Extracting Reports from the SalesLogix Plugin Table from External Applications

There are many reasons why extracting a SalesLogix Report from the SalesLogix database might be useful. There are possibilities of integration, automated running of reports, as well as the need to generate a PDF from some code on a server using a SalesLogix Crystal report.

SalesLogix stores reports in the DATA field, which is a binary (BLOB) field in the PLUGIN table. Not just the report, but the SalesLogix report plugin, which contains not only the report itself but also the plugin info for the report. All together in a single BLOB field. This BLOB field is the serialized Delphi class named TCRWReportWrapper with the report file bytes appended to the end of the serialized class bytes.

Luckily, a serialized Delphi class will always end in two consecutive NULL bytes (0x00, 0x00) and will never contain two consecutive NULL bytes internally. This makes out job a bit easier in knowing where the serialized Delphi class ends and the bytes making up the report file begin. We can read out the bytes from PLUGIN.DATA for the report record and then read through them until we find the two consecutive NULL bytes, when write out everything following to a file and we’ll have the report itself.

Here is some C# code to do just that:

using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.OleDb;
using System.IO;

namespace FX.SalesLogix.Utility
{
public class ReportExtractor
{
public ReportExtractor(string ConnectionString)
{
this.ConnectionString = ConnectionString;
}

public string ConnectionString { get; set; }

public void GetReport(string PluginID, string DestinationFile)
{
using (OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(this.ConnectionString))
{
conn.Open();
using (OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand("SELECT DATA FROM PLUGIN WHERE PLUGINID = ?", conn))
{
cmd.Parameters.Add(new OleDbParameter("PLUGINID", PluginID));

// Get the plugin byte array
byte[] data = (byte[])cmd.ExecuteScalar();

// Look for the two consecutive null bytes
int idx = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++)
{
if ((int)data[ i ] == 0 && (int)data[i + 1] == 0)
{
idx = i + 2;
break;
}
}

// Get everything after the two consecutive bytes
byte[] rpt = new byte[data.Length];
Array.Copy(data, idx, rpt, 0, data.Length - idx);

// Write out to an RPT file
using (FileStream f = new FileStream(DestinationFile, FileMode.CreateNew))
{
f.Write(rpt, 0, rpt.Length);
f.Close();
}
}
}
}
}
}

To use the code you’d do something like the following:

// Extract report to C:MyReportFile.rpt
ReportExtractor rptextractor = new ReportExtractor(MyConnectionString);
rptextractor.GetReport("pDEMOA0000HQ", @"C:MyReportFile.rpt");

Now you can do whatever you’d like with the report such as open it in an RDC object and generate a PDF from it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ryan Farley

Ryan Farley is the Director of Development for Customer FX and creator of slxdeveloper.com. He's been blogging regularly about SalesLogix, now Infor CRM, since 2001 and believes in sharing with the community. His new passion for CRM is Creatio, formerly bpm'online. He loves C#, Javascript, web development, open source, and Linux. He also loves his hobby as an amateur filmmaker.

1 Comment

  1. I am trying to set up access to the SSRS reports through saleslogix. When ever I click on the links on the custom aspx page the following error pops up. I am new at this. So I would appreciate your guidance in the matter.

    The message received from the server could not be parsed. Common causes for this error are when the response is modified by calls to Response.Write(), response filters, HttpModules, or server trace is enabled. Details: Error parsing near ‘

    Reply

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