Displaying image beside extended text in a report

Bokk

I am trying to re-design the sale quote in 4.0. The customer wants an existing quote report in another system replicated. For each inventory item on the quote, it displays an image of it on the left and the description and extended text description on the right.

In the Navision report, it loops through the salesline multiple times per item to pick up the item description and then the extended text description. Each time it prints a line it has to move down the amount of space occupied by the image. I created a second section for the extended text description so the image did not repeat (using CurrReport.SHOWOUTPUT), but there is still one large unwanted space between the Item description and the extended text description(s).

Is it possible to overlay sections somehow? Any ideas would be great!

Thanks,

fb

I think you are going to have to do this in code...

If I understand your requirement correctly, you want a layout something like so (it's not really code, just need the layout control):

+----------+  Description 1
|  Picture |  Description 2
|   Goes   |  Extended Text 1
|   Here   |  Extended Text 2
+----------+  Extended Text 3...

I would create an Array[x] of Text50, load the description(s) from the SalesLine in the OnAfterGetRecord trigger, including doing the peek ahead trick to find the extended description "Attached-to Line No." records and load them into the array.

Now, you will need (probably) three layouts:
1) The layout above, when a picture exists...
2) A layout with, say, only 2 lines, when no picture exists...
3) An indented data item, based on the Integer table, and a layout for just a single description line, for any 'excess' text array elements that have not been listed in either (1) or (2) above...

Waldo

May be you can export the sales quote to MS Word, and import it as attachment on the sales quote in Navision?

Using word automation, you're quite flexible... .

Bokk

fb,

Thanks for your response. You interpreted the design correctly. I would like to clarify a couple things as I have not worked much with arrays, extended text or the Integer table in reports. In the base sales quote it appears to me that it goes through the 2nd dataitem (Sales Line), creates a global TempSalesLine rec variable and stores the values from the Sales Line table in the OnAfterGetRecord trigger. Then in the SalesLine dataitem based on the Integer table, I think it is assessing if it's extended text (or G/L) and initializing fields that don't display. I am not certain about the timing of when the data is getting to the report. I would think it should be in the Sales Line (2nd dataitem), but that wouldn't account for the SaleLine dataitem (Integer table).

I have created an array with 10 dimensions just to test this, but as that array will have to load all the items for that quote plus each line of extended text, I would have to make it quite large, I expect. Is there a limit? The general format for each inventory item for this client is that is will have a picture and typically about 6 lines of descriptions so the number of lines could certainly add up. When you mention the peek ahead trick, do you mean to add a dataitem to read through the Sales Line table before going into the existing dataitem? Should I store all Sales Line details in the array or only the extended text descriptions?

My last question is about the layout. The first option with a picture is the norm. I think this section would require 6- 8 textboxes to be filled by the array per item. If no picture exists, it would be blank and the text would be in the same place as option 1. Option 3 - please clarify 'excess' text. Is this for potentially extra descriptions that were in the array, but did not fit in the 6-8 textboxes of option 1?

Thanks for your patience as I try to sort this all out.

Waldo,
I am very interested in your comment about MS Word for another solution we're working on. We are considering launching Word and creating a document. Once created, is it able to be stored in the Navision database (SQL option) as a document and be associated with a specific quote, order, etc. so that it could be pulled up again? I am curious about the potential possibilities if I understood that correctly.

Many thanks!!

Waldo

This is exactly what I did ... :

- Create standard sales quote in Navision;
- Button on Sales Quote: "Open in Word".
- If it was not created yet, then Navision will create a Word document with the details of the prospect and the quote if a nice layout, with texts, photo's, ... (about 2 pages per item on the quote).
- This quote is imported in the Attachment table, and linked with the quote so it is always possible to open and edit the word document again.

So yes ... it is possible. You can do this for any type of navision-document, off course.

SQL Option is no issue.

Dneal

Thanks for your input. I was able to create my report in the format wanted. I don't think I did it exactly as you outlined, but I did figure out specifically how the report was being generated and used arrays which seemed to be the key.

Thanks again!