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Managing Reports

Web reports are geared toward smaller Enterprise Controller type reports. Reports requiring large data ranges against large customer databases may experience long delays. These delays relate directly to the building and loading of large web pages. These larger reports should be run using the Admin Console which is geared towards reports of this nature.

All web reports can be displayed in standard HTML format or in Excel 2003 or earlier. The Excel format has no formatting by design in order to allow the user to copy and paste the information into an Excel spreadsheet format. MS Excel (2003 or earlier) must be installed on the client machine in order for this report format to display correctly.

Each report has parameters that are allocated by you. The data reported depends on the access level and Admin Centre you belong to. As an example, if you are an Account Holder then you will only see data about your own Account. If you are a Supervisor then you will be able to draw report data for your subordinates. Likewise, as an Admin Centre Controller you can generate reports for your Admin Centre.

Use the report parameters to filter and narrow the information provided by the selected report. The information provided by the selected report can be quite large, so selecting appropriate parameters for your report is very important. For example, where the organisation may post 100 transactions per day, a report for three months may return anywhere from 8,000 - 10,000 transactions. Thus, such a report would be better filtered by setting a shorter date range, by selecting each Division, selecting Summary versus Detail (when available), and so on.

Also, if the report is for a very large amount of data (i.e. 1,000 rows or more), with a long date range or for a large number of users, it is recommended that the reports be batched "Over Night". Additionally, if the report is small to moderate in size (i.e. 0 - 300 or 300 - 1,000 respectively) and the report is not required straight away, again the report can be batched "Over Night".

The process of a report is very similar for all report types, and is best explained by an example.

To generate a report:
1. Select the Reports tab;
2. Select the required report from the left pane;
3. Enter the appropriate report search parameters;
4. Click Save Report;
This button is available only with the Expense Type and GL Expense Assignment reports
5. Enter an appropriate name for the report parameter template, then click OK;
Click on the saved template when you next use the report and it will restore the saved parameters.
Click on the Delete Report icon associated with the saved parameters to discard it.
6. Select the Output Format from the drop-down list;
You can only view reports in HTML or Excel (2003 or earlier) formats.
7. Click View Report;
This presents the data held within the ProMaster database of all the relevant report data.
Tip: If the report is very small and returns very few rows and is required very quickly, the report should be viewed rather than batched.
8. Click the associated Export to Excel icon;
Based on your internal business processes, you are able to format the report data as deemed suitable.
9. Click Batch Report;
You can only batch reports in Excel (2003 or earlier), CSV or Text (TAB Delimited) formats.
There are two options when you batch a report in the When parameter:
· Now : the batch is run straight away
· Over Night : the batch is run at midnight
Note: The same report can only be batched Over Night once.
Tip: The report should be batched "Now" if it is required virtually straight away and is other than very small or has taken a long time to generate in the past. Choosing this option would mean the report becoming available to view/download within a few minutes under normal conditions.
10. Close the notification window;
The Delete Batch Report icon appears.
11. Click Reset to refresh;
After batching and the auto-scheduler has finished processing the report, the following icons appear:
· View Batch Report
· Save Batch Report
If there is a problem with the batched report, you will get the following icons:
· View Error Message
· ReBatch Report
Notes: Reports are batched in the order they were batched.
You can batch overnight more than one version (different parameters) of the same report.
12. Click the associated View Batch Report icon;
The content of the batch report depends upon your selection from the Output Format drop-down list.
13. Save the processed batch report in either one of two ways:
· Select File -> Save As when viewing the processed batch report (see Step 12 above);
· Right-click on the Save Batch Report icon associated with the processed report (see Step 11 above) then select Save Target As.
Note:
You must have MS Excel (2003 or earlier) installed to carry out the Export to Excel function.


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