Tech Forum

When I create a custom report, define the filters and fields to display but the date field for the blessing of a child is not available.
That does not mean we can not see in a MLS report.

When we export the query we get a file with extension MLS.
It is a text file editable with any text editor such as Notepad.

For example, I export a report that filters the boys under 8 years and shows the columns Preferred Name, Age and Sex.




When you open the query in notepad, we see the schema of the query.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<customReport name="BOYS" description="" isPortrait="false" groupOption="NONE" splitGroups="false">
<query string="2,1,8,true,-1" /> <----Age filter
<query string="1,0,1,true,-1" /> <----Sex filter
<column typeID="31" width="50" /> <----Preferred Name column
<column typeID="7" width="50" /> <----Age column
<column typeID="8" width="50" /> <----Sex column
</customReport>

Each filter is identified with a number.
Each column that is displayed is identified by a number.

We can add the date column Blessing of children in order to view manually.

<column typeID="38" width="50" />
Blessing Date column is identified with the number 38.

Our final result file with the new line added is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<customReport name="BOYS" description="" isPortrait="false" groupOption="NONE" splitGroups="false">
<query string="2,1,8,true,-1" />
<query string="1,0,1,true,-1" />
<column typeID="31" width="50" />
<column typeID="7" width="50" />
<column typeID="8" width="50" />
<column typeID="38" width="50" /> <----New Blessing Date column
</customReport>

In MLS import the file with the new definition and we can run the query to display the date of blessing a child.





NOTE: After importing the query, you cannot edit the query in MLS because you lose the line that we added by hand.

I hope I was clear.

Sorry for my English, I use translator.

Perfectly clear and a great work-around for getting non-selectable data columns into a custom report.

Thanks for posting this!

How do you find the column numbers for the hidden fields? There are a bunch of reports that I would like to be able to generate but I don't know what columns to search for.

idjeeper2 wrote:How do you find the column numbers for the hidden fields? There are a bunch of reports that I would like to be able to generate but I don't know what columns to search for.

You can do trial and error. But there are only a few numbers that aren't available through the normal interface, and most of them either don't do anything, or refer to fields that are no longer available (like Secondary Phone Number). The Blessing Date is actually the only one that's hidden but useful.