Best approach for customization of Workflow reports

We are running Content Server and Webtop 6.7 SP1 patch06, and have a need to create a custom workflow report, which shows each workflow on a single line, with the columns showing the completion dates of the individual work activities. I've read every document I can find, and am at a bit of a loss as to the best approach to tackle this.

I traced the "component tree" for the built in workflow report down to the ReportMainResultSet class, but can't figure out where the actual query is inserted into the process.

A colleague suggested that Audit Trails might be a place to start.

I'm frankly surprised that there isn't something semi-built-in to allow generation of reports in WDK. Or am I just missing that?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

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| homas

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matt-medicis

Are you looking to report on completed or running workflows? Are you considering doing the report using Reporting Services or WDK?

VadimYakovlev

You may consider using BAM (Business Activity Monitor) or (DRS) Documentum Reporting Services (both, I believe are separate licence, but I'm not 100% sure).

The other option is to integrate the Jasper Reports into Takspace/Webtop.

Personally for me, it turned out to be pretty straightforward implementation and not too much of the maintenance/deployment cost and it kept the client satisfied.

In such case, the reports are designed using the Jasper Reports Designer (iReport) and subsequently compiled into templates that are bound to Java classes that provide the data for the runtime reports.

Hope this helps.

bacham2

There are some out-of-the-box reports in DA/Webtop. You can find them under Tools --> Workflow --> Workflow Reporting.

Pre-requisites are:

- auditing is enabled for the process(es) that you want to report upon

- dm_WFReporting job must be run periodically. What it does is consolidate the audit trail into dmc_completed_workflow/workitem objects. The reports query against these types.

ThomasAC

Gentlemen, thanks for your answers.

matt-medicis wrote:Are you looking to report on completed or running workflows?

Mostly on running workflows. The intent for the report is to be a tool for team leaders to see "at a glance" the status of all of the workflows that they are responsible for.

Are you considering doing the report using Reporting Services or WDK?

Hopefully with WDK, since there is no budget for additional licenses.

VadimYakovlev wrote:You may consider using BAM (Business Activity Monitor) or (DRS) Documentum Reporting Services (both, I believe are separate licence, but I'm not 100% sure).The other option is to integrate the Jasper Reports into Takspace/Webtop. Personally for me, it turned out to be pretty straightforward implementation and not too much of the maintenance/deployment cost and it kept the client satisfied.In such case, the reports are designed using the  Jasper Reports Designer (iReport) and subsequently compiled into templates that are bound to Java classes that provide the data for the runtime reports.Hope this helps.

The Jasper Reports sounds interesting; I'll definitely look into that. I'd guess the bound Java classes are responsible for running the queries, etc?

bacham2 wrote:There are some out-of-the-box reports in DA/Webtop. You can find them under Tools --> Workflow --> Workflow Reporting.Pre-requisites are:- auditing is enabled for the process(es) that you want to report upon- dm_WFReporting job must be run periodically. What it does is consolidate the audit trail into dmc_completed_workflow/workitem objects. The reports query against these types.

The ootb workflow reports you mention were considered insufficient. They want to add a text box to the "edit settings" screen to filter workflows by workflow name (we have a specific naming scheme here that makes that useful) and then basically combine the overview report with the details report, as I said above.

_________

| homas

VadimYakovlev

ThomasAC wrote:The Jasper Reports sounds interesting; I'll definitely look into that.   I'd guess the bound Java classes are responsible for running the queries, etc?

Correct. There are plenty of samples for rendering reports in various formats (such as PDF, excel, html)

Or else - one may consider a plain WDK customization with the simple datagrid that will display whatever data your users need.