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Drill-Down Tally Concept The following is the basic concept of how Drill-Down Tally relates to its data files. here are all kinds of data files arranged in column and row format like an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or a table or query in a Microsoft Access database. With the uniform layout of such data we can execute predictable processes to these patterns. This is where Drill-Down Tally comes in. It allows you to perform common standard functions to reformat this data into meaning statistics. First, you must have some data that is in a table like (row and column) format. This universal file format allows you to plug Drill-Down Tally into its data.
You setup a Drill-Down Tally gateway (.ddt file extension) to 1) point to the location of the data file. 2) expose the tables or queries you want your users to report on via the Report Dataset. You could setup a .ddt for an Access.mdb application or you could create a new Access.mdb to attach to an ODBC, ISAM or other accessible files types Microsoft Access can read. You can now use ODBC directly to your data without Microsoft Access. The .ddt acts as a gateway pointing to your data. Here is an object illustration of how Drill-Down Tally keeps track of your gateway data and its reports.
When a user opens up Drill-Down Tally they have a default setting pointing to one .ddt (gateway file) which is pointing to some type of data file(s). A user can design as many reports as they like from this (.ddt) and save it to many .ddd files. The (.ddd) file extension holds your report definition(s) and/or views. You can open up multiple gateway applications at the same time. Choose menu option [File] [Open Gateway File...] to open a different Drill-Down Tally gateway application. The user could also save the print preview snapshot report as a (.ddr) file extension. This is the formatted print preview from the report definition. You can think of a .ddr like a .pdf file. Where the .pdf file is loaded into Acrobat Reader, a .ddr is read by Drill-Down Tally. Choose menu option [File] [Save Report Snapshot...] to save a static image of the report for later use. You will want to save the report to a .ddd file so you can retrieve the report definition at a later time. This way you don't have to redesign your reports over and over again. Just open a saved .ddd file and your off and running the next time you want it. You can create and open additional views with the same recordset query. "Reporting Views" allow you to query your data once and have Drill-Down Tally slice and dice your data with unlimited views from this same query result. No longer do you need to create many individual report files like you do in other report writers. Where one report file needs just a slight modification here and another report file a slight change there. Another report file with a different sort here and another report file a different sort there. In Drill-Down Tally you quickly create these slightly different reports as views within one .ddd file with our newest innovation called "Reporting Views".
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