Access 2003 Report: Export to XML

[Greg Silvano]

Greetings,

It appears the Export to XML/XSL functionality for a report in Access
2003 does not support sub reports. Can anybody confirm or deny this?

I need to develop a system that allows users to design reports, which
will then be scheduled to run at various times. I don't want to
automate Access to run the actual reports (scalability, performance,
etc.), but it's such an excellent report design tool I'd like to give
users the ability to use Access to design the reports.

It looked like Export to XML was the perfect answer - just have the
user export to XML/XSL, and I'll write code that automatically
generates the new XML at runtime and transform it via the existing XSL
document.

If subreports are really a no-go in this case, does anybody have any
recommendations? I'm currently investigating ActiveReports .NET by
Data Dynamics, but that doesn't satisfy the need to create adhoc
queries to power the adhoc report.

Export to XML in Access also appears to lose the conditional
formatting rules for the report, but I guess that's a whole other
issue.

Thanks for any insight you may have...

Greg Silvano

 

[Mike Wachal]

Greetings,

It appears the Export to XML/XSL functionality for a report in Access
2003 does not support sub reports. Can anybody confirm or deny this?

I need to develop a system that allows users to design reports, which
will then be scheduled to run at various times. I don't want to
automate Access to run the actual reports (scalability, performance,
etc.), but it's such an excellent report design tool I'd like to give
users the ability to use Access to design the reports.

It looked like Export to XML was the perfect answer - just have the
user export to XML/XSL, and I'll write code that automatically
generates the new XML at runtime and transform it via the existing XSL
document.

If subreports are really a no-go in this case, does anybody have any
recommendations? I'm currently investigating ActiveReports .NET by
Data Dynamics, but that doesn't satisfy the need to create adhoc
queries to power the adhoc report.

Export to XML in Access also appears to lose the conditional
formatting rules for the report, but I guess that's a whole other
issue.

Thanks for any insight you may have...

Greg Silvano

Hi Greg,

Access 2003 supports exporting nested data, including sub-reports, to XML,
so you can export the data contained in your sub-reports. What is not
currently supported is the creation of a presentation layer, XSL, for
sub-rerports. While you will not be able to export a report with
sub-reports to a presentation layer (HTML/XSL) automatically, you can
export all the correct data and then write your own presentation layer
using what every tool you prefer for doing so.

Conditional formating falls into the same category, it is not supported in
the XSL, but you can always use the data from the XML file to create your
own presentation.

The flexibility to re-purpose data is the primary advantage of exporting it
to XML.

--
Regards,
Mike Wachal
Microsoft Corporation

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