Using Windward as the report engine

The optional report engine WINDWARD is used as the report engine for customers with a JustRelate CRM Quoting license. With it, Pisa­Sales supports generating quotes with parts lists and technical text modules.

The report engine from Windward Studios is one of the few tools that supports the server-driven generation of Microsoft Word reports in a relatively user-friendly way. The templates are DOCX documents that are compatible with MS Word. With the support of a wizard, Windward tags can be selected in the templates to control the data flow and formatting of the generated document. From the loader objects, the CRM creates an XML document on the server side, which generates a document with the user data of the mask using the prepared DOCX template via the Windward report engine. When designing templates, it is advantageous to have basic knowledge about creating Windward reports.

• Extensive bugfixing
• New functions for creating templates
• The restriction "No text frames" no longer exists in version 12. This means that it is now also possible with Windward to transfer customer-specific letter templates to the CRM with little effort. (Unlike tables, text frames cannot grow larger with the content.)
• The "no static pictures" restriction has been removed in most cases.
• Dynamically imported pictures can be enlarged (scaled).
• MS Excel can be used as a template format (a template assistant is not available).

See www.windward.net where the Windward Wiki can be found as well (in the support section).

• iText was replaced by an own PDF engine, thereby better mapping to the Word properties in PDF.
• Refactoring of the DOCX output, step 1, thereby enhanced display of table properties.
• Support for object properties introduced in Word 2010 and 2013, for example, in pictures.
• Handling of DOCX properties that should not exist according to the specification, e.g. with style for­mats.

New JustRelate CRM versions will be delivered with Windward 15. We recommend all existing customers to update to this version. It offers significant advantages (especially because of fixed bugs) compared to version 12 and 14 with regard to DOCX and PDF processing.

Version 15 no longer supports RTF, neither as input nor as output format. For this reason, the entire template system must be free of RTF. This requires the following steps:

• All Windward templates whose output format is RTF (e.g. offer, text module or letter or fax templates) must be copied to a new revision and converted to the DOCX output format (multi-select function "Convert to DOCX").
• If there are still Windward templates that output or process HTML markup that has been converted to RTF on the client side (e.g. for data sheets that print CLOB fields or email templates), these templates will no longer work with the web client and with Windward version greater than 14. These templates can be converted to BIRT. For this, appropriate time and effort need to be calculated. For email templates, we recommend converting them to the HTML template format (Tool = HTM).

1. Standard report templates for Windward Reports:
   • All RTF templates were converted to DOCX using the known template form function.
   • The output format of the standard templates for letters, offers, and visit reports has been changed from RTF to DOCX. Starting with Windward 12, the RTF output results in unsupported errors. This particularly concerns table indents.
   • MS Office 2007 or later is required for editing template and text modules. The MS Upgrade Utility for Office 2003 is useless for editing Windward templates.
   • Unlike Windard Studios, we recommend MS Word 2010 for template editing. MS Word 2013 has problems regarding the graphical presentation of complex reports (for example, nested tables). If you still want to work with Word 2013, we strongly recommend to not switch off the compatibility mode, because this will set all table indents to 0. The result is indeed a "better" DOCX, however you may need plenty of time for manual adjustments.
   • Users who don’t edit templates but only view the generated reports can continue to use Office of 2003. However, it is necessary that the MS Office Compatibility Pack for DOCX File Format is installed.

2. Handling customized (customer-specific) RTF templates:
   • The templates need to be converted using the "DOCX conversion" select function. It copies the template, converts the copy to the DOCX format, resolves errors relating to the generation of PDFs, and checks them in to the system with a revision number incremented by one, so that the greater revision number is automatically used.
   • Customers updating directly from Windward 4.1 should expect that manual adjustments are needed if the template makes use of nested XPath arithmetic functions, or <wr: set…> is used. Complex XPath arithmetic functions need to be encapsulated with Windward 12 and later. The syntax of <wr: set…> has changed. As part of the update, support services should be budgeted as needed.
3. Please change the output format of your own templates to DOCX as well, in case you need an editable format.

• There is a variable named PSA_RPT_CNV_RTF_TO_DOC that determines whether created RTF documents are converted into DOC, before they are checked in. This variable must be reset (=n).

Some RTF text modules may crash or can cause corrupt quote documents that cannot be opened with MS Word. For this reason, the following adaptations need to be made:

1. Convert all text module templates to DOCX as described in the previous section. For all text module templates, the output format must be manually switched to DOCX.
2. Convert all text elements of all offers from which a document has yet to be generated. For this purpose, the quote form for each language has the "Convert text module to DOCX" function in the "Documentation" menu. To keep the old RTF text modules, you can transform the quote into a new version. The function replaces the RTF text modules with DOCX text modules with the same content. The conversion takes place locally in your client. To this end, Word 2010 should be installed.
3. The documents in the document database that are used like text modules (e.g., general terms and conditions in the business quotes) need to be converted using the select "DOCX conversion" function. It copies the document, converts it to the DOCX format, and checks it in to the system as a new version. The old version is archived.
4. BLOBs that are used as text modules, e.g. the letter footer, must be converted manually from RTF to DOCX using, for example, MS Word, and then be checked in again.