Bursting a Report

Instead of distributing an entire report, you can use the ReportCaster burst feature to break a report into sections to be distributed separately. Bursting enables you to target relevant sections of a report to individual users. Each report section is saved as a separate file.

WF Server Procedures, Standard Reports, and My Reports support bursting. If you are distributing a burst tabular report, the burst value is determined by the first BY field. If you are distributing a burst graph report, the burst value is determined by the second BY field. The burst value is automatically determined by the internal matrix, which is a memory area that stores each database field value and calculates values referenced by the TABLE or GRAPH request.

You can send several report sections to one recipient by specifying the destination of that recipient (e-mail addresses, FTP files, or printers) for each section you want to send. You can send several report sections to one destination, or you can send one report section to several destinations. The burst values you specify in the Distribution List must exist in the data source you are reporting against.

Note: If you want to burst a report, you must enable bursting when you create a Task for a schedule. The burst values specified in the Burst Value column in the Distribution List window are ignored unless the Task specifies to burst the report.

You can specify sort field burst values and destinations (E-mail addresses, FTP file names, or printers) when creating or editing a Distribution List. The following image shows burst values and the destination e-mail addresses specified in the Distribution List window.

Using the primary sort field values (Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest), the e-mail address of each representative is associated with the relevant sales report data. Since Adam Abernathy needs only the data for the Northeast branch, the sort value Northeast is listed in the Burst Value column opposite his e-mail address in the Address column.

However, Chuck Hill works in both the Northeast and Southeast regions. Since he requires data for both regions, his e-mail address is listed in the Address column twice, next to a Burst Value column entry for each region.

Reference: Considerations When Distributing a Burst Report Using FTP

When distributing a burst report using FTP, consider the following:

When using a format of HTML, PDF, or EXL2K, an index page for the burst report output is generated.
The index page for FTP distribution will only contain the burst values specified in the Distribution List. The report output is distributed only for the specified burst values.
The index page links for burst report output distributed using FTP are incorrect when specifying BASEURL in the scheduled procedure. This is because ReportCaster does not parse and evaluate the procedure code of the scheduled job. To resolve this, move the distributed files to the BASEURL directory or specify the fully qualified directory path of the distributed output in the index page.
On z/OS, burst report output distributed using FTP is created in sequential data sets having the following qualifiers:
- High-level Qualifier: User ID specified for the FTP Server.
- Additional Qualifiers: Location value in the Distribution tab and file(s) supplied in a Distribution List.
To send burst output to a partitioned data set, specify an existing partitioned data set as Location and specify member names, without extensions, in the Distribution List File column. For example, highlevelqualilfier.location.file.
On z/OS, do not use an index name that is the same as the data (input) file from which you are reporting. If you specify an index name that is the same as the DDNAME in the DYNAM for your data file, the data file is overwritten with the report output.
On z/OS, the index page is generated with extra characters preceding the burst values. The links on the page to the report sections are correct.

Bursting Guidelines and Limitations

This section provides detailed information to assist you in defining burst values.

When a report is burst, all data values generated for each burst section are returned to the ReportCaster Distribution Server.

For the Managed Reporting and Library distribution methods, each burst section is distributed to Managed Reporting or the Report Library. Each burst section may be viewed by the owner of the schedule. Library user access to burst report sections is restricted as per the authorization (owner, public, access list) specified in the schedule information and Managed Reporting security if the scheduled report is a Managed Reporting procedure.
For the e-mail and printer distribution methods, specific burst sections are distributed based on the burst values specified when creating the Distribution List, Distribution File, Single Address, or Dynamic Distribution List used by the schedule.

The following are guidelines and limitations that apply to the ReportCaster burst feature:

Case. Burst values are case-sensitive.

Keywords. Burst values in a Distribution List can contain the following keywords:

Wildcard Characters. Use an asterisk (*) and a question mark (?) as wildcards to represent characters at the beginning, end, or middle of the burst values. The asterisk represents one or more characters, while the question mark represents any single character. Precede each instance of a burst value using a wildcard with the wildcard keyword enclosed in brackets followed by a colon, [wildcard]:, as shown in the following examples.
[wildcard]:abc* = all values that start with 'abc'.

[wildcard]:a?c = all three-character values that start with 'a' and end with 'c'.

[wildcard]:a?c* = all values that start with 'a' and have a 'c' as the third character.
Java Regular Expressions. Use to identify strings of text. Precede each instance of a burst value using a Java regular expression with the regular expression keyword enclosed in brackets followed by a colon, [regexp]:, as shown in the following examples.
[regexp]:[bcr]at = values that are bat, cat, or rat.

[regexp]:[^bcr]at = any value that is not bat, cat, or rat.
Default Distribution. You can provide a default destination for burst values that are not specified in the Distribution List. To do this, enter the following in the burst value column of the Distribution List.
[elsesend] = reports for burst values not contained in the Distribution List will be sent to the named recipient.

The following are example entries in an e‑mail Distribution List that illustrate the use of the wildcard and default distribution keywords in burst values.

Burst Value	Address
[wildcard]:an	sml@company.com
England	ray@company.com
[elsesend]:	jt@company.com

Using a scenario where the report is burst on the Country field that contains values of Germany, USA, France, Canada, Italy, Chile, England, and Japan, then:

Report information for Germany, France, Canada, England, and Japan will be delivered to sml@company.com.
Report information for England will be delivered to ray@company.com.
Report information for USA, Italy, and Chile will be delivered to jt@company.com.

Formats. The formats that support bursting are AHTML (except for FML reports), ALPHA, COM, COMMA, COMT, DHTML (except for FML reports), DFIX, DOC, EXL2K, EXL2K FORMULA, EXL2K TEMPLATE, EXL97, GIF, HTML and HTML ODP (except for FML reports), JPEG, PDF, PNG, PPT, PS, SVG, TAB, TABT, and WP. Each burst section of the report will be named burstvalue_filename.format (for example, Northeast_Sales.pdf).

ACROSS command. This command is not evaluated as a primary sort field. To burst a report, you must also include a BY field. Bursting occurs on the BY field.

FML reports. Bursting an FML report is supported only if the request has a BY field.

Coordinated Compound Reports. ReportCaster can burst and distribute coordinated compound reports developed using the Document Composer in Developer Studio in DHTML, PDF, and PPT formats. Compound reports that are not coordinated cannot burst.

TABLEF. No internal sort processing is performed. The specification of a BY field requires that the data already be sorted in the data source.

ON TABLE SUBHEAD/ON TABLE SUBFOOT. Creates a SUBHEAD for only the first page of the report, and a SUBFOOT for only the last page of the report. When bursting a report, the SUBHEAD and SUBFOOT should occur for each sort break. Therefore, specify the primary sort field in place of TABLE in the ON command. For example:

ON primarysortfield SUBHEAD

AnV field types. Bursting is not supported on a field with the AnV (where n is an integer value) field type.

Note: For additional considerations when using WebFOCUS commands with burst reports, see Using WebFOCUS Commands With Burst Reports.