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Features

MetaQuest Report (MQR) is made up of two windows – Report Selection and Report Display – and reports on information in the Repository by:
    • Creating a rich text format (RTF) document.
    • Allow the user to save the report to a file in several different formats:
    • Allow the user to copy all or part of the report to the Windows clipboard.
    • Allow the report to display attributes about all objects as defined by the administrator.
    • Allow the user to append several reports into the Report Display window.

 

Report Selection Controls

The Report Selection window is displayed as part of all MQQ components – EZ-Query for this illustration. In some cases the buttons are smaller and in other cases they are larger depending on the room available on the window. In all cases, the Report Selection has the same controls:

Drop Down List Boxes:

    • Report List – Contains a list of reports as defined by the MQA for the particular object type. The user can select the appropriate report as needed.

Command Buttons:

    • Create/Append – Execute the selected report on the list of objects that are selected. All the objects must be of the same object type. If there is already a report stored in the report display window, then the new report(s) is/are appended to the end.
    • View – Displays the Report Display window so that the user can view the reports that have been generated. If there aren’t any reports to view, then this button is disabled.
    • Replace – Operates the same as the Create/Append button except that the Report Display window is cleared first before creating the report(s). If there aren’t any reports to clear, then this button is disabled.

 

Report Display Controls

The Report Display window is displayed when the View button is clicked on the Report Selection window and it has several buttons:

Command Buttons:

    • Print – Allows the user to print the report to the printer of their choice using the standard windows print window.
    • Clear – Will clear the contents of the Report Display window.
    • Save As … – Will save the contents of the Report Display to a file in one of several formats. The standard Windows Save As window will be used to select a folder and file in the Save Report As… window below.
    • Copy to Clipboard – Copies the highlighted contents of Report Display to the Windows clipboard so that it can subsequently be pasted into any other Windows application.

Mouse Clicks:

    • Left Button – Click and hold the left mouse button to select text that will be copied to the Windows clipboard.
    • Right Button – Click the right button to copy the selected text to the Windows clipboard, which is the same as clicking on the Copy to Clipboard button.

 

Save Report As… Controls

The Save Report As… window is displayed when the Save As… button is clicked on the Report Display window and it is the standard Windows Save As dialog, which can vary depending on the release of Windows that you’re running. There are some controls that will be initialized by the MQQ:

Drop Down List Boxes:

    • File Name – Gives the name of the file that the report will be saved to. This value will be remembered by MQQ and will be re-displayed the next time that you do a Save As.
    • Save As Type – Indicates the type of file to save the report as and the valid values are:
  • Microsoft Word (*.doc) – Save the report as an RTF document with a "doc" file type.
  • Rich Text Format (*.rtf) – Save the report as an RTF document with a "rtf" file type.
  • Basic Comma Separated Value (*.csv) – Save the report as a CSV file in the MQQ Basic Comma Separated Value (BCSV) format.
  • Cascading Comma Separated Value (*.csv) – Save the report as a CSV file in the MQQ Cascading Comma Separated Value (CCSV) format.

 

Comma Separated Value Formats

Quite often, there are times when a user wants to take information from the Repository and transfer it to another format such as a spreadsheet or word processor. The Report Display window allows the user to accomplish this by saving the report in two different word processing formats – RTF or Microsoft Word. Additionally, to satisfy the other requirement of saving to a spreadsheet, the Report Display window allows the user to save the report in two different Comma Separated Value (CSV) formats. The MQQ CSV format allows the user to specify three ini file variables that determine the CSV file output:
    • SaveAsCSVSeparator – The separator to use in between columns in the CSV file. Defaults to a comma (,).
    • SaveAsCSVDelimiter – The delimiter to use at the beginning and ending of each column so that if the separator occurs in the column value, it won’t be taken as a separator. Defaults to a double quote (").
    • SaveAsCSVNewLine – The indicator to use in between multiple lines of a column value. Since the column value has to be a single string, it can’t contain new line characters. Defaults to a double grave accent (``).

Generic MetaQuest Report

The following generic MQQ report will be used to describe the format of each CSV file type and it uses the following symbols:
    • Hdx – for heading.
    • HdTS – for heading timestamp.
    • OTx – for Object type name.
    • OTxObjx – for object instance name of a the Object Type OT.
    • OTxAttrx – for attribute name of an Object Type OT.
    • OTxObjxAttrxVal – the attribute value for the object instance OTxObjx.

Generic MQQ report:

<Hd1>

<Hd2>

<Hd3>

<HdTS>

OT1 -- OT1Obj1

OT1Attr1

<OT1Obj1Attr1Val>

OT1Attr2

<OT1Obj1Attr2Val>

<Link Attr Name (Optional)>

OT2 -- OT2Obj1

OT2Attr1

<OT2Obj1Attr1Val>

OT2Attr2

<OT2Obj1Attr2Val>

OT2 -- OT2Obj2

OT2Attr1

<OT2Obj2Attr1Val>

OT2Attr3

<OT2Obj2Attr3Val>

<Link Attr Name (Optional)>

OT3 -- OT3Obj1

OT3Attr1

<OT3Obj1Attr1Val>

OT3Attr2

<OT3Obj1Attr2Val>

OT2 -- OT2Obj3

OT2Attr1

<OT2Obj3Attr1Val>

OT2Attr3

<OT2Obj3Attr3Val>

OT4 – OT4Obj1

OT4Attr1

<OT4Obj1Attr1Val>

OT4Attr2

<OT4Obj1Attr2Val>

 

Basic Comma Separated Value Format

The BCSV format is, as its name implies, basic and it will always have the same five columns with the headings:
    • Title – The heading lines of the report concatenated together into a single string with the ini file value for SaveAsCSVNewLine (default of ``) used as a new line indicator.
    • Object Type – The name of the current Object Type.
    • Object – The name of the current Object.
    • Attribute – The name of the current Attribute.
    • Attribute Value – The value of the current Attribute.

The steps for building the BCSV file are:

    • Find an attribute value in the report.
    • Find the attributes Report Name, Object Type Name, Object Name and Attribute Name.
    • Put the five values in the file.

The Generic MQQ report will look like this when saved as a BCSV file:

Report,Object Type,Object,Attribute,Attribute Value

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT1,OT1Obj1,OT1Attr1,<OT1Obj1Attr1Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT1,OT1Obj1,OT1Attr2,<OT1Obj1Attr2Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT2,OT2Obj1,OT2Attr1,<OT2Obj1Attr2Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT2,OT2Obj1,OT2Attr2,<OT2Obj1Attr2Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT2,OT2Obj2,OT2Attr1,<OT2Obj2Attr1Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT2,OT2Obj2,OT2Attr3,<OT2Obj2Attr3Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT3,OT3Obj1,OT3Attr1,<OT3Obj1Attr1Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT3,OT3Obj1,OT3Attr2,<OT3Obj1Attr2Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT2,OT2Obj3,OT2Attr1,<OT2Obj3Attr1Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT2,OT2Obj3,OT2Attr3,<OT2Obj3Attr3Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT4,OT4Obj1,OT4Attr1,<OT4Obj1Attr1Val>

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT4,OT4Obj1,OT4Attr2,<OT4Obj1Attr2Val>

 

 

Cascading Comma Separated Value Format

The CCSV file’s format is a more complicated than the BCSV and its heading will vary based on the values in the report. The steps for building the CCSV file are:
    • Traverse the report and build the headings by starting with the root Object Type and the root attributes. Do the same for each child Object Type and all of their attributes and then the same for all of their child Object Types and so on. Keep adding report headings to the end of the heading unless the heading has already been added.
    • Traverse the report again, starting with the root and then progressing to its children and their children and so on. Capture all the object names and attribute values until we have gone as far in the indentation as we can go. Then build a line with the object names and attribute values in the column that corresponds to the Object Type or Attribute heading and fill in nulls for any remaining headings that don’t have a value.
    • Traverse backwards to the next parallel entry or higher level entry and then progress again as far in the indentation as we can go. Keep doing this until the end of the report is reached.

The Generic MQQ report will look like this when saved as a CCSV file:

Report,OT1,OT1Attr1,OT1Attr2,OT2,OT2Attr1,OT2Attr2,OT2Attr3,OT3,OT3Attr1,OT3Attr2,OT4,OT4Attr1,OT4Attr2

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT1Obj1,<OT1Obj1Attr1Val>,<OT1Obj1Attr2Val>,OT2Obj1,<OT2Obj1Attr1Val>,<OT2Obj1Attr2Val>,,,,,,,

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT1Obj1,<OT1Obj1Attr1Val>,<OT1Obj1Attr2Val>,OT2Obj2,<OT2Obj2Attr1Val>,,<OT2Obj2Attr2Val>,OT3Obj1,<OT3Obj1Attr1Val>,<OT3Obj1Attr2Val>,,,

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT1Obj1,<OT1Obj1Attr1Val>,<OT1Obj1Attr2Val>,OT2Obj3,<OT2Obj3Attr1Val>,,<OT2Obj3Attr3Val>,,,,,,

<Hd1><Hd2><Hd3><HdTS>,OT1Obj1,<OT1Obj1Attr1Val>,<OT1Obj1Attr2Val>,,,,,,,OT4Obj1,<OT4Obj1Attr1Val>,<OT4Obj1Attr2Val>