Considerations for the Finished Report
Before developing your report specifications, you must know how you want the finished report to look. Consider some of the following issues:
• What data is needed from your database to create the report?
If you must run a database query to get the data, design the query and run it from a terminal monitor to make sure it retrieves the desired data.
• How do you want the data sorted?
If you want headings or footings for subgroups of your data, the data must be sorted on the columns that define the subgroups. You must choose the sort.
• What do you want the various headers and footers to look like?
Decide whether you want titles, subtotals, or other aggregates, extra blank lines, or other types of headers or footers in your report. Sketch the report layout on a piece of paper to see how it looks.
• What information must be printed for each specific data row of the report, and in what format must the information appear?
For numbers, you must think about the number of significant digits to print, and the number of decimal places.
• What kind of page headers and footers do you want?