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Reports: Highlight problem areas in the report template, more precise error checking

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4 weeks ago
Status: Open
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AlfredBaldenweck
by MVP Regular Contributor
MVP Regular Contributor

I'm working on a complex report that is, at time of writing, 12 pages long for the template. It's frequently closer to 3 pages in practice, but due to the complexity of the data, the template ended up being quite long.

Sample of part of the report: 

AlfredBaldenweck_0-1747771144188.png

I was uploading it to test for real, and I got an error message. Cool, no problem.

The error message was:

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

${/} is unopened

I then spent an hour tracking down the twelve exact problem areas, mostly by removing stuff until I found the issue (meaning: remove part of the table, save, upload, check if that fixed the problem, repeat).

It turned out to be a syntax error because the report templates do NOT like if you don't have a space between if and a parenthesis.

The thing is, in that screenshot alone, I have 17 instances of a "${/}" going on. That's about half a page, so doing dirty math, I have 2x12x17= 408 of these things to look for. To be fair, the actual number is 257 currently.

 That still means that I needed to search for the 5% that were causing issues by hand.

I would love, love, love and in-house solution to this, such as

  • An MS Word plugin or something that highlighted active errors and would highlight matched bracket pairs, etc. 
    • Examples of errors to highlight:
      • Unopened ${/},
      • mismatched brackets,
      • a warning that your if isn't getting recognized because there isn't a space between it and the following parenthesis...
        • This really gets my goat because a parenthesis is universally used to mean a separate thing, so the software should recognize that.
    • I open a repeat and close it 5 pages later; it'd be great if I could tell which pair the closing bracket belonged to.
    • Bonus points if you could connect it to the survey itself so it could tell you things like "Hey that field doesn't exist in the current scope" before you go in to upload the template.
    • I would be happy even if this were not a dynamic thing, but something you had to press a button to trigger.

OR

  • I would also settle for a PDF to be returned highlighting all those issues, because then at least I could hold it side-by-side with my template doc and start working.

 

We have a similar problem in Connect (about to make a separate Idea for it) -- we need a better idea of where the issue is to fix it. Please give us a more robust way to figure out where our problems lie.