Can I do this in Alpha Five?

[rtbtat]

Today my friend asked me to do a project for one of his co-workers. Every day she uses MS Word to type a out a multi-page detail for their police agency. That detail reflects a variety of beat assignments for either two 12-hour shifts or three 8-hour shifts of officers, along with support and supervisory personnel who will also be working that particular day.

One of the requirements for the daily detail is a cover page with all officers, support personnel, and supervisors listed alphabetically, along with the page number[2] where one can find their assignment, just like an index for a book. That cover page list is used by communications personnel when officers call in to check their schedule. They simply refer to the master list to find the officer's name, check the page number, and then go to that page where the officer�s beat assignment and tour of duty is located.

Currently, the detail clerk manually types that alphabetical list of names / page numbers every day via MS Word. I thought about it for a little while and suggested that Alpha Five would be far more efficient than MS Word so I volunteered to do the project. With A5, she can merely click on a button and watch A5 print out an alphabetical list of all officers.

OK, I can figure out how to easily input the daily assignment for Force personnel, but now I have to figure out how to get an Alpha Five report that will scan the multi-page document, list everybody assigned om alphabetical order, along with the page number where their name appears.

Do you think I can do this in Alpha Five? Any suggestions or ideas?

Thanks in advance,
Robert

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Robert,
Can you force the assignments to a certain page using conditional page breaks? A's on Page 3, B's on Page 4 - something like that. Just thinking off the top of my head.
Peter

[Jim Chapman]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Hello Robert,

>>Do you think I can do this in Alpha Five?

[Jay Talbott]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

While this process would not automate the process completely, I think I would do something like this:

Print report
Ask user how many pages in report
Get list array of all officers names
Have user choose which officer's info ends on the first page
Have A5 mark all officers (alphabetically)

[JohnZaleski]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Robert,
You could try something like this. Create a UDF that accepts an alpha and numeric argument. Hopefully the alpha is the employee id and the numeric is the page number. In the function do something like a trace command to see the results after report printing.
In the report define a calculated field that uses that UDF function. Try feeding as arguments the value of the employee id and the page number variable in the function. Try placing it in the report where the job description is printed.
If you get the desired info in the trace window from the function, put some code to write this out to some records that will be the basis of the report page index. If this works, you would print the main report first and the index report second.
Ira talked about this methodology. The problem may be the lack of consistency as to when and how often the function fires. The availability of the page number at that time may also be a problem.
In essence, you are creating, or trying to create, a kind of pseudo event with a UDF. Might be worth a try because if it does work, it should be independent of different printer and fonts, and not care if you use variable sized memos as job descriptions.
John

[David Mason]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Robert,

With a little formatting, one might know how many records per page. With a little counting, one might know the numbered position on page one an employee would be. If one did a little more chasing, the number of the page would reveal itself at print time.

Other way: if emplyee A is number 73 on page one and each page holds 11 assignments, then employee A might be found on page 8?

Good Luck

Dave

[Robert Adler]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Robert:

I would make some pre-defined design consideations.
1- You can know exactly how many detail lines will be printed per page per individual. Lets say two lines.

2- create a dbf that contains the required fields for each possible assignment for each day. Include a field for page number+line number.

3- Create your own autoincrement logic for the page number+line numbe field. start at 101(page 1, line1). Pass the file alphabetcially. and assign numbers. record 2 is 102, record 3 is 103. When you reach the maximum line number for a page. adjust field for next record to 201. and begin proces again.
When finished you will have a page and line number for each person to be printed.

4- Create report as need to for First pages(alphabetically) and Detail pages in page number+line number sequence.

I hope this helps.

bob adler

[Robert Adler]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Robert:

I forgot to mention. Maintain the page number+line number in a separate table this will give you control. readit, update it, and use the new number for the report.

I hope this helps

bob adler

[rtbtat]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

I have never before tried using Alpha Five as a replacement for what is usually accomplised by using a Word processor. But it appeared as if Alpha Five would be far more efficient at solving this problem, but with no previous experience in this area, I had no idea where or how to begin. I knew some of the guys on this board would come up with some terrific, innovative solutions and now my mind is churning as I am trying to see which solution, or combination of solutions, will work best. At this point in time, I'm confident this can be done.

Let me throw in one additional factor that might help with a possible solution.

There are currently two types of details printed at headquarters, special details that occur maybe 8 - 10 times a year, and a DAILY detail that is essentially the same every day. The daily detail, which is my first priority, is a 3-page detail that is broken down as follows:

Page 1: 12-hour midnight shift officers
Page 2: 12-hour day work shift officers
Page 3: 12-hour tenative midnight shift for the next day.

So this detail always has exactly 3 pages written via MS Word. All officers assigned to midnights are on Page 1, while all officers assigned to day work are on Page 2, and tomorrow's tenative midnight detail is on Page 3. Maybe this addtiional information will spark an even easier solution?

Then there are special details, such as demonstrations in Washington, DC with much larger numbers of officers. Those special details may vary from 6 to 12 pages.

Thanks for all of your ideas so far,
Robert

[JohnZaleski]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Robert,
I did a little test on the method I described above:
I created a UDF ZZZ_REPORT:
function ZZZ_REPORT as C(CLINUMBER as C)
TRACE.WRITELN(CLINUMBER)
end function

In the report I created a calculated field with expression:ZZZ_REPORT(Cli_No + STR(System->PageNumber))
I dragged this calculated field into the detail section of the report.

What showed up in the trace window was a list of the clients with the page number they were printed on. There were two or three extra items out there that could be easily omitted and the very first record showed up twice ( also not a problem).It seems that if the trace output were written to a table, you could dynamically create the Alpha page index you are looking for.

Basically it seemed to work.

John

[rtbtat]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Hello John:

That's an interesting concept but what did you use to determine the page number? I was thinking of using a page code next ot each name for every officer listed on page 1, page 2, or page 3.

Robert

[JohnZaleski]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Robert,
My thinking is that you could populate a table, using the above described function, with two fields, an officerid field and a page number ( substrings of the calculated field sent to the function ). This table would then have the page number that a particular officer had the last time the report was printed ( regardless of the printer, orientation or fonts ). The only requirement is that the index page be printed after the main assignment report.

This table could be linked one to one to an officer table with the officer id as the link. Then when you printed the alpha sort of officers, you could print the page number from the table populated with the function. I assume that a given officer could have a different assignment or a different shift on a given day and that they could potentially be on different pages on certain days. That would not matter, because the function would capture the ID and the page each time the report is printed. If it works, it might be a more flexible solution to the problem.
John

[rtbtat]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Hello John:

That is a very innovative solution, however, I'm stil confused by your determination of the page number, especially in terms of getting the page the officer had the last time he/she worked. I think if I could grasp what you mean, or where you are getting this page number, this suggestion could be a winner. Maybe it's obvious to everyone else, but I just cannot figure out where the page number is coming from.

Robert

[JohnZaleski]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Robert,

"I just cannot figure out where the page number is coming from".

I'm assuming that you will have some kind of a connection between a beat assignement and an officer. Then you will print a report by beat or shift, that will show the assignment description and the assigned officer ( 3,4 or more pages, it doesn't matter. Certain officers will appear on certain pages, because of theri assignments.

At the time you print the report, you will feed the following expression to the UDF function:
Officer_ID + STR(System->PageNumber) via a calculated report field.

Thus you are telling the function who the officer is and what page he appears on by simply placing the calculated field containg the UDF in the detail section of the report.
The function does the work, the calculated field in the report activates the function as each beat assignment is printed.

More code in the function will allow you to save this info to a table, record by record, as the report is being printed. Once the assignment report is completed, you will have a list of all officers who appeared on the report and the page number that they appeared on. It's only as current as the last time you printed the assignment report. No advance logic is necessary to associate an asignment or an officer to a report page number. The association would be automatically generated as the report was printed.

John

[rtbtat]

RE: Can I do this in Alpha Five?

Hello James:

Yesterday I only had time to respond to John's suggestion, but I wanted to take a moment to let you know I appreciated your idea and it still sounds to me as if it could be an excellent solution. I really haven't had time to focus upon your idea, but if nothing else, it helped get me moving in the right direction. It is indeed a very interesting option.

Thanks,
Robert