090101

Basic Reporting

(September 1, 2001)

Audience: This bulletin will be of interest to those who would like to gain better understanding of how to produce simple reports with Skills Manager. Those who have mastered the art of simple reports may want to read the Advanced Reporting bulletin, which discusses more complex reporting issues.

Reporting Fundamentals

Skills Manager comes with many standard reports. The reports delivered with the product are a result of years experience and collaboration with our customers. The format of the reports cannot be changed by the user, however the user has a great deal of control over the content of the reports.

Skills Manager allows users to construct an unlimited number of report definitions, name them, and save them in a library called the "Report Queue" where they can be used again and again without reconstruction. A "report definition" is constructed by choosing one of the many pre-defined reports and then associating one or more filters with the report. The adjacent illustration provides a glimpse of the Report Queue.

A " filter" essentially sifts the database, using values supplied by you, to exclude irrelevant data from a report leaving only the records that you want to appear. Filters are used frequently since only on very rare occasions would you want to print the entire content of your database.

Skills Manager uses point-and-shoot or fill-in-the-blank style filters that are easily mastered by the typical user. The filter logic is preprogrammed into the product so that all you have to do is provide the filter values. The illustration on the right shows the form that is used to set filters associated with employees. While some users might argue that these filters do not provide the power and flexibility that programmable query languages do, the reality is that most of our customers simply do not have staff trained in structured query languages with their Boolean operators, inner and outer joins, etc. We prefer to make it easy for the general user population to do reporting.

Two types of filters are provided; inclusive and exclusive. "Inclusive filters" search for records that match the filter values (provided by the user) and then cause those records to be included on the report. "Exclusive filters" search for records that match the filter values and then cause the matching records to be excluded from the report. The adjacent illustration shows how the include and exclude filters are accessed when creating a report definition.

NOTE: When creating a new report definition the filters are initially set to include all records in the report.

Now let's look at a practical example for using filters. Let's say that you have been asked to prepare a report of all employees who are currently employed by your agency and who attended a training course in the past 3 months. You will need to use two filters to fulfill the request:

1. You will use an "employment status" filter to identify employees that are currently employed by your agency. The employment filter processes data in the employment file to determine if the employee is currently employed. Employees who do not have matching employment data are excluded from the report.

2. You will also need a "training date" filter to identify employees who attended a training course in the past 3 months. The training filter processes data in the training file to determine if the employee has attended a course within the designated time frame. Employees who do not have matching training data are excluded from the report.

NOTE: If the standard reports provided with Skills Manager do not meet all of your needs, then you might consider developing your own custom reports using other software products or contacting Crown Pointe to have us develop custom reports for you. You can read more on custom reports in the Advanced Reporting bulletin.

Creating a Report Definition

Now that you have the fundamental concept of how a Skills Manager report works, let's create a simple report definition step-by-step to see exactly how it is done. The report definition we create will print a list of all "active" employees.

CREATE A NEW REPORT

1. Select Reports from the Skills Manager menu.

2. (The Browse Report Queue form is displayed).

3. Click the Insert button to create a new report definition.

4. (The Add Report form is displayed).

5. Choose Roster from the Report Name list.

6. Next, enter a Report Description such as "All active employees".

SET THE EMPLOYMENT FILTERS

7. Place a check in the Employment filter checkbox to activate the employment filters.

8. Click on the Employment filter button to access the employment filters.

9. (The filters are initially set to include all employees).

10. Uncheck the Inactive checkbox in the Status filter so inactive employees are not selected.

11. Click OK to save the employment filters.

12. Click OK again to save the report definition.

RUN THE NEW REPORT

13. (The Browse Report Queue form is displayed and the new report is highlighted).

14. Click Run Report to process the report.

NOTE: It is important to enter a Report Description for every report. As you begin to create report definitions and save them in your Print Queue, you will find that you are quite likely to use the same report format in more than one report definition. We highly recommend that you use the report description to briefly describe the content of the report with respect to the filter settings. The description will help you quickly identify reports as well as their purpose when browsing the Report Queue. You can even enter additional comments to describe the report in greater detail. Your comments are displayed on the Browse Report Queue form when browsing through your saved reports.

Frequently Requested Reports

The following examples provide step-by-step instructions for defining some reports frequently produced by our customers.

NOTE: We can't list examples of all report and filter combinations here as the number of combinations are almost endless. If you need assistance creating a report definition, please call our Skills Manager support line. We will be happy to help you!

Report Print Options

Skills Manager provides a number of Print Options that add flexibility to the pre-formatted reports provided with the product. The print options will vary by report and some reports have no print options at all.

The print options are accessible from a tab on the main report definition form, as shown in the illustration on the right. Choose the report named Roster by Agency from the Report Name list and you will see that the Print Options tab is displayed. This tab is not displayed when you choose a report that has no print options.

As you can see from the illustration on the left, all print options are available for the Roster by Agency report.

New Page (when report breaks) - Choosing this option causes the report to advance to a new page whenever a major control break occurs on the report, in this case whenever the agency changes. Page breaks are handy when sections of the report will be separated and distributed. When this option is left unchecked, page breaks are suppressed resulting in shorter reports that save print time and paper.

Print IDs in Following Order - Some organizations assign employees alternative identification numbers in addition to Social Security Number. Organizations are becoming increasingly sensitive to printing this important number. With this feature you can choose to print one or more id numbers per employee and you can control the order in which they appear. When this option is left unchecked, no identification numbers are printed on the report.

Print Home Address, Print Telephone Number, and Print E-mail Address - You can invoke or suppress the printing of each of these items. Be aware that each item consumes an additional line on the report when printed and the length of a report can change considerably, depending on the options you choose and the number of employees included on the report.

Advanced Reporting

The bulletin you are reading is primarily for new users and novice users, who are not yet confident in their ability to create reports and accurately get the results they are seeking.

If the information and example reports presented here have not answered your questions with respect to reporting, then perhaps you should read the Advanced Reporting bulletins. Advanced Reporting covers such topics as Filter Components, Filter Relationships, Complex Filters, Using Skills Manager Data as a Data Source for Mail Merges in external Word Processors, Copying Reports in the Report Queue, Custom Reports, and more.

by Steve Wesner

Crown Pointe Technologies, Inc.

Basic Reporting

Reporting Fundamentals

Creating a Report Definition

Frequently Requested Reports

Employee Reports

Agency Reports

Course Reports

Code Table Reports

Report Print Options

Advanced Reporting