Content tab on the Summary View form

Complete this tab to define which objects are selected for the display and how they are sorted and aggregated.

Most of the processing defined on this tab is performed by database software such as Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server, and not by Pega Platform software.

This tab is wide. To display more of the content, temporarily close the Explorer panel.

Field Description
Category

Optional. To assign a category to this report, select from the SmartPrompt list. This list shows field value rules with Rule-Obj-Report- as the first key part and pyCategory as the second key part. You can create field value rules in your application to define additional categories.

Fixed Header Select to prevent the header from scrolling if a user scrolls the drill-down listing.
Move Group By Caption to Header Select to present the Caption value from the current Group By element in the display header.

Criteria

If you leave the Criteria array empty, the summary view report selects all instances of the class, up to the limit in the Maximum Value field. Each row of this array identifies selection criteria. The order of rows in this array is not significant. The system converts information in this array to an SQL WHERE clause.

Field Description
Label Optional. Enter a letter or letters that uniquely identify this row. This label identifies this row in the Logic field.

For example, enter A for the first row, B for the second row, and so on. The Logic field must mention each label.

Field Select or enter a Single Value property reference for a comparison. For optimized properties defined in the class identified by the Applies To key part of this summary view rule, start the property reference with a period. You can also identify fully qualified values on other clipboard pages that are always present on the clipboard, such as the requestor page or process page.

If the type of this property is TextEncrypted, special instructions apply to the Condition , Value , and Edit Input fields. See Property rules — Implementing and using the TextEncrypted Type.

If you specify pxObjClass and the Applies To key part of this list view rule is a framework class, at run time the report can use the corresponding implementation class, not the framework class, for comparisons and report content. This feature eliminates the need to copy each framework class-based list view report into the implementation class. To enable this capability, select the Report on Descendant Class Instances check box on this tab.

You can specify only properties that correspond to optimized (exposed) columns in the PegaRULES database. By default, custom properties in your application are not optimized; they are stored in a Storage Stream (BLOB) column. If you need additional properties optimized, consult with your database administrator.

Caption Optional. Specify a name for this row of the array. If you do not specify a caption, the Field name is used.
Condition Select a comparison condition, such as Is Equal or Starts With.

Pega Platform converts the Starts With, Ends With, and Contains comparison conditions to an SQL LIKE clause. Vendor-specific, non-standard optimizations such as the Oracle CONTAINS feature are not used. If your application contains a summary view report that requires such comparisons for tables with many rows, you can create a custom getContent activity that implements optimized SQL for retrieval.

Value Specify one of the following options as a comparison value:
  • A literal constant, formatted in accordance with the property type. See Constants in expressions. To compare the Field value with multiple literal constants, surround each with quotation marks and separate each with a comma. Place a backslash character (\) before any quotation marks within the constant. You can click the icon to the right of the field to review current clipboard values for the property identified in the Field field.
  • A fully qualified property reference to a Single Value property that is present on the clipboard at run time. The Type of this property must match the Type of the property in the Field field.
  • A fully qualified property reference to a Value List or Value Group property present on the clipboard at run time. The Type of this property must match the Type of the property in the Field field. To compare the Field value with multiple Value List or Value Group properties, separate each property name with a comma.
  • The keyword param followed by a period, followed by a parameter that is defined on the parameter page of the calling activity.
  • A period followed by the name of a Single Value property that is optimized as a column. This option allows comparison of the values of two properties in the same instance (database row), if the types are identical or comparable.
  • A symbolic date, for a Date or DateTime value. When the list value rule runs, this symbolic reference is converted to an actual date or date range based on the time zone of the user and the Condition value. For example, if the user selects Last Year and the Condition value is IS EQUAL TO, the result is a date range between January 1 and December 31 inclusive, of the previous calendar year.

If the Condition field is set to IS NULL or IS NOT NULL, leave this field blank.

Commas correspond to an OR test. If the Value field contains two or more entries separated by commas, the comparison is true at runtime if the value of the Field field equals (or is greater than, or is contained in, and so on) any one of the entries.

Similarly, when the Value field contains a Value List or Value Group property reference, the comparison is true at run time if the value of the Field field is true for any element in the list or group.

When evaluating either of the two Condition values Greater or Greater or Equal at run time, the result is the same as applying the test to the largest value in a list or group. Similarly, when evaluating the Condition values Less or Less or Equal at run time, the result is the same as applying the test to the smallest value in the group or list. The Value List and Value Group options are most useful for other condition values, such as Contains or Starts with.

Using the Select Values form

Click Select Values to display a form with with one or more of these tabs:

  • Available values — The system searches the column in the database corresponding to the property in the Field field to collect and display up to 1,000 values for the Field property in a new window. To add literal values to the Value field, select one or more check boxes, and click Apply. (You can also type literal constants directly, whether or not they are listed.) This tab displays at run time only to users who hold the standard privilege @baseclass.ShowStoredValues. For such users, this tab is available at run time when the Display Available Values? box in the Prompt Settings area is selected.
  • Valid values — The system presents values from the Table fields on the General tab of the property referenced in the Field field. To add literal values to the Value field, select one or more check boxes, and click Apply. This tab is available at run time when the Display Valid Values? box in the Prompt Settings area is selected.
  • Compatible columns — The system lists optimized properties with the same Type as the property in the Field field, as candidates for this field. This tab is available at run time when the Display Compatible Columns? box in the Prompt Settings area is selected.
  • Time Periods — For a property of type Date or DateTime, allows the selection of a symbolic date such as Yesterday or Current Year.

Click OK to accept the value you selected. Click Cancel to close the form without making a selection.

Field Value Key Optional. To localize this value for a language other than English, provide the Field Name of the Field Value that contains the value's localization. If the field is blank, the value is not localized.

To enable localization, check the Localize? check box on the HTML tab.

Default Value Specify a comparison value to use when you do not specify a value in the Value field.
Edit Input Optional. Identify an edit input rule to convert the value from the format supplied by the expression in the Value field to another format.
Ignore Case

Select the check box to test or compare the Field value and the Value value at run time after the system converts both to uppercase. In this situation, "a" matches "A" and is less than "B".

If this option is not selected, tests of the Field value and the Value value occur without case conversion. In this case, "a" is greater than "A" and also greater than "B"

In most cases, do not select this option. Select this option only when required to obtain the rows of the report. For example:

  • If your PegaRULES database is hosted by Microsoft SQL Server, comparisons are always in uppercase, so selecting this option does not affect the report contents.
  • If your PegaRULES database is hosted by Oracle, IBM Db2 or most other database vendor products, selecting this option can affect which rows are included in the report when values occur in mixed case. However, conversion to uppercase can significantly slow database processing.
  • Case conversion is meaningful only for properties of type Text, Identifier or Password. Regardless of the database software, case conversion is not needed for numbers, dates, or text that contains only uppercase or lowercase characters.
See the PDN article

How to correct the Case Insensitive warning for summary view rules.
Use Null* This check box is meaningful only when the value in the Value field is not a constant. By default, if the value in the Value field is null at run time, the criteria defined by this row is ignored. Processing is the same as if this row is not present.

For example, assume the criteria in a row is:

IsNull Example

If this summary view rule runs when Param.Letter has the value "C", this criteria limits the report to contain only instances in which the Lastname property value starts with the letter C. However, if the same summary view rule runs again when the Param.Letter parameter has no value, this criteria is dropped, so instances with any Lastname value (or none) are selected.

If you do not want this default behavior, select the Use Null* check box to force the Condition value to become Is Null when the Value value is blank at run time. In this example, the criteria is transformed to "Lastname is null".

If this summary view rule runs on a web node as part of a composite application, the Use Null* setting is selected for all criteria.

Logic Optional. Using the labels entered in the Criteria array, specify a logical expression that defines how the system combines the criteria into an overall Boolean value at run time. The expression can include parentheses and the operators AND and OR.

For example, if the table contains four rows labeled A, B, C, and D, you can specify:

(A OR B OR C) AND D

This notation is the same as for the logic statement in when condition rules.

If you leave the Logic field blank, the system selects only instances for which all criteria rows are true.

Convert criteria values from Locale values? Select to convert certain input values for parameters from a locale-specific format to the internal representation. The system attempts to convert literal values, or parameter values for numbers ( Integer, Double, or Decimal ), DateTime, and Date specified in the Criteria section or trend section from a locale-specific format.

If not selected, enter parameter values and literal values for DateTime parameters in the form MM/DD/YY HH:MM AAA.

When selected, conversion from the locale-specific format occurs before the activity specified in the Activity Name field runs. The system applies any edit input rules specified in the Criteria array after the conversion but before the activity runs.

For example, if the user's locale is FR (France), an input of 3,142 for a Decimal criteria corresponds to the input 3.142 from a user with a United States locale. Similarly, a user in France can input 4/7/6 for July 4, 2006. A United States user enters this date as 7/4/6. The French-locale user can enter 1.000.000 for an Integer value of one million.

Click Tips to display suggestions to improve specifying properties.

Group By

Define in this array one or more properties as summary break levels. Order is significant.

Click the plus icon below the array to add rows.

Field Description
Field Identify the properties to correspond to summary levels, with the major summary level in the first row.
Caption Optional. Specify text to appear above the list display for this property. If blank, the text (empty) displays as the caption.

If your application supports users in multiple locales, choose a noun or noun phrase for the caption of 64 characters or less, and select the Localize? check box on the HTML tab. Choose a caption already included in a language pack, to simplify localization. You can review or create the field value rule supporting localization. The pencil icon appears only after you select the Localize? check box on the HTML tab. See About the Localization wizard and Rules Inspector tool — Localizing forms and reports with the Field Value Inspector.

Function Optional. When the property in the Field field has a type of Text or DateTime, you can use a function to transform the property value, to alter the grouping level or sort sequence.

For example, if a property of type Text has hundreds of possible values from AAAAAA to ZZZZZ, you can truncate the value to the first character, to create a report with at most 26 top-level groups. Similarly, values of a DateTime property are precise to the millisecond, but you can group rows by day or month.

For the Text type, click the Details button to specify a string function that the system applies to the field before grouping. You can select a function that converts the field value to uppercase or lowercase, select a substring, or concatenate the value with another Text property value or with a literal constant.

For DateTime type, click the Details button to specify that a portion of the date is used in grouping. For example, you can specify the year only (in the format YYYY), a two-digit month code (as YYYY-MM or only MM), or the day (as DD or YYYY-MM-DD).

The Details button changes to a checkbox icon after you select a function.

Format Optional. Select a control to format the label for grouping. Many controls accept parameters. Click the icon to the right of the field to enter parameters for the control.
Export format
Optional. If this drill-down display can be exported to Excel, select a control to use for the export. Select one of the following controls, as appropriate to the type of the value:
Export_Integer Export_Date
Export_Decimal Export_Time
Export_DateTime  

These five controls accept parameters. Click the icon to the right of the field to enter parameters for the control.

Select fields

Identify properties to summarize.

Click the plus icon below the array to add rows.

Field Description
Function Select a function such as Count or Average from the selection list:
  • Count — Counts the number of rows for which this field is not blank.
  • Count Distinct — Counts the number of distinct values of this field.
  • Sum — Adds all instances of this field. Can only be used with Integer, Decimal, and Double property types.
  • Average — Displays the average of this field. Can only be used with Integer, Decimal, and Double property types.
  • Min — Displays the minimum of this field. Can only be used with Integer, Decimal, and Double property types.
  • Max — Displays the maximum of this field. Can only be used with Integer, Decimal, and Double property types.
Field Optional. Enter a property in the class corresponding to the Applies To key part of this rule. If the function selected is Average or Sum, identify a property of type Number or Integer.

Leave blank to use a DateTime property with trend reporting.

Trend Reporting

Optional. The system can count instances based on the value of a DateTime property. To define trend fields, leave the Field field blank. Click Configure to complete the Trend Definition form.

Caption Specify a display caption for that property.

If your application supports users in multiple locales, choose a noun or noun phrase for the caption of 64 characters or less, and select the Localize? check box on the HTML tab. Choose a caption already included in a language pack, to simplify localization. Click to review or create the field value rule supporting localization. The pencil icon appears only after you select the Localize? check box on the HTML tab. See About the Localization wizard and Rules Inspector tool — Localizing forms and reports with the Field Value Inspector.

Sort Select No Sorting, Ascending, or Descending to control the sort order for this field.

Sorting follows the order of rows within this array. If this field is set to Ascending in the first row and also in the second row, values corresponding to the first row form the major sort, and values corresponding to the second row form a minor sort.

Format Optional. To override the presentation of this property defined on the Property form, specify a control to use when presenting this property.

Many controls accept parameters. Click the gear icon to the right of the Control value to enter parameters for the control.

Export format Optional. If this drill-down display can be exported to Excel, select a control to use for the export. Select one of the following controls, as appropriate to the type of the value:
  • Export_Integer
  • Export_Decimal
  • Export_DateTime
  • Export_Time
  • Export_Date

These five controls accept parameters. Click the gear icon to the right of the Export Control value to enter parameters for the control.

Prompt Settings

Select the Configure prompt settings check box to display the Configure Prompt Settings button. Click the button to view or alter prompt settings, which determine the extent to which report users can view or alter report criteria at run time.

When one or more criteria allow All Access or Value Only, the user can review or enter criteria at run time. .

(no label) Select whether to use the default prompt settings or define custom settings.

When you select Custom, the form changes. Identify on the Pages & Classes tab the class and page name of a page that can hold prompt values. Create and reference a section in that class to collect each prompt value. Use the standard control Reporting_SymbolicDates if you want to allow the user to select a symbolic date for a Date or DateTime property. You can also identify a section to hold report output and criteria values.

Label This label corresponds to the label defined in the criteria row.
Property This field is corresponds to the field specified in the criteria row.
Prompt Mode Select a value to determine how a user of this report can modify the criteria in this row, when prompted before the report runs:
  • No Access — No part of this row is displayed.
  • Read Only — The criteria row is displayed but users cannot alter the criteria.
  • All Access — The criteria displays. Users can change the Field , Condition , and Value fields.
  • Value Only — The criteria displays. Users can change the Value field.
Prompt user before executing the report Select to display the criteria before the summary view report runs to users who request this report.

When this option is selected, at least one Criteria row must allow user input. The Prompt Mode for at least one row must not be No Access or Read Only.

Display criteria with the results Select to display the criteria (both prompts and values) at run time as part of the report output.

Select this option if the report user is allowed to change report selection criteria. If not selected, the output for a single report might vary from user to user for no easily detected reason, because users saved different criteria.

Display available values Select to display a list of up to 1,000 values for a property referenced in the Field field at run time. The system searches saved instances of the class until it finds 1,000 distinct values.

User selections are recorded in the Value field for the current execution of the report. This check box is meaningful only when you selected Prompt user? , and one or more rows of the criteria allow users to enter values.

Display valid values Select to display at run time a list of values based on the Table Type area of the General tab of the property referenced in the Field field.

User selections are recorded in the Value field for the current execution of the report. This check box is meaningful only when Prompt user? is selected, and one or more rows of the criteria allow users to enter values.

Display compatible columns Select to display at run time a list of properties eligible for comparison. These properties are in the Applies To class (or an ancestor class), optimized as columns, and match the Type of the property referenced in the Field field.

User selections are recorded in the Value field for the current execution of the report. This check box is meaningful only when Prompt user? is selected, and one or more rows of the criteria allow users to enter property names.

Search button label Enter a text string to display on the search button.

Thresholds

If this summary view rule includes an interactive chart, and you want the chart to include color-coded ranges, select the Configure thresholds check box to display the Configure Thresholds button. Click the button to display the Thresholds Definition form.

Complete these fields on the form to define colors for each range that displays on the interactive chart (if any) and for the rows of the report.

Field Description
Define Thresholds on Select the Group By property for the thresholds.
Background opacity Select a value to determine the color intensity, from 10 to 100. High values might make black text more difficult to read.
Use the plus icon to add at least one row, choosing non-overlapping ranges. Order is not significant. If you define two or more ranges, use distinct background colors for each.
Min Value Specify a number that defines the start of a range, exclusive of this value. For example, specify 0 to restrict the range to positive values.
Max Value Specify a number, larger than the Min Value value, that defines the end of a range, inclusive of this value. For example, specify 50 to restrict the range to values less than or equal to 50.
Caption Specify text to provide as a short description of this threshold, such as "0 to 60" or "Good".
Background Color Specify a six-character hexadecimal value to define the RGB background color for the threshold, such as 0000FF for blue, or click the box to the right of the field to select a color. The background color must allow black text to be legible.
Border Color Optional. Specify a six-character hexadecimal value to define the RGB color for the threshold borders, or click the box to the right of the field to select a color.

Report Source

Field Description
Page Name Enter a clipboard page name to contain the report contents.
Activity Name Optional. Identify an activity that applies to the Embed-SummaryParams class to support summary calculations. In most cases, accept the default activity getContent.

If you implement a custom activity for unusual reporting needs, choose a name other than getContent and reference the name in this field. The custom activity can derive report contents from various means and sources, such as access to external databases through connector rules, calculations, and so on, but must place the results on the specified page and enforce the Maximum Value record count limit. A few summary view capabilities are disabled when an activity with a different name is used.

Maximum Value Optional. Enter a maximum number of instances to retrieve for the report contents in each drill-down and at the summary level. As a best practice during testing, enter 500. If you leave this blank or enter a value above 9,999, the system enforces a limit of 9,999.
Display Count of Records Select to include a message at the top of the output display if all rows that meet the selection criteria are not included in the report output. The message is:
Found more than the maximum number of records (nnn)

where nnn is the Maximum Value limit. If all records are displayed, a record count displays.

Displaying nnnn records

If not selected, the message is disabled.

This option is enabled by default for new reports that you create, but disabled for reports created in versions prior to PRPC Version 5.5.

Lightweight list

Select to have the embedded pages for the selected instances use lightweight lists for better performance. Leave unselected if the activity performs operations unsupported by lightweight lists, like forward chaining declarative processing, messaging, or value vetting. Refer to PDN article About lightweight lists for more information.

Do not select this check box if the Edit In Excel option (on the Organize tab) is selected, or if your application requires processing of the embedded pages.

If this summary view uses the facilities of the Join tab, you must select this check box.

As a best practice, select this check box. This option can reduce memory requirements during processing.

Having the embedded pages use lightweight lists does not affect your ability to remove an embedded page completely (with the Obj-Filter or Page-Remove method).

Two Dynamic System Settings control the use of lightweight lists by the Obj-Browse method. Pega Platform and application rules each have a setting:

  • clipboard/lightWeightList/enableForCorePRPCRules - This setting is true by default.
  • clipboard/lightWeightList/enableForCustomerRules - This setting is false by default.

When true, these Dynamic System Settings override the Use Lightweight List check box setting on the Activity rule form.

Use alternate database Select to have summary view processing use the database identified in the Reports Database field of the Data-Admin-DB-Table instance that supports the Applies To class of this summary view. See How to use a reports database.

Chose this option only if the Reports Database field is not blank and identifies a database table that is replicated from the production PegaRULES database. If the report uses JOIN operations that draw from multiple database tables, all tables must be in the same reports database.

When this option is selected, at run time the report uses data from the alternate database. Property pyUseAlternateDb is set to true on the top-level output Code-Pega-List page.

Report on descendant class instances Select to use an implementation class derived from the current rule's Applies To class as the source of report contents at run time.

Select this to allow one summary view rule, saved in a framework class, to run against the work items in an implementation class. This capability reduces the number of rules needed when building an implementation of a framework.

This check box is effective only if the Applies To class of this summary view rule is derived from the Work- base class.

To determine the Work- class that is used when the report runs, use the Tracer tool, or from the list view display, right-click and select View Source from the browser menu. Search for ViewClass.

Sub-classes

This array appears only when the Applies To key part of the summary view corresponds to a class group.

Click the plus icon below the array to add rows.

Field Description
(n) Optional. Identify a work type within the class group. The summary view output might include properties from this class (work type) when they exist. For example, if the class group has three work types, you can report on properties defined in the first type, even though these properties do not exist for the other two types.

If this work type is derived from Work-, decide whether you want to join to an implementation class, or in a framework class. At run time, summary view rules with a framework class in this field automatically report on work items in the associated implementation class, if the Report on Descendant Class Instance option is selected.

Security

To run a summary view rule, a user must hold an access role that provides the ability to run rules in the Applies To class and to search instances of the Applies To class. Optionally, you can restrict the ability to run a summary view rule to only those users who hold any one of a list of privileges.

Leave this array blank to impose no additional restrictions. Order in this array is not significant.

Field Description
Class Optional. Select a class that the system can use to find the Applies To key part of a privilege rule.
Privilege Optional. Select the Privilege Name key part of a privilege rule.

The system uses the Class and Privilege values with class inheritance to look for the privilege rule.

Web Enabled? Optional. Select to allow this summary view rule to run on a web node as part of a composite application. If selected, users of a composite application can display this report, if the normal access roles, RuleSet list, and privileges requirements are met.

If not selected and a user at a web node attempts to run this summary view rule, the rule does not run and a security exception is added to the Alert log.

For security reasons, list view rules that run on a web node as part of a composite application cannot use parameters as selection criteria.

When this list view rule runs on a web node as part of a composite application, the Use Null* setting is selected for all criteria.