External Reporter comes with a set of Oracle packages used to extract information from the OpenComms data model. These packages may also be required by other OpenComms utilities (i.e. BatchGlobalRecalc.) These packages only need to be installed one time, even if multiple utilities requiring them are implemented. If multiple projects (database users) are in use, the packages will have to be installed one time for each user.

1. Locate and run the OpenCommsExternalReporter.exe file found by default in the C:\Program Files\Bentley\Communications 2023\OpenCommsDesigner folder. If this is the first time running this program, the following dialog will display:

   

2. Click Add to open the Add New Project dialog as shown on the left below:

   

3. Fill in the Project Name, whether ft or m units of measure are used, the database username and the 3 Database Connection Parameters and then test the connection. This will bring up a Database Credential dialog to allow you to enter the database user password. If the connection is successful a dialog similar to the one shown on the above right caption will display.
4. Click the Create button to display the project in your Define Projects dialog:

   

5. After clicking Done the External Reporter Login page will display, allowing you to enter the User Name and Password for the database user:

   

6. Click the Admin button on the External Reporting page displaying the sample scripts that are pre-loaded:

   

7. Enter (or Create) the password for the Admin functions of OpenComms External Reporter:

   

8. After entering the password, the following Admin dialog displays:

   

   If this is a new implementation of External Reporter and it will be used for OpenComms data, there are 4 Oracle packages that must be installed in the database. These only need to be installed one time—per database, not per client machine. (See Appendix C for description of the Packages.)

9. Click the Install Packages button. This will display the following dialog—click yes:

   

   After a few seconds, the following dialog should display, showing that the Packages have been installed successfully:

   

   At this point the utility is configured for the defined project and the sample queries that ship with the utility can be run. Close the Admin dialog. There are pre-loaded queries that display in the report list. There are queries for the Coax module, queries for the Fiber module, queries related to addresses or customers, and 2 queries related to WorkFlow Manager. These sample queries can be run as they are or be used as templates for the user to build custom queries for their required database reports:

   

   For an example, we will highlight one of the queries and Run it to show what happens…select the ‘Addresses in Coax Node’ query and click Run. This will display the dialog requiring more information for our query. In this case we enter GB156 for the NodeBoundary name:

   

   Note: In External Reporter the % sign can be used for a wildcard in the search boxes.

   When executed, this results in the Report dialog displaying all the rows returned from the database. These can be exported to an external *.csv file by right clicking in the report and selecting Export: