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Who is this article intended for?

This document is intended for customers who are using the following products:

• Sage 50 Manufacturing Controller
• Sage 50 Batch Controller
• Sage 50 Job Controller
• Sage 50 Bill of Materials

Pre-requisites

• Sage 50 Manufacturing 2008 or later versions

Summary

Following developments in the version of report designer which the Sage 50 suite of programs uses it is possible to create sub reports in manufacturing reports. This can give us access to variables which are held within the Sage 50 accounts tables

Procedure

1. Select new report and report type. This will automatically give a selection of manufacturing type reports. In this example Bill of Materials.

2. Follow the wizard and add variables, groups and sort options.

3. Once the Report Designer screen can be seen select Toolbox and Sub Report. Click the location on the main report where you would like the sub report to be positioned. The Data Source screen will be presented.

4. Select the Data Source that is to be used on the sub report (in this example I selected SageLine50v14)

5. Next select the type of report required. Add the Variables/Groups and Sorts as normal, once completed you should now be looking at the sub report.

6. The link now needs to be created for the criteria on the sub report to the comparative criteria on the main report.

7. On the sub report properties drill down on the option for Criteria to see the Manage Criteria list.

Enable your chosen criteria (in my case STOCK_CODE) and also make a note of the exact spelling and case of the criteria.

8. Return to the main report, highlight the sub report and again select Criteria from the Properties menu. Open the drill down to see the 'Build a List of Criteria' screen.

This is where we are going to link the 2 criteria together.

9. Firstly enter the Criteria from the sub report (in this case STOCK_CODE) select to add. The expression editor will appear giving a list of all available criteria on the main report. From this list select the comparative criteria from the main report (in this case BOMS.BOMReference).

Click ok and a completed ‘Build a List of Criteria’ screen can be seen. This will now show the link between the main and sub report. Select ok and the report is completed.

Points to note about sub reports

Sub reports are very useful when it comes to using variables from the Sage 50 accounts dataset, however, it should be noted that sub reports cannot be used for calculations. One example of a report which would not be possible with sub reports is a delivery note which includes the total weight. The reason being is that the Sage 50 Accounts database holds the per item weight for the product whilst the Manufacturing database holds the delivered quantity from the delivery note.

In order to perform a calculation as above, a report would need to be designed using crystal reports. In order to write this report Sage would recommend to source the assistance of your Business Partner.

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