Deliver Initialization TEXT Parameter Questions - CAPS verses ASIS

Products

• OM Deliver

Issue/Introduction

We just had a development trying to capture lower case text from a file sent from a 3rd party vendor in a production Deliver environment.

The initialization parameter in the production environment is set to TEXT=CAPS and the developer wasn't able to capture the lower case characters.

We tested in a development Deliver environment which is set to TEXT=ASIS and we captured the text from the vendor.

What is the impact if we changed to TEXT=ASIS in the Deliver production environment? Would it cause previous reporting to break if we went from CAPS to ASIS? Just don't want to break older reporting.

Environment

Release : 14.0

Component : Deliver

Resolution

Basically, the way it works is that the CASE of the text as coded on the Deliver Report Definition Attributes SCREEN dictates what check the Deliver code is going to perform. The hex value for an uppercase 'X' is different from a lower case 'x' so however it is coded on the screen is what we will check for against the report data, and we will only select the pages that MATCH the hex value of the character.

The considerations for changing from CAPS to ASIS don't really apply to what's ALREADY been defined and what is currently working. That's because all of your Report ID text definitions are coded in UPPER case, as a result of having TEXT=CAPS. Since the selection text is working now, then obviously the data in your existing reports also contain UPPER case characters. So no worries there if you were to go from TEXT=CAPS to TEXT=ASIS.

That said, the considerations for changing to TEXT=ASIS apply to GOING FORWARD after the change has been made. You will need to make sure all your users are AWARE of this change, so they can code the TEXT values accordingly. Under TEXT=ASIS, Deliver will no longer automatically convert the text entered on the Deliver Report Definition Attributes screen to UPPER case. Consequently, users defining NEW text selection criteria or modifying existing criteria will need to hold the shift key down while entering selection text for UPPER case characters in a report. Data entered in CAPS will ONLY capture UPPER CASE characters. Data entered in LOWER case characters will only select LOWER case characters in the data. 

I'll add that if the text is entered on the Report Definition Attributes screen in LOWER case, Deliver will SAVE it on the database as such. It does the same if the data is entered in UPPER case characters. And, by simply changing the TEXT= parameter from CAPS to ASIS, the saved data would not be affected.

Assuming that the majority of your report data contains UPPER case characters, what you might want to consider doing (as it would have the least impact on all concerned) is temporarily setting TEXT=ASIS, coding your criteria for THIS ONE REPORT in lower case & confirm it works correctly, and then change it BACK to TEXT=CAPS.