Report designers upload templates that they have already
created in Document Studio into the Rational® Publishing Engine web
app, where they can assemble the templates into a report that any
user on their team can generate a document from. Follow along with
Ryan.
Before you begin
In this example, Ryan creates two templates (
.dta files)
in Document Studio. The first template produces the first 25 entries
of an RSS 2.0 feed, and the second template is a closing page. He
also designs a style sheet (.
dot file) to apply
to the Microsoft Word output
of this document.
About this task
Although it is possible to create one large template
with multiple sections, Ryan prefers to use smaller templates for
each section. That way he can reuse the templates and quickly assemble
them into different reports whenever his manager asks him for a new
document. For example, he might have templates for the front cover,
table of contents, introduction, body, index and back cover.
Procedure
- Open the Design page of the web app.
- First Ryan must upload the templates that he created into
the list of templates.
Tip: You can import
sample templates, reports, and data source connections by using the
Click
here to generate the examples link. You can use the following
resources in this tutorial: News Feed and Closing page templates,
and Standard RPE Format style sheet. If you use these assets, you
can skip uploading the templates and style sheet and move to step
4.
- Click Upload Asset.
- In the Name field, enter News feed.
- Accept the default template type.
- Browse to find the file, and click Upload.
- Repeat these steps to add the template for the closing
page.
The RSS feed template and the closing page template are
added to the list.
- Next, Ryan wants to add a style sheet to work with.
- Click Upload Asset.
- Specify a name for the style sheet.
- In the Type field, select Stylesheet.
- Browse to find the file, and click Upload.
- Now Ryan can assemble the templates into a report. It is
important to put the templates in the order that you want them to
appear in the finished document. Click Create Report.
- Drag the News Feed template from the Available templates
list to the Templates used in this report list.
- Repeat this step to add the Closing Page template.
Tip: The templates are listed in the order that
they appear in the report. After you have dragged the templates into
the report, you can change the order. You can also add the same template
as many times as needed in one report.
- Ryan's manager has asked him to provide both PDF and Microsoft Word output, so Ryan
selects these options.
- Ryan wants to apply the style sheet to the Microsoft Word output, so he selects the *.dot style
sheet under the Microsoft Word check box.
- Ryan names the report Daily News and
saves the report. He leaves the Make available
for document generation check box cleared, because he
is not yet ready to share the report with his team.
- Ryan wants to quickly test the document before he shares
the report with his team.
- Click Back to design to return
to the Design page.
- Click the Reports tab on the Design
page. The
name of the report is appended with [Draft], because it has not been
made available to end users yet.
- In the Actions column for the report
that you want, select the Preview Document icon
.
- Ryan is prompted to associate a data source connection
with the report. He wants to use an RSS feed from Jazz™.net and clicks the Don't see
a connection? Create one link.
- Enter a title and description for the feed.
- Add the URL to the data source. This example uses RSS feeds so
Ryan enters https://jazz.net/library/rss/.
- This particular data source is publicly accessible so Ryan leaves
the authentication fields blank.
- Save the connection.
Note: Ryan could also have defined the data source connections
before he created any reports.
- In the Connection list, Ryan
selects the Jazz.net connection
that he just created and clicks Preview to
preview the document.
Note: The Closing Page
example template prompts for a value for the endingTitle variable.
Enter some text such as End of Document and
click Next.
Preview shows the
first 10 records from each query and Generate creates
the document with all the records from each query.
- When the job finishes, click Download
Documents
in the Status column.
- Ryan is prompted to open or save the .zip file.
He opens it to check the contents.
- He is satisfied with the generated document, so he shares
the report with his team by clicking Edit Report
in the Edit column.
- Ryan selects the Make available for document
generation check box and clicks Update.
Now the report is no longer in draft state and Susan can generate
a document from this report.