WebFOCUS

WebFOCUS Installation and Configuration

The following are known issues when installing and configuring WebFOCUS:

If you are using JBOSS with WebFOCUS Version 7 Release 7.x, contact Customer Support Services before deploying the ibi_help.war file.
As of Version 7 Release 7.01, when installing WebFOCUS on a clustered Web-tier on Windows and UNIX systems, update the temporary_directory parameter in the webconfig.xml file, and not the web.xml file.
As of Version 7 Release 7, if you are installing ReportCaster with an existing Tomcat installation and you select the option for the WebFOCUS installation to configure Tomcat, the web applications will be configured, but you must manually update the Tomcat classpath to include the JDBC driver for your ReportCaster RDBMS. For more information, see the installation manual for your platform.

WebFOCUS Administration Console

When using the WebFOCUS Administration Console, when you click Trace On to enable NLS tracing, a file is created. Also, NLS traces cannot be deleted using the Traces panel because when the file is deleted, it is recreated under the Traces panel. To delete the traces, navigate to the WebFOCUS77\logs directory and manually delete the files.

FLEX Format

WebFOCUS Active Technologies use Adobe® Flash® technology. There is a known issue with Adobe Flash Player in 64-bit browsers. To run active reports for Adobe Flash Player (output format FLEX), please use a 32-bit version of your browser. All commonly used browsers are available in a 32-bit version. The 32-bit version of the Internet Explorer® is the default browser on Windows 64-bit systems.

For more information on Adobe Flash Player and to verify the state of support on 64-bit browsers, please check the Adobe website:

http://www.adobe.com

Excel, PDF, PPT, DHTML, and HTML Formats

The following are known issues when using Excel®, EXL2K, Excel 2000, HTML, and PDF formats:

In Reporting Servers 7.7.04 and above, when an empty PDF report was generated using TABLEF, an invalid PDF document was produced. This behavior has been corrected in Reporting Servers 7.7.04M and 7.7.05M. The request will now produce an error message stating that no output was generated.
Column titles for reports in PDF format have two underlines when the StyleSheet specifies a drill down on the column title.
Creating an EXL07 output format report, where a formatted percent calculation is placed in the subfoot with headalign specified, results in an incorrect percentage value. This has been fixed in WebFOCUS Reporting Server 7.7.05M gen 138 and in WebFOCUS Release 8.0.06.
Running a report using ACROSS with EMPTYREPORT ON that renders an empty report causes the agent to crash when the output selected is XLSX/EXL07.
This has been fixed in WebFOCUS Reporting Server 7.7.06.
The HFREEZE feature that freezes headings, footings, and column titles in HTML reports does not support the SET SUBTOTALS = ABOVE command.
WRAP styling is not supported with the HTML HFREEZE reporting feature.
For output formats HTML and EXL2K, if the SUBFOOT for the first BY field is not bordered, the bottom border of the second BY field SUBFOOT will be missing.
For requests that include FORMAT EXL2K, FORMAT HTML, or FORMAT PDF with ON <FIELD> SKIP-LINE syntax, the bottom borders are lost.
For output format EXL2K, if a two-line SUBFOOT for a BY field has a background color (BACKCOLOR) and is followed by skip-line syntax, three lines have the specified background color.
For output format EXL2K FORMULA, the WebFOCUS LAST operator is not supported.
To access the extended character sets, change the Reporting Server code page to 137. For additional symbols, such as the Chinese yen or Hebrew Shekel, set the code page to Unicode code page (65001).
For output format PDF with skip-line syntax, the blank line appears, but the bottom SUBFOOT border is missing except for the last SUBFOOT.
For output format FORMAT HTML with skip-line syntax, the blank line is missing and the SUBFOOT bottom borders are missing, except for the last SUBFOOT.
A COLSPAN greater than 1 used for a RECAP column with bordering gives incorrect results for PDF and HTML output formats. Output formats of HTML and DHTML have a minor problem with the bottom of the right vertical border being incomplete.
Gradient shading is not supported in PDF format for 3D graphics. Graphics with gradient shading will appear black and white when in a PDF.
Prior to WebFOCUS Server Version 7 Release 7.05 gen 703 and WebFOCUS Server Version 8.0.01 gen 203, output formats PPT and DHTML did not support displaying data bars for negative values in Peer Graphs.
If you are using Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA), Basic web server authentication, or both, and you attempt to open a WebFOCUS report that contains a HOLD FORMAT EXL2K statement, you may need to type your user ID and password multiple times before the Excel 2000 output document opens in the web browser. To resolve this issue, obtain Microsoft® Office® 2000 Service Release 1/1a (SR-1/SR-1a).
In some situations, you may encounter problems while running reports with EXCEL or EXL2K format. As an alternative, check the current level of your Microsoft Office 2000 installation. If you have upgraded or applied any Service Packs, you may need to install the latest Service Pack.
Note: All versions of Microsoft Office 2000 may need to be completely uninstalled and reinstalled from a source that includes the upgraded version (for example, Standard or Premium) or the new Service Pack.
The output of the formats DIF, Excel, and EXL2K opens a new browser window instead of going into the launch or output blocks. This occurs because the Firefox® browser does not have the application plug-ins to launch Microsoft Excel within the browser.
In Excel 2007 output, fields defined with display format Credit Negative (R) (which display as -1234 CR) and have a column title shorter than the length of the data, will incorrectly size the column and may present with Excel overflow characters (####). This overflow appears when the data is only a decimal number, and when rounded to the correct significant digits for the field in the report, the value contains all zeros. The cell value can be displayed by manually resizing or autosizing the column in Excel. A workaround for this in the WebFOCUS report request is to define a column title larger than the expected data value or to use the more significant digits for the format of the field. For example:
F1/D5.2R=-.003; will display as #####.

F1/D5.3R=-.003; will display as .003 CR because the format is set for 3 decimal places.

F1/D5.2R=-.005; will display as .01 CR because it will be rounded to -.01 which has a significant digit within the format of the field.

FLDA/D5.2R=.003; will display as .01CR because the fieldname is longer. This helps create the larger cell width for the data.
Automatic sizing of columns within Excel 2007 is not supported with OVER requests and may cause columns to present smaller or larger than required to fit the actual data. The data values are not affected and can be viewed using the manual column sizing in Excel or autosizing features in the open workbook.
When using SET HIDENULLACRS to remove null columns within BY page breaks in an Excel 2007 workbook, automatic sizing of columns may not correctly calculate the width required to present ACROSS COMPUTE columns. The data values are not affected and can be viewed using the manual column sizing in Excel or autosizing features in the open workbook.
EXL07 reports are available on a z/OS USS server, but are not currently supported on a z/OS PDS server or on a z/OS USS server with the setting DYNAM TEMP ALLOC MVS.
Using ALIGN-BORDERS=BODY, the borders of the subheading and subfooting will align with the borders of the data, rather than the table headings and footings. In Version 7 Release 6.11 through Version 7 Release 7.03, when a long text string is inserted into the table heading, the borders of the subheading and subfootings present slightly short of the data borders. This has been resolved in Version 7 Release 7.04.
When using date values that are formatted in a DEFINE using /M or /YY, the generated workbook cannot be opened by Excel and the ACROSSTOTAL column title presents an incorrect value. This has been resolved in Version 7 Release 7.04.
As of WebFOCUS Release 7 Version 7.03, FORMAT EXL07 and FORMAT XLSX are synonyms and can be used interchangeably. The FILE SAVED message will always display XLSX FILE SAVED regardless of format specified to identify that the actual file format generated is the XLSX file structure supported by Excel 2007, Excel 2010, and Excel 2013.
Dynamic field-based reformatting created as DEFINE or COMPUTE fields can be used in EXL2K generated workbooks but are not currently supported for XLSX/EXL07 workbooks.
As of WebFOCUS Reporting Server Version 7 Release 7.05, the background color of the pop-up descriptions (ToolTips) has been standardized and set to white for a uniform look throughout all HTML reports.
In WebFOCUS Reporting Server Version 7 Release 7.03 through Version 7 Release 7.05, an Excel XLSX/EXL07 template (.xltx, .xltm, or .xlsm) containing a comment or a drawing object will generate a workbook that will not open. This has been fixed in WebFOCUS Reporting Server Version 7 Release 7.06 and Version 8.0.03.

COM, COMT, TAB, TABT, and DFIX Formats

SET HOLDLIST is not supported with delimited file formats.

Compound Reports

The following notes apply to Compound Reports:

In Version 7 Release 6.11 through Version 7 Release 7.03, compound reports distributed and burst by ReportCaster would lose the drill through functionality. This has been resolved in Version 7 Release 7.04.
Prior to WebFOCUS Server Version 7 Version Release 7.05 gen 115, text markup strings containing the special page variables <ibi-page-number> and <ibi-total-pages> in compound documents displayed embedded spaces between the words and page number values. For example:
```
MARKUP=ON, TEXT='Page <ibi-page-number/> of <ibi-total-pages/>',$
```
would display
```
Page 1 of 100 
```
In 7705 gen 115, the space can be removed from the text object with WRAP=OFF and no embedded styling between the page number variables. The following code produces a page number string without the extra spaces:
```
MARKUP=ON, WRAP=OFF, TEXT='Page <ibi-page-number/> of <ibi-total-pages/> of Sales Report ', $
```
This displays the following
```
Page
1 of 100
```
The extra space will continue to be presented within text objects where WRAP=ON or styling is embedded in the text string, for example
```
WRAP=ON,MARKUP=ON, TEXT='Page <ibi-page-number/> of <ibi-total-pages/>', $
```
This will display the following
```
 Page
1 of 100 
```

Dragging a TOC Icon in an HTML TOC Report

When an HTML Table of Contents (TOC) is added to a report, an icon is inserted in the upper-left corner of the report page. You can double-click the TOC icon and the TOC will expand to show a new box displaying an icon for each of the associated highest level sort values used in creating the report.

For Firefox, if the user attempts to drag a TOC icon out of the box onto the original window, a new window will pop up displaying the icon. This is not the intended behavior of WebFOCUS.

For Internet Explorer, if the user attempts to drag a TOC icon out of the box, Internet Explorer prevents this from happening.

ACROSS Field Alignment

ACROSS field alignment is incorrect when specifying multiple fields OVER multiple fields. ACROSS field alignment is correct when specifying a single field OVER a single field.

Compressing PDF Files With SET FILECOMPRESS=ON

The SET FILECOMPRESS=ON command is supported to compress PDF output files in WebFOCUS, but does not work in mainframe environments.

SET SUMMARYLINES = EXPLICIT

In WebFOCUS Version 7 Release 7.03 HF through Version 7 Release 7.05, using the SET SUMMARYLINES = EXPLICIT command with an ACROSS phrase causes the server to crash. This has been fixed in WebFOCUS Version 7 Release 7.06.

Loading Large Master Files in GUI Tools

WebFOCUS takes a very long time to load large Master Files in GUI tools including Report Painter and the Join tool. Load time increases if files have many segments. Synonym Editor does not have this issue, and by default, it loads files with segments collapsed.

Eliminating Partial Borders From Data Objects in Reports

Enabling borders on the DATA objects (TYPE=DATA) within a report may result in missing right borders or partial bottom borders. A workaround for this issue is to enable borders at the report level (TYPE=REPORT) and then turn off borders for the individual elements (headings, footing, subheadings, subfootings) as required.

Data System Variables

As of Version 7 Release 7.02, in a Master File DEFINE, the concatenation of a date system variable (&YMD, &YYMD, and so on) with alpha variables causes the following message:

(FOC279) NUMERIC ARGUMENTS IN PLACE WHERE ALPHA ARE CALLED FOR