6.Forms and Reports

Introduction to Form and Report:-
Forms and reports are an important part of the database application. Designer use them to create an integrated application, making it easier for user to perform their task. Decision maker and clerical workers use from and report on a daily basis. Normally forms were used as input and report were used to display result. Now a day forms are also used to display result, Basic use of forms are:
o Collect data
o Display query data
o Display analysis and computation result
o Switch board
o Direct manipulation of object like Graphics
Report are typically printed on paper, but they are increasingly begin created for direct display on the screen. Report can be used to format the data and present results from complex analysis. Forms and reports have several common features.


Effective Design of forms and Report
The most important concept to remember when designing forms and reports is to understand that they are the primary concert of the user. The key of effective design is to determine the needs of the user. As a designer, you talk with to learn what they want to accomplish. Then you use your experience to provide features that make the form more useful. Researchers in human factors have developed several guidelines to help you design forms. Some factors are:
a. User Control: match user task, Respond to user control and event User customization.
b. Consistency: Layout, design, and color, action.
c. Feedback: Method( Visual, text, Audio, Graphics)
d. Forgiveness: Correction of errors, Confirmation on delete and updates.


Form Layout:-
Individual forms or windows are your primary means of communication with people who use your application. Forms are used to collect data, display results and organize the overall system. Several standard layouts are provided by the DBMS to simplify the development of many common forms. Normally we will be working with four basic types of form.

a. Tabular Forms:-
One of the simplest forms is the tabular forms, which displays the columns and rows from a table or query. It can be used as a sub form and is rarely used as a stand-alone form. Microsoft Access provides an even simpler version of form called a datasheet.

b. Single-Row or Columnar Forms:-
A single-row form displays data for one row at a time. The goal is to display every column. Its greatest feature is that the designer can display the data at any location on the form. It is useful for designing a form like a traditional paper form.

c. Subform Forms:-
A subform is usually a datasheet (or tabular form) embedded on the main form. A subform generally shows a one-to-many relationship.

d. Switchboard:-
It provides overall structure of an application. It directs the user to other form & report in the application. It often contains image and reflect the style of the company.



Report
Several issue are involve in designing report as in the development of form, you and users need to determine the content and layout of reports. Issues in designing report are:
a. Report usage and user need.
b. Report layout choice like tabular, subgroup, chart, etc.
c. Paper size
d. How often it is generated.
e. Even that triggers report.
f. How large is the report.
g. Colors
h. Security control, etc.



Types of Report
a.Tabular and level report
It is basically means printing column of data like output of query in tabular reports, data are presented in tabular forms .Example grade sheets of all students.

b.Group and subtotal Report
The most common types of report is based on groups and compute, subtotals common example may be printing receipt or a bills.

c.Graphs
Graphs on reports are similar to graphs on forms. Graphs gives comparison of different record. Example of graph may be pi-chart, bar-chart, etc.