Open a report from a URL (Report list)

You can open a report directly from a URL (web address) without having to sign in to a Perspective site first. This makes it easy to share reports with others by posting their URLs on a website or sending them by email.

Sharing public reports

Public reports can be shared freely without requiring a password. The simplest way to share a report is by copying the report's URL from your browser's address bar.

To share a public report:

1. In Public reports, open the desired report by clicking its icon.
2. In the resulting report, highlight the web address in your browser's address bar. Then press CTRL+C to copy it into memory. For example, this screenshot shows the URL for a public report located on the server "demoweb5.beyond2020.com." Its ReportId is 3:

   

   Note: If the report is first opened on the server machine, the server will be identified as "localhost." To enable the report to be opened on another machine, you must replace "localhost" with the actual name of the server.

3. The URL can now be posted on a website or pasted into a document or an email. Clicking on the URL or entering it into a browser opens the report. (To paste from memory, place your cursor at the desired location and press CTRL+V.)

Sharing private reports

To share a private report (from My reports), you must be willing to disclose your Perspective user name and password to the person you are sharing the report with.

Caution: Disclosing this information represents a security risk.

Note: Sharing a private report in this way is only possible if a site uses custom database authentication, not Windows authentication. (That is, user information must be stored in the Perspective repository.)

To share a private report:

1. As above, open the desired report and copy its web address.
2. Paste the address into an email or other document, and edit it as follows:
   • After "dispview.aspx?", insert the following: PerspectiveUserId=username&PerspectivePassword=password&

     Replace "username" and "password" with your actual Perspective username and password. For example, if our sample was a private report its URL might be edited as follows:

     http://MyServer/Perspective51/View/dispview.aspx?PerspectiveUserId=MyUsername&PerspectivePassword=MyPassword&ReportId=3&foldId=0

URL encoding

Perspective passwords and user names may only contain alphanumeric characters, and therefore no encoding is usually required when opening a report from a URL. However, accented characters (such as ç or é) are allowed and must be encoded in order to share a report.

• A simple way to encode accented characters is to allow a search engine (such as Google or MSN) to do the encoding. For example, if you enter the user name "François" in MSN Search and click Search, you will be able to observe the following in your browser's address bar:

  "http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=Fran%C3%A7ois&FORM=QBHP"

  From this you can see that the URL encoding for "François" is "Fran%C3%A7ois".

Specifying a language

If a site supports more than one language, you can specify the language in which a shared report will open.

To share a report in a specific language:

1. As above, open the desired report and copy its web address.
2. To specify the language in which you want the report to open, add the following code to the end of the URL:

   &PerspectiveLanguage=LanguageCode

   At this time the supported languages and their language codes are English (en), Canadian French (fr-ca), and French French (fr-fr). For example, to share our sample public report in Canadian French, you would provide the following URL:

   http://MyServer/Perspective51/PerspectiveView/dispview.aspx?ReportId=3&foldId=0&PerspectiveLanguage=FR-CA

   Note: English expresses currency in dollars using periods as decimal separators. Canadian French expresses currency in dollars using commas as decimal separators. French French expresses currency in Euros using commas as decimal separators.

Example

Any of the commands for sharing a report can be combined with others. For example, if we wanted to share the following private report:

• Server = MyServer
• ReportID = 6
• FolderID = 3
• Username = William
• Password = bill
• Language = French (France)

We might use the following URL:

• http://MyServer/Perspective51/View/dispview.aspx?PerspectiveUserId=William&PerspectivePassword=bill&ReportId=6&PerspectiveLanguage=FR-fr