Task 7:  Create the orders subreport

The orders subreport lists the orders for each customer in a row and column format. It displays the order number and date of each order. To iterate through the Orders data set rows and display them in a row and column format, you use the table element.

1	Choose Layout to resume editing the report.

2	Drag a table element from the palette, and drop it below the [CUSTOMERNAME] data element, in the detail area.

3	In Insert Table, specify the following values:

In Number of columns, type 2.

In Number of details, type 1.

In Data Set, select Orders from the drop-down list.

Choose OK. A table appears in the detail area of the list, as shown in Figure 13-12.

Figure 13-12  Table inserted in the detail area of the list

4	Choose Data Explorer, expand Data Sets, then expand Orders. The columns that you specified in the query appear below Orders.

5	Drag ORDERNUMBER from Data Explorer, and drop it in the first cell of the table’s detail row.

In the layout editor, the table cell containing the dropped data set field contains a data element that displays [ORDERNUMBER]. Above this data element is a label element that the layout editor adds to the header row. This label displays the field name as static text and serves as the column heading.

6	Drag ORDERDATE from Data Explorer, and drop it in the second cell in the detail row. The report design should look like the one shown in Figure 13-13.

Figure 13-13  Report design including the orders subreport

7	Sort the order rows by order number.

1	Select the Orders table.

2	In Property Editor, choose Sorting.

3	In the Sort page, choose Add to create a sort expression.

4	In New Sort Key, specify the following values, then choose OK:

In Key, select ORDERNUMBER from the drop-down list.

Use the default values for the other fields.

8	Preview the report. The report should look like the one shown in Figure 13-14.

The same order records appear for every customer because you specified a default value of 103 for customerNumber when you created the data set parameter, CustID. Using this default value, the orders subreport always displays the order records for customer 103. The solution is to update the value of the CustID parameter dynamically each time the customer row in the master report changes. This procedure is described in the next task.

The column headings appear in bold and are centered because BIRT Report Designer uses the browser’s default format for elements placed in a table header. You reformat these elements in a later task.

Figure 13-14  Preview of the report showing repeated order records