Generating Reports from Multiple Tables
A support question came in recently, in which it was asked, "What is the best way is to generate reports from data in multiple related tables?".
While there are a number of ways to accomplish this, the best way (I believe) is to use a dedicated Reports table.
Here's my video reply to the question.
If you have other suggestions then leave them in the comments area!
Comments
Master with Multiple related tables reporting
Great! Do you mean to export all required data to a table for the content of the report?
Then, we still need to build a layout for the report, right?
It would be great if you can share some experience on how to prepare the layout for printing in this situation.
Thanks,
Consolidating multiple tables for one report
In your video you refer to PDF appending method, can you be more specific on how you can generate separate reports united in one pdf file?
PDF Append
you can use the append to PDF option in the Save as PDf script step to save several different layouts into a single PDF.
Each new layout is appended as a new page, so if you have several half page layouts, you will have several half-full pages in your PDF. It's great for multiple types of reports.
I've done a number of reports using similar methods to the method Matt is talking about and they generally work well.
If you have quite different report types, then appending several reports to a single PDF is great, but if you are just trying to append a range of data from different tables into a single report structure (like the example Matt talks about) then this method works well.
There are obviously up-sides and down-sides to each method.