Database Connections

Liberty Reports allows you to connect Microsoft Excel to a variety of different databases. The specific type of database that you can access is dependent on the specific Liberty Reports connectivity you have purchased and licensed. Each database that you work with will be identified by a name that you assign to it in Liberty Reports. The list of available database names can be managed by clicking Manage Connections on the Liberty Reports toolbar.

There are two types of Database Connections:

Liberty Reports maintains a list of available specific databases that are available. Some of these databases will appear on the list of databases in Liberty Reports automatically based on its integration with your Application Software. Other databases may be manually added. The way that a given database is identified depends on the Application Software and its Database Management System. Some databases are identified by a the name of a server plus the name of the database. Others may rely only on a file name or the path to a folder. The name used by Liberty Reports to identify a database is generally a shorter, simpler name that you can use easily recognize and use to refer to your databases. This name may either be automatically derived from your database (e.g., based on a company name) or may be a name that you assign.

If you are assigning your own name to a database, it is recommended that you provide a name based on the actual database name or its content. For example, if your company has one database for its general construction division and another database for its concrete tilt-up division, you might consider naming the connections accordingly: "General Construction" and "Concrete Tilt-Up". Later if you relocate the databases to a new server or make some other similar change, you can re-assign the database for the connection in the Manage Connections window.

Think of a Connection as a "pointer" that you can easily point at any Database whenever you want to use a given report with a different database.

When building reports, the queries and functions in your report refer to the name of a connection instead of identifying a specific database. This is advantageous because a Connection can easily be pointed at a different Database (of the same type) when needed and so you can easily run the same report using information from different databases.

For each type of database for which you have purchased a license to use with Liberty Reports, a Connection is automatically created for you. The name of the connection is based on the type of database. You can create additional connections for the same type of database if you need to create or run reports that simultaneously query data from more than one database of the same type.

Examples of connection names: "Trimble Prolog Manager", "Sage 100 Contractor", "Builder MT - WMS".