parameter that RAVE will pass to the report rendering page at run-time.

• The first parameter passed must always have a ’r;?’ in the brackets defining it, e.g. [?...]

3. [&parameterName2={parameterToken2}] is the second parameter that will be passed.

• All parameters (subsequent to the first one) must always have a ’r;&’ in the brackets defining them, e.g. [&...]

4. [parameterNameN={parameterTokenN}] is the last parameter to be passed to the report. If a parameter is selected on the Report Maintenance page that is not listed in the URL field, it will not be passed to the report viewer.

Note:In some cases it may be necessary to select a parameter on the Report Maintenance page and not include it in the URL field. For example, let us consider you need to pass a list of Subjects to a report but you do not need to pass a list of Sites to it. In this case, although you do not need a list of Sites in the report, Rave requires that you select a Site (or Sites) before selecting the Subjects. So, it is necessary to specify the Site parameter when you define prompts for the report, but because it is not needed in the report, it is not necessary to define the Site parameter in the URL field. Another example is that of a Site Group.

Example of a Relative URL

A report administrator defines the following parameters for a Custom Report that must be run using Rave’s Crystal Report Viewer tool (see the table at the end of this document for all the standard parameters and their tokens):

The relative URL for this will look something like this:

CrystalReportViewer.aspx[?StudyID={st}][&SiteID={si}][&FolderID={fl}][&FormID={fm}]*

Note: In this example, although SiteGroupID was selected as a parameter on the custom report, it was not included in the URL because SiteGroupID is not needed for the report.

Debugging the process of passing parameters to a Report

To debug the process of passing parameters to a Custom Report, use ReportDebug.aspx as the page name that is used to render the report.

Using the above example, the debugging URL will be:

ReportDebug.aspx?[StudyID={st}][&SiteID={si}][&FolderID={fl}][&FormID={fm}]

When a URL for a Custom Report is defined with the ReportDebug.aspx page, the report will display the ReportDebug.aspx debugging page. This page has the report parameters that were passed on to the report. In this way the report administrator can insure that all the parameters needed are in fact being passed to the report rendering page.

When defining a Full URL

If a Custom Report must be hosted outside of Rave (e.g. using Business Objects) than a full URL must be defined. In this case, the URL is comprised of the full URL for the report-rendering (or intermediate) page and the parameter definitions.

Examples of a full URL’s syntax are:

• http://applicableserver.applicabledomain.applicableext/applicablepath/applicablepage.applicableext[?...][&...] or

• https://applicableserver.applicabledomain.applicableext/applicablepath/applicablepage.applicableext [?...][&...]

The parameter definition portion of the URL field is the same as for the reports that use relative URLs.

Note: It is possible to substitute whole or a partial path to the report viewer page by creating a record in the Configuration table in the Rave database.

For example: The URL https://busobj.mycompany.com/reports/reportViewer.jsp[?Study={st}][&Patients={su}]

can be defined as <BOServer>[?Study={st}][&Patients={su}] if a record is created in the Configuration table where field Tag has a value of BOServer and field ConfigValue has a value of https://busobj.mycompany.com/reports/reportViewer.jsp

This feature is convenient if multiple reports use the same external report rendering page.

Notes for both Relative and Full URL

pageNameUsedToRenderTheReport.ext[?parameterName1={parameterToken1}][&parameterName2={parameterToken2}]…[&parameterNameN={parameterTokenN}]

• Since a parameter’s token is what is actually used internally by Rave to generate a list of parameter values to pass to the report, the parameterName portion of a Custom Report URL can actually contain any value and can be changed at anytime. Using the example URL above, in [&parameterNameN={parameterTokenN}, the parameterNameN is up to the report designer, but parameterTokenN has to match one of the pre-defined Rave tokens or a custom token, which can be set up on the Custom Parameters page.

• When a Report is called, the {parameterTokenN} portion of the URL gets substituted with a comma-delimited list (or single value) of items that the user either selected in Rave Reporter (on the Rave Report Prompts page in the Reporter module) or passed automatically from the EDCmodule.

For example:

myreport.aspx[?study={st}][&site={si}] when called could look like:

myreport.aspx?study=1&site=2

• If only one study and one site are selected, it will be StudyID = 1, SiteID = 2.

These are internal IDs from the Rave database.

myreport.aspx?study=1&site=6,15, 24

• If StudyID = 1, sites that were selected have SiteIDs 6, 15 and 24.

The following table lists the standard Rave parameters and their Tokens:

*If a report requires a parameter type not included on this list, a user can define custom parameters and their tokens on the Report Administration Module’s Custom Parameters page.

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