Very often it’s necessary to create several reports with the similar structure, which differ only in one or several values. XL Report Builder allows to create such reports by defining such values as «PARAMETERS». Every time at executing such reports it will be offered for the user to change the values of these parameters in the dialog mode.

To get such a possibility you should choose the object Report in the objects tree and add the object Parameters by one of the possible ways:

• Using the main menu of the program choose File\New\Parameters
• Using the pop-up menu of the object Report choose New\Parameters

As soon as the user does this, a new object – Parameters will appear in the tree of objects, and two properties of this object will appear in the window of properties (look at the figure below). The first property – Caption – allows to identify parameters values in the file-template. The second property – Parameters – is a frame of the parameters of this report.

Before adding new parameters to the report, you should decide what parameters exactly you need. Let’s imagine, that SQL-script contains two parameters (FromDate and ToDate), which begin from the symbol «:». During the report execution process the values (which the user will be asked to specify) will be put instead of these two parameters. To add parameters you need to choose the property Parameters of the object Parameters and press the button with suspension points, which appears to the right. As a result of these actions a form «Parameters Editor» will appear (look at the figure to the left). This form contains a table, which consists of two columns: Caption Parameter caption, which will be shown at the beginning of the report execution process. Name Parameter name, which must be the same with the parameter name in the SQL-script.

There are buttons below, using which you can add [Add], insert [Insert] or delete [Delete] parameters from the list. You can also change properties of any parameter by pressing the button with suspension points to the right from the parameter name. After changing the list of parameters you can confirm your actions by pressing the button [OK] or cancel them - [Cancel]. To add the necessary parameters you should use the button [Add].

After you’ve added parameters in such a way, in the table of the form «Parameters Editor» will appear the list of these parameters. And next to the property Parameters of the object Parameters will appear an inscription, that shows the number of the parameters, added into the report (for example, «(2 Items)»). Parameters, added in such a way, can be used in SQL-queries as script parameters, and for output to any place of the MS-Excel report as parameters values.

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