Precautions and Safeguards for Enterprise Reporting
When you develop reports for an enterprise deployment, you should take precautions to restrict user actions that might negatively affect server performance. The following are some examples of potential problems:
- Most reports contain certain parameters that can be specified by the user at runtime. However, a user might unwittingly set a combination of parameters that retrieves a very large number of records, which could impact database performance.
- Users can create and modify reports using Ad Hoc reporting tools, which include the capability to modify filtering conditions. Again, a user might unwittingly change or remove a filter in such a way that the report retrieves an excessive number of records.
- Many reports make heavy use of scripting, and user modification of such reports (using the Ad Hoc tools) can have undesirable results.
To prevent these kinds of potential problems, consider taking the following precautions when you design your reports.
Limiting the Maximum Number of Rows
Set the 'Maximum Number of Rows' option in the Data Options tab of a component 'Properties' dialog box to limit the number of rows returned by the query. This limit overrides all other maximum settings defined in Style Studio or Enterprise Manager.
Setting a Query Timeout
Set the 'Query Timeout' option in the Data Options tab of a component 'Properties' dialog box to specify the amount of time (in seconds) allowed for query execution. If no response is received from the database within this time, the reporting engine will attempt to cancel the execution of the query by the database, and will then proceed to complete report execution. (It may not be possible to cancel the query in all cases.)
Limiting the Maximum Number of Pages
Specify a value for the 'Max Number of Pages' option in the 'Report Properties' dialog box to restrict the number of pages generated by the report engine. (See Setting Report Properties for more details.) Although you can also limit the number of records returned by a query (as discussed above), in some cases an Ad Hoc report user can make layout selections that nevertheless would generate a very large number of pages. Therefore, it is still valuable to set a maximum page limit. It is especially important to limit the maximum number of pages for prototype reports that will be used by the Ad Hoc Wizards.
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Designing Reports for Section 508 Compliance
Consider the following points when designing reports for compliance with Section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
- Set the 'Tooltip' property for all Image elements.
- Set the 'Tooltip' property for all Form Elements.
- Do not convey information solely by using color. Augment color cues with other visual cues or text.
- Avoid complex table structures such as those created with Formula Tables. Complex tables may not be representable to users in an accessible manner.
- Avoid using components that cause the screen to flicker. For example, do not use animated images or background color changes with frequencies between 4Hz and 59Hz.
- Use Heading numbering in reports to comply with PDF export accessibility requirements.
- Set the 'Title' property for the report (under the Document Info tab of the 'Setting Report Properties' dialog box).
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