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Question

Hi,
I need to serialise a report that is run for every job, and the only way that I can think of to do this is by somehow counting the number of times that a report is printed, as if the report is run a second time for a job, it needs to have a different serial number.
I'm thinking that this will probably have to be done somehow through an SQL command back to the database, but I've never had to use any SQL commands.
Does anyone have a simple solution to this problem?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Aaron,
I'm assuming that you'll want to be able and go back and associate a particular serial number with a specific report & run date. That means you'll actually want to store the info in the database itself.
My suggestion... Build a table in your database w/ 3 columns: RSID , RunDate & ReportName
Here is the SQL Server syntax for creating the table...
CREATE TABLE tblReportSerial (
RSID uniqueidentifier NOT NULL,
RunDate DateTime DEFAULT GetDate(),
ReportName VarChar(250))
Then just add a short a short SQL Command to your report... Like this (again... MS SQL Server)
INSERT INTO tblReportSerial (RSID,ReportName) Values (NEWID(),'Name of the report');
SELECT * FROM tblReportSerial WHERE RunDate = (
     SELECT MAX(RunDate) FROM tblReportSerial WHERE ReportName = 'Name of the report');
This will create a new new uniqueidentifier as a serial number as RSID each time the report is run. It will also create a date stamp. Because the name of the report will not change, you will simply hard code it in the command.
If you are running several reports off of the same database you can reuse the same tblReportSerial... Just change the ReportName for each report.
HTH,
Jason