The Tools menu in Reporting4Act! contains two items which allow you to add menu items to Act! itself. These items allow you to launch Reporting4Act!, or run a specific Reporting4Act! report directly from the Act! menus.

The first of these Reporting4Act! menu items, Add Reporting4Act! to Act! menu, simply adds a menu item to Act! for launching the Reporting4Act! program. There are no options for this Act! menu item; it simply launches Reporting4Act!. It can be used like your Reporting4Act! desktop shortcut or Windows Start Menu item.

The second Reporting4Act! menu item, Add Selected Report to Act! menu, adds a menu item to Act! to run a specific report. To add a Reporting4Act! report to your Act! menu, select the report in Reporting4Act!'s list of reports, and then select this menu item. This brings up the Add Report to Act! Menu screen, where you can select the settings for running this report.

There are three settings on this screen, allowing you to specify the behaviour of the report when its Act! menu item is selected.

• Choose Report Output Settings: this option allows you to select whether the report will be output to the Reporting4Act! preview window, to the printer, to a file, or to an email. The options here are the same as those on the Adding Items to the Act! Menus tab in the Reports Explorer.

• Choose Act! Database: this option allows you to select the Act! database that this report will run against when its Act! menu item is selected. The default setting, The report runs against the database open in Act!, means that the report will use whatever database is open in Act! when the Act! menu item is selected. The second option, The report always runs against the [database.pad] database, means that the report will always run against this database, regardless of the database open in Act! when the Act! menu item is selected.

• Enter Act! User Information: this section requires you to enter the Act! logon information that the report will run under when this Act! menu item is selected. The default setting, Use the Act! database user information stored in Reporting4Act!, means that the report will attempt to use Reporting4Act!'s stored logon information for the Act! database. This logon information is stored by Reporting4Act! if you select the Save Act! Password item on the Act! Login Information screen. The second option, Use a Specified Act! ID, requires that you enter in the Act! logon information for this report to run under when its Act! menu item is selected.

Once you have added at least one Reporting4Act! item to the Act! menus, a new Reporting4Act! item will appear in the Act! Tools menu. Any Reporting4Act! items you add will appear under this item.

The settings for these menu items are stored in a text file called SFQueryActSettings.txt, in your Act! plugins directory. The default location for this directory is C:\Program Files\ACT\Act for Windows\Plugins. If you need to change or remove any of these menu items, you can edit this file using a text editor such as Notepad. There are three types of entries in this text file; a sample is below:

BASEURN,act-ui://com.act/application/menu/tools/
LAUNCH,"c:\PROGRAM FILES\Reporting4Act!\sfquery.exe",Launch Stonefield Query
REPORT,"C:\Program Files\Reporting4Act!\sfquery.exe","database=--INSERTDATABASE--" "parameters=C:\Program Files\Reporting4Act!data\Schedules\ActMenuItem20090506114639.xml",Run Report: History by Contact

The three types of entries for in this file are as follows:

• BASEURN: this item determines which Act! menu houses the Reporting4Act! menu items. The default base urn places these items in the tools menu; other options include /menu/file/, /menu/view/, and /menu/report/.

• LAUNCH: this item adds an Act! menu item to launch the Reporting4Act! program. The settings for this item are the location of the Reporting4Act! program file, and the menu text to be displayed for this menu item in Act!.

• REPORT: this item adds an Act! menu item for running an individual Reporting4Act! report. The settings for this item are the location of the Reporting4Act! program file, the options for running the report, and the menu text to be displayed for this menu item in Act!. The available options for running the report are the same as those given in the Running from Other Applications topic, with the additional option of using "database=--INSERTDATABASE--" to have the report run against the database open in Act!, rather than a specific database hard-coded into the command.