How do I add an item to the Custom report menu?

To add an item to your custom menu you will need to know a few things first.

• What is the program you are going to run and what is the path?
• Do you need to run persistent?
• Where do you want it on the menu relative to other items?
• What Title will you give it.

Items frequently added ( copy existing menu item) to make them more accessible are :

• The File Viewer
• FIMS Compiler
• Check form maintenance

There are a few elements in the screen to be aware of:

• Parent is the main menu item you will add the item to.  For most of our purposes, Parent would be "Custom". Do NOT add menu items to anywhere but Custom or your changes will be lost in the next upgrade
• Layout is left blank most of the time
• Order defines where the new item will fall in the list relative to other items. 20 will fall before 30
• Label is the value you see in the list as the title of the procedure or report.
• Action holds the file and path of the program to be executed.
• Feature is usually blank, but would hold the feature value if this item will only show up if a particular feature is turned on.
• Run persistent . The other elements will default in blank or their values will be unchanged by you.

As an example, if you are adding the FIMS compiler to your custom menu:

1. Go to Tools > System Utilities > Admin Utilities > Dynamic Menu Maintenance
2. Find the existing menu item in the list ( currently it is in the Parent Admin Utilities at Order 250) and click copy
3. Change the Parent to custom and change the Order value to 10 (or some other appropriate value) If you are adding one of the items listed above ( neither requires run persistent)

To add other items:

1. Go to Tools > System Utilities > Admin Utilities > Dynamic Menu Maintenance
2. Either copy an existing Custom item and edit the fields or click new and enter all the appropriate data in the Parent, Order, Label, and Action fields
3. Type stays at Normal most likely
4. Run persistent will need to be checked in some case
5. You will of course test to see if your new menu item works and thus will find out if it needs checking
6. Typically it will be needed when there is a menu item in the report that will spawn another process ( like running an edit, adding affiliations, rerun functionality, etc)