Custom reports - custom fields in header?

[scrubba]

Hi civi folks

I wondering about the best approach for some custom civi reports I aim to make

They are Events reports - and the 'Event Participants List' template is pretty close to my needs, so that is my starting point.

My question is about the header or equivalent area.

I have a bunch of custom fields attached to my events, (not the participants)
they include more detail about the event itself, e.g. some extra dates and extra venue and rehearsal venue information.

What i want to do is always add these to the header area of my report, just the once, above the columnHeaders and participant lists.

At the moment my only option seems to be to add these fields as columns, and they repeat at each participant row.

I see I could use the 'report header' section to manually add this information in each event report,
But is there a way I could automate this - by some kind of html call in the 'report header' to grab each field data
- or - alternatively by building a custom report / report extension - based on the template - and if this is possible any hints as to where in the report template php that may live, ie which function etc..


Thanks

Chris Dubrow

[Erik Hommel]

Your best bet I think is to customize the standard report you change this. I can not judge from your question if you have any development skills?

[scrubba]

Thanks for the response Erik,

Yeah i can blunder through a bit of development
e.g. I have built a jquery extension before using civix to alter a profile form, and understand the basics

So figure i ideally should build a report extension following this
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Create+a+Report-Template+Extension

But - I am still a little lost on where I where in the php I would alter, to add fields so it would display in the header area..

[scrubba]

Ok haven't heard anything much on this - so thought I'd simplify the question

For my event reports I need to add an address of the event in the header area,

Does anyone know if there is way to automatically pull in this data?

I can create a edit the corresponding php (or tpl) file, and create a extension if required

But I just don't now where the fields would go?

(or perhaps someone would know if this is simply not possible, or not the best approach)

Thanks

[Michael McAndrew]

Hey there,

You are on the right lines.

Some reports have very complex tpl files, e.g. https://github.com/civicrm/civicrm-core/blob/master/templates/CRM/Report/Form/Contact/Detail.tpl

Others just include the standard one, e.g. https://github.com/civicrm/civicrm-core/blob/master/templates/CRM/Report/Form/Membership/Summary.tpl

So I would modify the form class so it gets the info you want and passes it to smarty.  Then I would add the extra smarty variables into the appropriate template.

If you are doing this in a few different report templates, one approach would be to create a function that you can call to get the appropriate event information into your report, and then write a template snippet that shows the event info that you want. You could then call the functiona and include the snippet as appropriate.

Obviously a few details missing above, but hopefully that gives you an idea (of how I would attempt it) to get you going

[scrubba]

Thanks for the approach direction Michael - appreciated..
lets see how I go