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IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility

The IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility handles two cases:

  • A technology shift related to the.NET framework. Applies to reports created in Applications 7.5 or earlier.

  • Introduction of a function in Excel that conflicts with a function in IFS Business Reporter.
    Applies to reports created with a IFS Business Reporter version earlier than version 3.2.8

Note: The tools does not support upgrade of IFS Business Reporter reports based on Excel 2003, i.e. the file extension XLS is no longer supported. There is no automatic support for converting XLS file to XLSX files and replacing them. A documented workaround is found here >>

IFS Business Reporter clients released after IFS Applications 7.5 targets higher.NET versions than in previous client versions. The following table gives a summary of IFS Business Reporter versions and used.NET versions.

IFS Cloud version Targeted.NET Version Targeted VSTO Runtime version
APP 7 .NET 2.0 Visual Studio Tools for Office Second Edition Runtime
APP 75 .NET 2.0 Visual Studio Tools for Office Second Edition Runtime
APP 8 .NET 4.0 Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime
APP 9 .NET 4.5.2 Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime
APP 10 .NET 4.5.2 Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime
IFS Cloud .NET 4.5.2 Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime

Due to the.NET technology shift it is necessary to update existing IFS Business Reporter reports if upgrading from IFS Applications 7.5 or earlier.

A new function named IFS() was introduced in the Office 365 version of Microsoft Excel 2016 from the February 2016 update. This function conflicts with a IFS Business Reporter specific function with the same name, used in IFS Business Reporter reports design in all versions before 3.2.8 version on Applications 9 track. Since there is one version of IFS Business Reporter supporting all versions of Microsoft Excel, it was necessary to modify IFS Business Reporter as part of IFS Applications 9 Update 3. The modification means that all existing IFS Business Reporter reports have to be updated to be compatible with IFS Business Reporter version 3.2.8 and higher. Upgrading existing IFS Business Reporter reports will be facilitated by the IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility

The IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility takes care of both the described cases by supporting upgrade of IFS Business Reporter reports stored on the local machine or on a public folder as well as reports that are already saved, published or archived in IFS Applications.

How to Install IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility

The IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility is automatically installed when IFS Business Reporter client is installed. After successful installation the Tools sub folder will be created under IFS Business Reporter folder

Since Business Reporter does no longer support the XLS format, it is not possible to use the IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility for this file type. There is however a workaround:

  1. Make sure that Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Second Edition Runtime (VSTOR) is installed. This older version of VSTOR is necessary in order to identify XLS reports as Business Reporter reports and can be downloaded from Microsoft Download Center.
  2. Next step will be to make the XLS reports available on disk, i.e. downloading them from the database via Business Reporter and/or use already saved reports on disk.
  3. Open each report and then save it as an XLSX file
  4. When all reports have been successfully saved as XLSX files, the IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility can be used to upgrade the reports to be compatible with the current version of IFS Business Reporter.
  5. Test the converted reports and then save/re-publish them.

When an old report in XLS format is opened there can be different messages. Two of the these messages are displayed below.

The above error normally means that the report contains customization information but it cannot be loaded since the path to the customization is not valid.

The above error means that the customization couldn't be loaded with the current.NET version.

The general guideline is that regardless of message, always ignore the error by clicking OK in the message box, then save the report in XLSX format and finally run the Upgrade utility.

How to use the IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility is explained in the following sections in this document.

Upgrade IFS Business Reporter Reports

The IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility enables upgrade of IFS Business Reporter reports that are saved in the local machine as well as reports that are stored in IFS Cloud. Reasons for upgrading IFS Business Reporter reports are

  1. After an upgrade of IFS Cloud a technical shift related to the .NET framework makes it necessary to change the way the IFS Business Reporter customization is handled
  2. A conflict between a MS Excel specific function and a IFS Business Reporter specific function, makes it necessary to upgrade reports created with a IFS Business Reporter Reporter earlier than version 3.2.8 Note: Customers using a IFS Business Reporter and upgrading to Applications 10 must upgrade their IFS Business Reporter reports if the used IFS Business Reporter version is earlier than 3.2.8

Upgrade Reports Saved in the Local Machine

  1. Make sure all the reports are editable (check the Read-only attribute of the files).

  2. Open IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility from the earlier described sub folder in the start menu

  3. Select Upgrade reports saved on disk. Click Next to continue.

  4. Click Add to select all the IFS Business Reporter reports that you want to upgrade. It is also possible to drag and drop reports to the selection area.
    It is mandatory to provide a backup location where a backup copy of all reports will be stored. Click Next to start the upgrade process.

  5. Processing all the reports may take some time. The operation can be aborted by clicking Cancel if required.

  6. When the operation is completed, the result for each processed report will be displayed as shown below.

Upgrade Reports Stored in IFS Cloud

The IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility tool can also be used to upgrade reports that are already saved, published or archived in IFS Applications related to the following functional areas:

  • Published/Saved BR Report Templates
    These are the IFS Business Reporter report definitions that are saved or published in the IFS database using Save Report or Publish Report functionality available in the IFS Business Reporter client.
  • Archived BR Reports in Info Services
    Scheduled or ordered IFS Business Reporter report instances are archived in the general IFS Cloud Report Archive
  • Export Archive
    Refers to IFS Business Reporter report instances saved in the BR Export Archive. This archive is accessed via IFS Business Reporter and is primarily used as part of the export and import functionality related to writeback.

Note:*IFS Business Reporter Report Upgrade Utility * does not provide direct functionality to upgrade reports that are attached in IFS Document Management. However, the following section describes how to upgrade reports connected to IFS Document Management using two different workarounds. >>

  1. Open the IFS BR Report Upgrade Utility from the earlier described sub folder in the start menu
  2. Select Upgrade reports saved in database. Select one or more options from the list below:

    1. Published/Saved BR Report templates
    2. Archived BR Reports in Info Services
    3. Export Archive

  1. Click Next to continue.

  2. When the login dialog box for IFS Cloud appears, supply necessary credentials to log in to the required environment

  3. In the populated list, select the reports to be upgraded

  4. Click Next to continue.

  5. Processing all the reports may take some time. The operation can be aborted by clicking Cancel if required.

  6. When the operation is completed, the result for each processed report will be displayed as shown below.