Argus PowerBuilder reports are stored in libraries as one of three kinds of reports: Standard reports, Shared reports, and Private reports. These storage conventions serve three purposes: preserving report prototypes, sharing reports with all institutional users, and maintaining private reports for individual users. Files held in these PowerBuilder libraries can be opened as they are in Outlook - double click to open the library and double click to open the file. Argus users must be in the Questor file directory to access these libraries. TIP: The Library Icon works like Windows Explore in that it opens up two windows, one for the program folder and the other window for the content in the particular folder you have opened. This should keep you from getting lost.

1. Standard reports are Questor-authored reports. Argus comes with 380(?) standard reports. These should be treated as templates to read and copy from. Alterations to these reports should always be saved as either a shared report or private report. Each new release overwrites the existing standard report. Before you modify a standard report, save it as something else in the Shared Reports Library or Private Reports Library so it will be preserved during future releases. If you have problems with standard reports, you can report the problem to Questor as a suggestion for a future release.

   The standard reports library lists all the reports that come with Argus, including the name, modification date, and compilation date and time the report was created or last saved, and a description of the report. The Generate a Report Wizard in Argus pulls reports from this library.

2. Shared reports (also known as Public reports) are shared by all Argus users on the institution's network. They may be new, original reports, or they may be modified standard reports. They are saved as Shared reports to allow all institutional users access to the report while maintaining the original Standard report as a template. When shared and standard reports share a name, either the shared report overwrites the standard report, or both appear, confusingly. If a standard report is modified to become a shared report, it is important to save the shared report to a new name.

3. Private Reports are isolated user reports, they are private to the individual Argus user. They may be reports created for a specific, one-time task. They may be reports used to access sensitive information. They may be works in progress, a report a user is building or modifying, but not yet useful enough to be shared.

You must give yourself access to reports before you can make or save changes. In PowerBuilder, double click on the Library icon to open the Library. Double click on the report folder to open or close the Library.

Beware of reports called "Lookup," "Nest,"or "Query." Lookup and query reports govern Argus functioning and should not be modified. They run lookups and queries and most are internal reports for Argus. If you absolutely must modify one of these reports, use the save Save As feature in the file menu to avoid serious peril. Save modified to a Shared or Private library Library and give it a new name. Standard "Lookup" and "Query" reports are overwritten with each new release, so changes to these files are only "permanent" until the next Argus release if you don't save them to a new name.

If two or more reports in these libraries share a name, their report type will determine which report Argus will call into action. Private reports are resident on the ArgusUser's individual hard drive. In Argus, they will be the default before Shared and Standard because these reports are stored on the network drive. Shared reports will be pulled up before Standard reports. Standard reports will be run if there are no reports of the same name in the other libraries.