Order of Available Fields

Greetings BIRT Community, first time poster here.

When creating or editing a data set, the "Available Fields" from a given table are ordered by their "ID" value and not alphabetically (please see attached image for a more clear description of what I'm talking about). Clicking the "Name" header does not re-order the fields as one would expect.

I've searched for a solution to this issue to no avail. Seeing as we have more than 200 fields in any given table, this creates quite a bottle neck when it comes to building a report; just finding the proper fields takes 15-20 minutes.

Does anyone know how I can have the fields re-ordered by Name rather than ID?

Thank you,

Patrick

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Comments

kclark

What type of data source are you using?

pmathieu

The data resides in a MSFT SQL DB.

Using Eclipse Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools SDK
Version: 4.2.2.v201210101433-8F8j7cFT0z0-TtIsTlT0z-a
Build id: v20130206-1509

kclark

You should be able to sort the table in your query doing something like this 
 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>SELECT *
FROM CLASSICMODELS.CUSTOMERS
ORDER BY CLASSICMODELS.CUSTOMERS.STATE ASC</pre>

pmathieu

Thank you for the suggestion kclark, I should have provided a more detailed response to your data source inquiry.

The database is being used as part of BMC's Remedy application and while the data does reside in a MSFT SQL DB, the connection & requests to the DB are handled through an ODA type interface. The data source is named "BMC Remedy AR System ODA Data Source" and is spawned by a plugin provided by BMC (copied into Eclipse plugin folder).

When building a Data Set under this configuration, one does not use standard SQL syntax, rather, they "add" fields (similar to SQL's SELECT statement and provide "qualifications" (similar to SQL's WHERE statement). (image attached).

This post potentially belongs in a BMC thread, I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do on the eclipse end to change the way the data is sorted.

kclark

What special features does that ODA implement that the standard jdbc ODA doesn't have? Have you tried connecting from the jdbc ODA yet?

Jenkinsj5

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="'pmathieu'" data-cid="115025" data-time="1363185343" data-date="13 March 2013 - 07:35 AM">When creating or editing a data set, the "Available Fields" from a given table are ordered by their "ID" value and not alphabetically (please see attached image for a more clear description of what I'm talking about). Clicking the "Name" header does not re-order the fields as one would expect. 
 
I've searched for a solution to this issue to no avail. Seeing as we have more than 200 fields in any given table, this creates quite a bottle neck when it comes to building a report; just finding the proper fields takes 15-20 minutes. </blockquote>
 
I have a similar issue in SQL, we have about 600 tables with about 10K Fields, they vary from 3 fields to more then 200 per table. When you bring them up in 'Edit Data Set' window you can easily filter to just the table, but finding the specific field can be a pain. 
 
I created a Data Map in excel (extracted the SQL data base definitions via 'Object Explorer Details'), Also the field names and the GUI names are almost never the same, so as I figure out what they are I have a column for the GUI name. I then use filters or searches in Excel to find what I am looking for. As long as you don't sort the table you can find where it is generally to narrow your search. Of course with SQL I don't have to actually click on it to select, I can just paste the field name in from Excel. 
 
I am not sure if you have a way to extract all your field names, so this may solution may only cause you frustration, apologies if that is the case.