FAQ 75: Printing a group of reports

Problem: We have individual reports set up in Reporter. What we would like to do is to create a report that incorporates everything that we send to the client into one selection. For instance, we currently send the client a Census report, a Deposit Summary, and an HCE/Key report. Currently, we must print each report separately. We would like to have a way to select all three at once and have all of the reports that we send to the client print at once. We still need to produce the reports on an individual basis also, though, so they can't always print that way.

Solution: To print a group of reports out of Reporter all at once, you have to set up what is called a "category" within the RMS file that contains those reports. When creating a new category to print a grouping of reports, the category must be placed in the list of reports ahead of the reports that it is going to print. As a result, you must insert a new report, and then add the category name to each report that it will contain. Do the following to add a new category to your file: - From the ASC Main Menu, choose "Access" and "Reporter Specifications". - From the REPTSPEC menu, choose "File" and "Open", change to the directory that contains the report file, choose the RMS file to use, and click "Open". - Once the file is chosen, choose "Edit" and "Report Numbers". - Leave the default of "Insert", place a "1" in the first box and a "1" in the second box, and click "OK". - Then choose "File" and "New Report", change the report Number to a "1", change the Type to a "Category", and input the name that you want to assign to the category ("REP401K", for example). - Next, choose "File" and "Open Report" and choose the first report to include in this grouping. - Choose "View" and "Control", input the category name that you assigned above in one of the Category Names boxes (in my example above, you would input "REP401K") and click "OK". - Then choose "File" and "Open Report", choose the next report to include, and do the same thing. - When finished adding the category name to all necessary reports, choose "File" and "Exit" to close the Reporter Specifications program. Then when printing, choose the category name instead of the individual reports and you should get those reports all printing together.