Open Multiple Reports one after another, not all at once

[gopherking]

I have 3 rather large reports that are being opened (what seems to be) simultaneously and they seem to take quite a while to open. I am wondering if there is a way to open them one at a time (make them visible after they have loaded) before starting the next one. I know that I could put in an event on the previous report to open the next one, but the future consideration is that these reports could be called individually or all together depending on the user's preference.

When a user clicks a button, all the reports are called within VBA one after the other. Below are the calls in my code:



Call OpenReport("RPT1")
Call OpenReport("RPT2")
Call OpenReport("RPT3")

These go to a Module that has some Error Handling and also the "DoCmd.OpenReport rpt, acViewReport" code to open the reports.

[boywonder]

Have you tried using:

SendKeys "+", True

This will wait until you click the shift key to continue

[gopherking]

That would work, however I am trying to make it as automated as possible and any additional clicks for a user and they consider it not automated. Any other suggestions?

[gopherking]

Sorry boywonder, it is early in the morning and I didn't quite understand your response.

Adding in the SendKeys "+", True doesn't seem to have any impacts on the opening of the reports. They still all appear at once. Any other suggestions?

[gopherking]

After some investigation this morning, I found that you can build a Wait timer in your code, but also found that it doesn't improve the processing speed of the reports, and actually makes it seem like it takes longer (perceived time) as one report is opened and then the next one begins processing. I have determined that it is best to leave it as is and allow all three to process at the same time and then display all three when completed.

However, just in case anyone is in need of the Wait Timer code, here it is ...

Create a Module to store the following code (I called mine basTimer):

 
Sub Wait(PauseTime)
Dim Start, Finish
    Start = Timer    ' Set start time.
    Do While Timer < Start + PauseTime
        DoEvents    ' Yield to other processes.
    Loop
    Finish = Timer    ' Set end time.
    
End Sub

Then in any of your code elsewhere you simply insert a line to call the timer as shown below:

 
Call Wait(5)

Since there is no declaration of the PauseTime being Integer, Long, etc. it will accept fractions of seconds as well. During my testing, I was able to enter a .1 in the Call Wait() code and it waited for only a fraction of a second, however that still affected perceived time, which really bothered me.

The only other warning that I need to offer based on my searches online is that the above code may be affected if run around the time of Midnight. I have seen other postings that refered to Wait Timers they had setup that were affected by the day switch at midnight that caused their code to be in a paused state for a full day. I haven't had a chance to test this (being that it is 8:10 in the morning and I'm not planning on staying up late tonight to test it), so I caution you to use at your own risk!!!