> ### Task 6: Create the customer master report

> You use a list element to create the master report and organize the orders and payments subreports within it. The list iterates through the customer data rows and creates the related orders and payments subreports for each record. For the sake of simplicity, the customer report displays just the customer name. It can, of course, display additional data, such as customer address, phone number, and credit limit.

> 1 | Drag a list element from the palette, and drop it in the report. The list element appears in the report, as shown in Figure 12-7.

> Figure 12-7 List element

> 2 | Associate, or bind, the list with the Customers data set.

> 1 | In Property Editor, choose the Binding tab.

> 2 | In Data Set, select Customers from the drop-down list.

> BIRT creates a column binding for each column in the Customers data set. Figure 12-8 shows the binding information for the list.

> Figure 12-8 Binding information for the list element

> 3 | Choose Data Explorer, expand Data Sets, then expand Customers. The columns that you specified in the query appear below Customers.

> 4 | Drag CUSTOMERNAME from Data Explorer, and drop it in the detail area of the list. Figure 12-9 shows what the report design looks like so far.

> Figure 12-9 Data set field in the list element

> 5 | Preview the report. The report should look like the one shown in Figure 12-10. The report lists all the customer names in the order in which the data set returns them.

> Figure 12-10 Data preview for the master report

> 6 | Sort the customer names in ascending order.

> 1 | Choose Layout to resume editing the report.

> 2 | In the layout editor, select the list element. Hover the mouse pointer over the bottom left corner to locate the List tab, then choose the tab.

> 3 | In Property Editor, choose the Sorting tab.

> 4 | In the Sort page, choose Add to create a sort expression.

> 5 | In New Sort Key, specify the following values, as shown in Figure 12-11. Then, choose OK.

> | In Key, select CUSTOMERNAME from the drop-down list.

> | Use the default values for the other fields.

> Figure 12-11 Sort definition

> 7 | Preview the report.

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