Overview
Report Generator is a versatile tool to produce custom reports. Think of a custom report as a set of bricks you out together in any combination to produce a desired report. Additional aids are filters and other options, such as Hide, which allows you to hide a column on a report. Any report can be made available on Dashboard. See below for details. Reports can be generated in four formats:
- Table
- Bar Chart
- Pie Chart, or
- Metric
Once generated, a report can be exported as a PDF Excel file. Direct sending to a printer is also available.
Creating a custom report
Take these steps to create a custom report:
- Click Reports on the main menu.
- Click Add report (
).
- Give a name to the report.
- To start adding fields to your report, first choose the data source from the 'Generate report from' drop-down list. Think of a data source as a pool of interlinked data fields. For example, the 'All Activities (hierarchical)' data source offers a full assortment of activity- and project-related fields and allows producing reports with a hierarchical view of activities.
- Select report type: Table, Bar Chart, Pie Chart, or Metric.
- To have the report displayed on Dashboard, select Make available on Dashboard. For more details, see Publish reports to Dashboard below.
- If you'd like to include an archived project, select Include archived projects.
- In the Key Information section, click 'Add field' to start adding fields to the report from a drop-down menu. If you add a field in error, click 'X' on the rightmost end of the row to exclude it.
-
For the Table report type only: Select a value in the 'Filter' selector (default option: None): None, Prompt for a single value, or Prompt for value range.
Select other options: Group, Hide, or Sum (for metric values). These options allow you to group items by certain fields, hide fields used as filters, or calculate totals of metric items. Set the appropriate column size: Auto, Small, Medium, or Large.
- For Bar Chart or Pie Chart: Select an option in the 'Axis' selector (default option: None): None, Value, Category. Place the mouse pointer on the info button (
) for a second to display a pop-up help screen, as shown below.
Select an option in the 'Function' selector (enabled when Value is selected in the 'Axis' selector). Available options: Sum, Max, Min, Avg, Count.
Select a value in the 'Filter' selector (default option: None): None, Prompt for a single value, or Prompt for value range.
-
Click 'Save' to save the report. Or,
Click 'Save & Run' to save and run the report.
Duplicating custom reports
To duplicate a report:
- Open the report you want to copy/duplicate for editing (see Editing a custom report).
- Click the 'Copy' button at the bottom of the report edit panel in the right-hand half of the screen.
- A copy of the report will appear on the left side of the custom report page with the word "Copy" appended to the original name
- You can rename the copy by clicking the pencil icon next to it and editing the name in the report name box at the top of the report edit panel. Complete the renaming process by clicking the 'Save' button.
Drag and Drop
You can use drag and drop to arrange the sequence the fields are ordered. To do that, place the mouse pointer on the 'handle' of a row (thick dotted vertical bar on the left end of the row), take hold of it by keeping the left mouse button pressed, then drag it to a new position on the list, and, finally, drop it there by releasing the button. It is shown in the illustration:
Exporting a report to selected format
As soon as a report is generated, you can export it to Excel or PDF.
To export a report:
- Click Export on the toolbar.
- Select the format you want to save the report in (available formats include: PDF, Excel 97-2003, Excel Worksheet, Rich Text Format, and MS Word).
- The report will be converted to the format selected and downloaded into your default downloads folder.
Printing a report
You cannot print out a custom report from the preview screen. To print a report, you need to export it to an appropriate format first. See how to export a report above.
Making reports available on Dashboard
- If you select the 'Make available on Dashboard' checkbox (see above) before saving a report, it will be available for anyone to choose from the “Widgets” section on the Dashboard page, as shown in the illustration.
- Alternatively, mark the report visible on Dashboard on the report list. To do so, hover over the report row and click the Make visible on Dashboard button (
) — see picture below).