How to Use RSExpress

This feature, called RSExpress, allows a report to be run and viewed in the report viewer without first logging into Ripplestone. This allows users of Ripplestone to run reports that are published in Ripplestone from external applications without the users first logging into Ripplestone and running the report from the Ripplestone application.

This feature uses a query string that is appended to the URL to provide information that the viewer and report need to run. This information is normally provided by the Ripplestone application, but will now be provided using the query string

Below are instructions on how to use this feature

1. The query string can take up to 5 parameters. The first 2 are required and the others are optional. The name and description of each are listed below.

Parameter name	Required	Description
DocID	X	The ID of the published document. Note: The report must already be published within Ripplestone.
User	X	The name of an existing user within Ripplestone. For example, AdministratorThis can also be the encrypted user name described below.
Params		This is used to pass in values for report parameters. If the report has multiple parameters each parameter is separated by a comma.Range parameters can be passed in and are separated by a semi-colon (;). For example if a report had two parameters, a Country parameter and a HireDate parameter and the Hire Date parameter is a range type, then the syntax would be Params=USA,4/1/1992;8/15/1992. This would pass “USA” into the Country parameter and would pass in the two dates as the start value and end value for the HireDate parameter.
Key		A system generated key to make this unique. This helps make the query string more secure.
ExtFileName		This is used to pass in a file name that will be used to save a copy of the report. This External File Name feature needs to be turned on in the Edit Document page to be used.

1.2. To create the URL you create a valid URL to the CRViewer.aspx page. For example, www.ripplestonedemo.net/CRViewer.aspx

or
//servername/ripplestone/CRViewer.aspx

3. Then to append the query string; add a question mark (?) followed by the parameters for the query string. These are the parameters listed above. The parameters are separated by a “&”

 

RS Express Tab

To help with creating the query string we have added a tab called RS Express to the Edit Document page. This tab allows you to turn on or off the RS Express feature for this document, create a unique key and view a template for the query string.



 

System Options for RS Express

The RS Express feature can be controlled at a system level on the System Setup and Configuration page.

RS Express – Active: This option allows you to turn the RS Express feature on or off. Turning the feature off will not allow any published reports to use RS Express, unless the report overrides this option at the report level.

Require Unique Key: This option will require that a unique system generated key be used in the query string. Using the key makes the query string more secure by eliminating the ability for a use to guess different DocID values.

Use Encrypted User Name: This option uses an encrypted user name instead of the plain test user name. This increases the security when the user name is used for Row Level Security and you do not want users entering other names into the query string



 

Encrypted User Name

To get the encrypted user name for the query string, go to the Edit User page and then the User Options tab. This will contain the user’s name in an encrypted format. This can then be used instead of the normal user name.

For example, the URL below is using the encrypted user name:

http://localhost:52663/CRViewer.aspx?DocID=53&User=cfRiKypX6cI=