Rave Reports Visual Designer

Batch Pages

Probably the most common linking of Pages would be a batch processing sequence that defines a list of independent Page definitions. The first Page in the list runs to completion, then it calls the second, which runs to completion, and so on until the last Page of the defined sequence has been completed. The main thing to remember with batch Pages is that each Page definition is independent of the others and runs to completion before the other Page starts. Remember that the requirement to do batch processing is to simplify the administrative tasks when running a group of Page definitions on a recurring basis.

Define the sequence of Pages to print through the PageList property, which is available at the Report node level. When this property is selected (click on the ellipsis button), it will open a dialog window that will build the list from the Page definitions within the selected Report node. The advantage of this method is that the PageList is independent of the individual Page definitions. This means that the PageList would run the whole sequence of Pages (Reports), but individual Reports can still be selected individually and run by itself without invoking the batch link. Remember, Report Pages are not visible to other Reports, so if flexibility of calling separate Page definitions is needed, define the reusable Pages as global Pages instead of Report Pages.

WARNING

Another method to do Batch Pages is to set the first Page definition GotoPage property to the second Page definition name. Now, when the first Page is completed, it will automatically start the second Page definition. The problem with this technique is that anytime the first Page is run it will ALWAYS start the second Page as they are linked together at the Page definition level.