The configured Drive server can be used to load, save and execute .rpt files on that server. Access to the Drive can be done via the Report Wizard (menu item File | New) or the dialog "Open Report File" (menu item File | Open)."

With i-net Clear Reports Plus, it is possible to host a report Drive on a running i-net Clear Reports Plus server. Users with appropriate permissions to the Drive can fetch, store, search, and run reports on the server itself instead of locally. Especially in environments with multiple report designers, this provides the advantage of centralizing reports and allowing for efficient storage and organization of company-wide reports.

To make use of one or more Drives from within i-net Designer, you must first configure the location in the "Configure" dialog.

Simply enter the connection URL to the Drive as well as your username and password. Your connection URL depends on the type of installation of i-net Clear Reports Plus. Please contact your administrator for further details, however, here are a few examples. Note that in each example, your port and/or application context may be different.

http://<servername>:9000

http://<servername>:8080/reporting/

http://<servername>/clearreports/default.aspx

Whether your settings are valid, will be checked automatically after you closed the "Configure" dialog. This will attempt a connection to the Drive with the given user details. If it succeeds, then the icon will be displayed on the left side of the Drive URL.

If the Drive URL or the user/password is not valid then the icon will be displayed on the left side of the Drive URL. In this case, you can get the error in the tooltip of the invalid Drive URL.

Yes! We have a demo Drive running which hosts sample reports which you can open, modify locally, and run. Note that you will not be able to store new or modified reports on this server. The connection to the demo Drive should have been set by default at setup. The connection info is:

  Server: http://reporting.inetsoftware.de/public/
  User:
  Password:

If you are an administrator of an i-net Clear Reports server with a Plus license, you can set up a report Drive by going into the remote Configuration application of the i-net Clear Reports remote interface. You will find the Drive options in the category "Components".

Once you've loaded a report from the Drive, clicking on "Result (From Drive)" will cause the report to actually be rendered on the server hosting the Drive rather than locally from within the Designer.

The server then sends the rendered report to your i-net Designer. Any local changes you might have made to the report are stored on the Drive as a temporary file, which is automatically deleted after the report is closed or saved. This means, for example, that you can run a report for which your local machine might not have the necessary fonts or database permissions, but the report server does.

The data will be fetched by the remote server and the report will be generated with embedded fonts, showing you the exact output your report server creates for the given report.

The Drive settings are checked automatically. If the settings are invalid, then you should get a helpful error message in the tooltip of the incorrect Drive URL. If you can not solve the problem, then contact your Drive administrator. If you are a Drive administrator, then you can check the following:

• Is it possible to access the Drive using the Drive Browser in the remote interface?
• Is it possible to access the Drive if you enter the Drive URL in the address field of a browser?
• If an authentication problem occurs: Does the login URL works in a browser?