BI Publisher little tricks

While creating a BI Publisher Invoice report for a client I had to google like a mad women.  

Here are some of the things I've learned:

The template consists of 2 pages because one of the requirements was a remittance advice at the end of each invoice (per student) - almost like a footer but only on the last page.  This was the final .rtf template:

The body of the template looked like this:

Tips:

1.  Formatting the date:  <?format-date:A.DATE_DUE;'dd/mm/yyyy';'UTC'?>

2.  Formatting the amounts:  <?format-number:A.TOT_FUTURE_AMT;'999G999D99'?>

3.  Calculating the sum of the current group:  <?sum(current-group()//EXPR64_64)?>

4.  If statements:  <?if:sum(current-group()//A.DEBIT_UFS)<0.00?><?sum(current-group()//EXPR64_64)?><?end if?>

OR

<?if:A.TOT_FUTURE_AMT!=0.00?>

5.  Upper Case:  <?xdofx:upper(A.NAME_TITLE)?>

Because of the last page "footer" both pages must have a header identified - just be carefull with group-by statements - these should only be on the first page header... tick the "different first page" box in word properties of your header.  TYPE form fields into the word header (drag and drop or inserting with add-Ins functionality will give an error when trying to save the template - dankie Dino! :D.  

First page Header group by:  <?for-each-group@section:row;./A.EMPLID?>

This is the first page header (with group by):

This is the second page header:

To get the last page footer to work do the following:

1.  Add a "Section Break" in your template (word property:  page layout>breaks>section break).

2.  Add the following syntax:  <?start@last-page-first:body?> <?end body?> --> everything above this statement will be the header (which we defined with word) and everything below this statement will be the footer:

See the <?end for-each-group?> statement under the footer (to make this part of the group-by).