Many Many Derived Fields & Sorting

[stabetsy]

My report serves the purpose of comparing the necessary deduction for 5 deduction codes, to the acutal deduction taken for those 5 codes, in one specific pay period.. Chk Vw Pay Date.

I have my 15 derived fields, and they all worked perfectly fine, until I added selection Criteria which enables me to look only at active employees whose Deduction is not $0.00.

After I added my Selection Criteria (and had already made sure all Derived Fields worked fine) An error message of "Missing right parenthesis" came up. If my Derived Fields work fine, where am I missing a Right Parenthesis? HELP!

 

[CharlesCook]

Missing right parenthesis" is the Default Oracle error message. Can you recreate the selection critera here for us to look at? Go to Selections and type each of the different parts (just for the new selection) here.

For example:

Data Field PS_Job.Status Is Equal To Text A

I hope that is clear.

CharlesCook.com
ADP - PeopleSoft - SAP
ReportSmith - Crystal Reports - SQR - Query - Access
Reporting - Interfaces - Data Mining

 

[stabetsy]

I have 15 derived fields, the first 10 are Sum Distinct(@Decode then the deduction show deduction amount. THe last 5 are each of the first Derived fields minus each of the second set. (giving me the amount owed for the deduction code summarized in the other derived fields)

The selection criteria I wanted to add was to only include people who owe something. so if all of their 5 'owed' derived fields turn up zero, I want them to not appear on the report... so I made Another derived field summing the last 5 derived fields and then tried to set a selection criteria: derived field 'tot' is not equal to number 0, I tried that AND: derived field 'tot' is not null

and both times it came up "missing right parenthesis"

please let me know if I am going about this correctly or if there is a better way, also let me know if this is a sufficient explanation.

I tried calling ADP for help, and after messing with all my work and finally deleting half a day's work worth of derived fields, the guy had no idea how to help with a question that I already figured out, so I have deemed them useless... maybe they arent, but he certainly was.

Thanks for the input!

 

[CharlesCook]

Do you get the error AFTER you define the tot derived field but BEFORE you define the selection critera?

One thing to watch out for is when you create a derived field that uses another derived field it copies the formula of the other derived field into the new derived field. The problem is it only copies something like the first 128 (or is it 256, I forget) characters. Not necessarily the whole formula !!!!!!! This could be the problem. We need to define where the problem is. Is it in the derived field tot or the selection critera that uses tot.

I have had mixed results with ADP ReportSmith support. In the past I have taught classes to the ADP support people. I also worked on their support hotline for a month once to help them catch up on the backlog. I think what happens is about the time they get good with ReportSmith they move on to something else and are replaced with a new guy who knows very little. Also they don't write many if any PRODUCTION reports and that is where I learn the most. Getting the report to balance EVERY TIME is a learning experance.

Please don't get me wrong I dont have anything against ADP. They are as good as the next large software vender.

CharlesCook.com
ADP - PeopleSoft - SAP
ReportSmith - Crystal Reports - SQR - Query - Access
Reporting - Interfaces - Data Mining

 

[stabetsy]

Thanks for your help on this. The error message was only after my selection criteria the Derived field was "ok".

I did get a call back from ADP and he showed me how to do what I needed under "Grouping".

He didn't know the answer to the other questions I had:

Do you know how to import a letter that is 3 pages long into a Form report so that I can have every active employee and their 3-line address(composed with 3 derived fields) appear ONLY on the first page of each letter???

I ended up only importing the first page and having to print the pages separatly, is there a way to do a 3 page letter in form report with the report data only on the first page?

thanks.. Betsy

 

[CharlesCook]

What you need to do is drag the row object down past the bottom of the page (page 1) onto the next page (page 2) and do it again down to the next page (page 3). Now you have a row object that is 3 pages long. You can put stuff in it how ever you want. A form report is just a colum report with the row object covering the whole page.

To get the row object selected put your pointer on the left margen and you will get an arrow pointing to the right. Click and when the pointer is an arrow to the right and you will select the row object. Drag it from the bottom center. When you drag it down past the bottom of the page go to the next page to see it covering part of the second page.

I don't think you can import the letter. I think you will need to type it into text objects in ReportSmith.

This is one of those things that is hard to explan with words but takes 5 mins to show someone.



CharlesCook.com
ADP - PeopleSoft - SAP
ReportSmith - Crystal Reports - SQR - Query - Access
Reporting - Interfaces - Data Mining

 

[stabetsy]

Thanks for the quick response. THat worked great. I did import the letter as an object too, when you go to "Insert" down to "Object" you can browse and just choose a Word Document.

Thanks Again!

 

[CharlesCook]

Glad to hear it.

CharlesCook.com
ADP - PeopleSoft - SAP
ReportSmith - Crystal Reports - SQR - Query - Access
Reporting - Interfaces - Data Mining