Adapting Existing Report Templates

Silk Central allows you to download and adapt BIRT report templates that contain all the information you need to create custom report templates for use with Silk Central modules.

Note: Silk Central reports do not support bitmap (.bmp) image file format. For proper display, images must be in JPEG, GIF, or PNG format.

To create a report based on a Silk Central template:

In the menu, click Administration > Report Templates . The Report Templates page displays, listing all of the report templates that have been uploaded.
Click in the Actions column.
Save the template file <filename>.rptdesign to the workspace folder of your BIRT installation.
Open the downloaded template file in BIRT Report Designer.
Redesign the report as necessary. For instructions on report design, refer to BIRT Report Designer’s online help system.
To preview your report, choose View Report > As HTML from the Run menu. The browser in which you want to preview the report can be specified as follows:
- Click Window > Preferences > Web Browser, select Use external web browser and choose a browser.
- Click Window > Preferences > Report Design > Preview and check the Always use external browsers check box.
If you preview the report for the first time, the Enter Parameters dialog box opens, where you need to specify a valid session ID. To generate a session ID, execute the following URL in a web browser. http://<HOST>:<PORT>/services/sccsystem?method=logonUser&userName=<USERNAME>&plainPasswd=<PASSWORD>.

Parameter

Description

HOST

Host name or IP-address of the computer hosting Silk Central.

PORT

Port number of the Silk Central front-end server. Default is 19120 if you access Silk Central through a standalone Web server, and 80 if you access Silk Central through IIS.

USERNAME/PASSWORD

Valid credentials of a Silk Central user.

Note: The order of the valid credentials USERNAME and PASSWORD is very important.
If at some point your edited report does not return any data, the likely cause is that the session ID has timed out (timeout is 10 minutes). Close the browser window and choose View Report > As HTML from the Run menu again. To generate a new session ID, repeat the previous step.