Patent ID: 7877683

Claim:
A computer-based method for generating a report, comprising: initializing report parameters; selecting a report editing mode; generating a filtered list of report components based on the initialized report parameters and the selected report editing mode; displaying the filtered list of report components for user selection; selecting one of the report components from the displayed list; if the selected report component has one or more ancestor report components, inserting each of the one or more ancestor report components into the report and inserting the selected report component into a nearest ancestor report component of the selected report component; and if the selected report component does not have an ancestor report component, then: determining whether the selected report component has at least one sibling report component, and if the selected report component does have at least one sibling report component, inserting the selected report component and the associated at least one sibling report component into the report based on priorities for the selected report component and the associated at least one sibling report component, or if the selected report component does not have at least one sibling report component, inserting the selected report component into the report at a first predetermined position.