BrightWork Reporter Tips

This section contains a number of tips for working with the report definition file.

Identify the real SharePoint column name

If a column is renamed, SharePoint retains the original column name. The original column name is the one that BrightWork Reporter needs. There are a few ways to identify the real column name.

From the Column Setting Page URL

  1. Click Settings | List Settings.
  2. Click the Link belonging to the column whose name you want to identify.
  3. The column name will be appended to the page URL, for example:
    https://myserver/sites/mysitecollection/mysite/list/_layouts/15/FldEditEx.aspx?List=%7B41B7A352%2D7FD4%2D4D34%2D8DE6%2DF542D45A58AD%7D&Field=AssignedTo

From the Column Settings Page

  1. Click Settings | List Settings.
  2. Click the Link belonging to the column whose name you want to identify.
  3. Right-click and select View Source.
  4. Do a search for 'Field='.
    Whatever is returned is the field name, for example:
    Field=AssignedTo

From Business Data Catalog Columns

Business Data Catalog is a shared service that stores information about the data in business applications that exist outside Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. You can use the service to display business data on a SharePoint site and thus display the data in BrightWork Reporter.

To find out the underlying SharePoint name of a Business Data Catalog column:

  1. Open a view where the column is displayed.
  2. Right-click and select View Source.
  3. Search for the Displayname of the Business Data Catalog column whose real SharePoint name you want to find out.
    The real name will be displayed before the DisplayName, as shown in the below image.

Project Metrics List Columns

See Project Metrics Columns for all the Project Metrics List column names.

Other Hidden Columns

Certain columns in some lists are not displayed on the List settings page. These columns and their real SharePoint names are detailed below.

Column Display Name

Real SharePoint Column Name

Outline Level

bwWBSOutlineLevel

Outline Number

bwWBSOutlineNumber

Status Code

bwStatusCode

Priority Code

bwPriorityCode

Status Indicator Code

bwStatusIndicatorCode

Make a Reporter Definition XML File available to all SharePoint sites

If you have the access to your server, you can make a report available to all your sites by dropping the file into the BrightWork Gallery and updating the gallery file. The file will then be available for selection from the BrightWork Server Gallery in the Reporter Settings page on all sites on the server.

  1. Login to your server and drop the file into
  2. Drive:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\BrightWork\queries
    Right-click on the ServerGallery.xml and deselect Read-only.
  3. Open the ServerGallery.xml file in a text editor and add a node for your file

    <QueryFile>
    <Title>Title</Title>
    <Href>FileName.xml<Href>
    <Description>Description</Description>
    </QueryFile>

  4. Save the file.

Get Status Icon to Display for SharePoint Lists

To get the Status icon to appear for the Status (Tasks list), Task Status (Project Tasks list) and Issue Status (Issue Tracking list) columns, you should update the list of values to include numbering.

For example, change: Not Started; In Progress; Completed; Deferred; and Waiting on someone else to (1) Not Started; (2) In Progress; (3) Completed; (4) Deferred; (5) Waiting on someone else.

Report on Multiple Site Collections

If you add BrightWork Reporter to the root site of a site collection, you may notice that the Include all sub-sites option is unavailable and wonder why you cannot automatically report on your site collections from the Root site. This is because site collections are not actually subsites off the root. The relationship is shown below.

However, this does not mean that you cannot report on multiple site collections from the root site or indeed from any location.

To report off site collections:

  1. Add the URLs of the site collections you want to report off to the QuerySources node.
  2. Select Report XML from the Scope section in the Reporter Settings page - for more information on the Reporter Settings page, please see the Configure BrightWork Reporter topic in the help.

<QuerySource href="http://myserver/sites/sitecollection1"recursive="true"/>
 <QuerySource href="http://myserver/sites/sitecollection2"recursive="true"/>

Filter by User Name Across Site Collections

Out of the box reports will not report across site collections as they operate on a Current site and subsites basis or on a Specified site and subsites basis. This scenario describes how to get the My Work report working across multiple site collections.

  1. Create a site collection and add all users that have access to the site collections off which you want to report.
  2. Create a copy of the My Work report in the BrightWork Library on the site which you have added all the users to - see the BrightWork Reporter Library topic in the help for more information on this.
  3. Open this copy of My Work you have created in SharePoint Designer or another suitable code editor.
  4. Scroll down to the QuerySources node and specify the sites you want to report off, for example:

    <QuerySources>
     <QuerySource href="http://myserver/sites/TeamSite1" recursive="true"/>
     <QuerySource href="http://myserver/sites/TeamSite2" recursive="true"/>
     </QuerySources>

  5. Specify no web filters (replace the existing web filters node with <WebFilters />).
  6. Paste the QueryParams code below over the existing QueryParams code.

    <QueryParams requireUserInput="true">
     <ChoiceParam caption="Current User" name="UserNameCheck" >
     <Values fieldName="Title" sourceType="ListAtPath"
       source="/sites/mysite/_catalogs/users/detail.aspx" />
     </ChoiceParam>
     </QueryParams>

  7. Replace the bolded mysite element in the source attribute with the name of the site you created in step 1.
  8. Click Ctrl-F and paste <Value Type="int">[CurrentUser]</Value> into the Find what: field.
  9. Paste <Value Type="text">[ CurrentUser]</Value> into the Replace with: field.
  10. Click Replace All.
  11. Click Ctrl-F and paste LookupId="TRUE" into the Find what: field.
  12. Leave the Replace with: filed blank and click Replace All.
  13. Save and upload to the BrightWork Reporter Library.

Extract View Descriptor from Report

The View Descriptor defines a report as it is displayed on the page. When a report is first added to a page, the view descriptor that is in the report definition file defines how the report appears on page; however, once a report is configured via the Reporter Settings page, a new internal view descriptor is created. You can extract the view descriptor from an existing report for reuse in your own report definition XML. The advantage of this is that you will not have to configure the report when adding it to a web part page - useful if you plan to reuse the report in a number of locations.

To extract a view descriptor:

  1. Click Page | Edit Page.
  2. Click 6 on the BrightWork Reporter web part toolbar and select Export.
  3. Click Open on the File Download dialog.
  4. Copy the code from the opening view descriptor tag to the closing view descriptor tag (including the view descriptor tags).

The type of view descriptor tag depends on the report type being displayed:

  • Chart Reports:
    <ChartViewDescriptor> to </ChartViewDescriptor>
  • Gantt Reports:
    <GanttViewDescriptor> to </GanttViewDescriptor>
  • Standard Reports:
    <ViewDescriptor> to </ViewDescriptor>
  • Resource Reports:
    <ResourceViewReports> to </ResourceViewReports>
  1. Paste the code over the view descriptor section in your report definition file.

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