Reporting With External Text Files Made Easy

By Dimitris Poulos

Importing data from a text file into WebFOCUS and designing reports is now easily accomplished through the Upload Data File utility.

The Upload Data File utility allows you to import data from a text file and access it through any of the WebFOCUS reporting tools: Report Painter, HTML RA, HTML GA, HTML Layout Painter, etc.

The two commonly used file formats WebFOCUS supports are as follows:

  1. Excel files
  2. Delimited text files:
    1. Comma separated text files (.csv), in which the comma character (,) typically separates each field of text.
    2. Text files where the tab or pipe character is used to separate each field of text.

The feature is undergoing further improvements that will be available shortly and will allow developers to specify additional delimiters, such as semicolon, or use a custom delimiter.

The Upload Data File utility is available for development from Developer Studio through the Projects and Data Servers development areas. Developers may access if through the Master Files folder and selecting New/Upload Data File of from the Business Intelligence Dashboard for MR users that have access to the Custom Reports folder of the Domain tree.

The Upload feature uses a text file to create a WebFOCUS table (master file) and also creates a data file under an application of the Reporting Server in which the user is allowed to create files for personal or group use.

When accessing this utility, users are presented with the Upload Data File wizard that initially allows them to browse for the file to be imported, specify the file type (Excel, text) and provide information for column names, which are either auto-generated or available in imported files. See Screen 1.

The next step provides a data preview for the file to be imported. It also allows users to customize field names and format and specify the WebFOCUS table name and WebFOCUS Reporting Server application where the file will be created. See Screen 2.

This is all developers need to complete the import process and generate the WebFOCUS table and comma-delimited file that can be used for reporting through WebFOCUS.

Here’s a step-by-step example of how to use this feature:

  1. From the Projects and Data Servers area, right-click on the Master Files folder of a Project, or Reporting Server application, and select New/Upload Data File.
  2. From Dashboard, expand the Domain tree and under the My Reports folder, right-click on the Custom Reports folder and select Upload Data File.
  3. When the Upload Data File wizard opens, click on the Browse… button to select the file to be imported (.xls, .csv, .txt ). This opens the dialog that allows you to browse and select the required text file.
  4. From the File Format section in the first pane of the wizard, specify the format for the selected file -- Excel, CSV, Text -- with tab-separated values or text file with pipe-separated values.
  5. From the Field Names section in the first pane of the wizard, specify how the field names will be created: Automatically generate field names or use the first column from the imported file to get field names.
  6. Once all information required from the first step is provided, press Next to proceed.
  7. The next pane allows users to further customize field names, field alias, field type, field format and provides a data preview.
  8. Provide a name for the master file that will be created and, based on the user Reporting Server privileges, a list of available applications will be displayed that allows users to specify the location where the master file and data file will be created.  This process will create a master file and comma-delimited file with the imported data from the text file.
  9. Press Next to complete the import process and continue building reports through the WebFOCUS reporting tools. 
  10. The uploaded file will be listed when the WebFOCUS Master File dialog is opened during reporting.

 

For additional information, please review Summary of New features 7.6.1 (for Dashboard informoation) and 7.6.4 (For Developer Studio) in the Information Builders Technical Documentation Library.

 

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