Question

I am currently working on a ASP.NET MVC 3 project in which I need to build a report builder. The report model has to be generic and just be “implemented” for any report. The report has certain criteria that should be met: these are the “Filter Values”, which is in the form op select lists, and Include additional information (yes-no-option), that can be any child entity that has to be included in the report, and finally the layout of the report which is a enum. Here is the code i have so far for the report builder model:

public class ReportBuilderModel
{
  public IList<FilterModel> FilterCriteria { get; set; }
  public Dictionary<string, bool> AdditionalInformation { get; set; }
  public ReportType ReportType { get; set; }
  public String ReportName { get; set; }

  public ReportBuilderModel()
  { 
  }

  public ReportBuilderModel(string reportName)
  {
    FilterCriteria = new List<FilterModel>();
    AdditionalInformation = new Dictionary<string, bool>();
    ReportName = reportName;
  }

  public void AddFilterCriteria(String fieldName, Object lookupObject)
  {
    FilterModel model = new FilterModel()
    {
      FieldName = fieldName,
      LookupObject = lookupObject
    };
    FilterCriteria.Add(model);
  }

  public void AddAdditionalInformation(String fieldName, bool defaultValue)
  {
    AdditionalInformation.Add(fieldName, defaultValue);
  }
}

public class FilterModel
{
  public String FieldName { get; set; }
  public Object LookupObject { get; set; }
}

public enum ReportType
{
  Detail,
  List,
  Form,
  Transaction
}

The view associated with this is as follows:

    @model EduTOOL.Models.ReportBuilderModel
    @{
        ViewBag.Title = "Report Builder";
    }
    @Html.LoadPartial(EduTOOL.Controllers.PartialViewName._EditorForLibraries)
    @using (Html.BeginForm())
    {
        <h2>
            Build Report for @Model.ReportName</h2>
        <div style="float: left; width: 35%; height: 20%;">
            <fieldset>
                <legend>Filter Criteria</legend>
                <table>
                    @foreach (var filter in Model.FilterCriteria)
                    {
                        String displayText = "Select a " + filter.FieldName;
                        <tr>
                            <td>@Html.DisplayFor(label => displayText)
                            </td>
                        </tr>
                        <tr>
                            <td>@Html.EditorFor(editor => filter.LookupObject)
                            </td>
                        </tr>                                           
                    }
                </table>
            </fieldset>
        </div>
        <div style="float: left; width: 35%; height: 20%;">
            <fieldset>
                <legend>Options</legend>
                <table>
                    @foreach (var includeInfo in Model.AdditionalInformation)
                    {
                        String displayText = "Include " + includeInfo.Key + " information?";
                        <tr>
                            <td>@Html.DisplayFor(label => displayText)
                            </td>
                        </tr>

                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                @Html.EditorFor(includeValue => includeInfo.Value)
                            </td>
                        </tr>               
                    }
                </table>
            </fieldset>
            <br />
            <br />
        </div>
        <div style="float: right; width: 30%; height: 20%;">
            <fieldset>
                <legend>Report Type</legend>
                <br />
                <table>
                    @foreach (var reportType in Enum.GetValues(Model.ReportType.GetType()))
                    {
                        <tr>
                            <td>
                                @Html.DisplayFor(displayText => reportType)
                            </td>
                            <td>
                                @Html.RadioButtonFor(radio => reportType, reportType.ToString())
                            </td>
                        </tr>                                    
                    }
                </table>
            </fieldset>
            <br />
            <br />
        </div>
        <br />
        <input class="button cyan" value="Generate Report" type="submit" />
    }

These are all called by these action controller methods:

  public ActionResult TestReport()
  {
    ReportBuilderModel model = new ReportBuilderModel("Distributor Contact List");
    model.AddFilterCriteria("Distributor", DistributorController.GetDefaultAutoComplete());
    model.AddFilterCriteria("Status", ActiveStatus.Active);

    model.AddAdditionalInformation("Contact", true);
    model.AddAdditionalInformation("History", true);

    return View(model);
  }

  [HttpPost]
  public ActionResult TestReport(ReportBuilderModel model)
  {
    return View();
  }

The trouble is no binding occurs between the HTTPGET and HTTPPOST for the model, and I dont know exaclty how to bind the models? Also i would like to know if this is a good way to build a report wizzard? The values that are chosen in the report builder wizzard will be handled by the controller that makes use of the builder. The idea here is to get a list of selected criteria for the three options and generate the report using that criteria.

I am not allowed to use 3rd party controls. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you so much!

Answer 1

because you are binding to a list of FilterCriteria it doesn’t know how to bind it because it needs the name property set. Basically you have a bunch of input elements on the screen but you havn’t given them a name so that it can identify which on to bind to on the post.

Here is a good article on model binding. I would suggest binding something simple at first, like a text box. The move up to list and a list of objects inside another object. Model Binding