How To Run Reports In The Reports Dashboard
This guide will help you to utilize the reporting tool in Good Sign and guide you through the different functions when running a report. This guide does not cover any report contents, just the functionality of running reports in general.
Note! Customized reports are not covered in this guide. If there is a need for customized reports, please contact your contact person at Good Sign
Required User Rights
To be able to use the functions in this guide, you need the following user rights:
- 3515 Menu – Reports
- 3540 Menu – Report Task
- 3593 Menu - Run Reports
- 3541 Edit Report Task
Note! Reports are set with certain user rights, so they will only appear to certain users
About Reports
The reports functionality in Good Sign allows users to run reports of basically any data stored in the solution in report format. Reports allow users to get required sets of data, for example, via filtering parameters on a selected organization or organization level, for a desired time interval. There are some standard reports available, and customer-specific reports can be added.
Reports can be run once or on a predetermined schedule, and the results are available via user interface or delivered by various methods including email and SFTP. Users may, for example, want to schedule invoicing summary reports to be emailed to them on the 3rd day of every month. Reports complement the grid views in various dashboards, and with reports, data content can be enriched in many ways.
Reports Dashboard
The main view shows all the reports (from the activated/selected organization level) that have been run, no matter who has run the report or whether it is a one-time or, i.e., monthly report. Before any reports have been run the grid is empty.
When the report has run successfully, the resulting report file can be opened from the file icon in the Result File column (the first column on the left).
The Status column shows a clock icon if the report is being run and afterwards there will be a green OK sign that means that the report is ready. If the report fails, a Ø sign appears.
Running a report
You can easily run an existing report from the Reports (new) dashboard by selecting Run reports under the drop-down menu labelled Management on the upper right corner of the screen.
Report Parameters
The report parameters may change depending on which report you choose, as there are ways to filter the data you need in the report and different reports have different content. However, mandatory fields are Report and Organization.
In most reports, there is an organization and start and end date filters (that can filter the content). The organization is preselected based on your organization selection filters (that also place the report to that specific organization when viewing reports).
With the reporting period, one can preset the report with certain rules. The period calculates the start and end dates dynamically. There are many options for this field, as seen in Figure 4.
Report format
Under Delivery Method you can define the Report Format. The options are pdf, csv or excel (xlsx).
Delivery method
Delivery Method controls how the report will be sent. There are several options to choose from:
- None – the report will not be sent, and it is visible on the grid where it can be downloaded and opened
- Email - the report will be sent via regular email as an attachment
- Email (zipped) – the email attachment will be zipped to control the file size
- Email (Zipped with Password) – a password will be required for opening the zip file
- Email (Zipped with Password + SMS) – the password will be delivered as a separate SMS
- Email (Zipped with Password + Email) - the password will be delivered as a separate email
- Email (URL link) – the file will not be sent, only a URL that will require signing into Good Sign
- SFTP* – the report will be sent to a target directory via sftp connection
- File copy*
The ones marked with * need configuration. Therefore, contact a consultant to get access to these delivery methods.
Schedule report
Report Scheduling determines the run time or execution frequency for the report. The options are as follows:
- Ad hoc – a one-time report ran once, immediately
- Once – a one-time report ran at a certain time
- Daily – a report is run daily
- Weekly – a report is run weekly
- Monthly – a report is run monthly
- Disabled – a report is disabled and isn’t in use anymore (has been at some stage though)
- On demand – a report is run on demand, special selection (very special cases)
Once the report is run, the report appears on the main page Reports (new). Recurring reports can be seen and edited under Reporting > Report Tasks. Note! The Report Period is dynamically determined in relation to the report’s scheduled run time. For example, if the Report Period is the last three months and you’ve scheduled the report to run every 5th day of the month, every month will include the previous three months.
Edit Report task
Report runs can be edited in the Reports (new) window from the management menu by selecting Edit Report task.
After the selection, a pop-up window appears:
In Edit Report Task, one can edit the report format, schedule type, delivery method and recipient address.
After making the changes, press Save.
To edit reports, one can also go to Reporting > Report Tasks. The Report Tasks dashboard has the same functionalities as Edit Report Tasks in the Reporting dashboard.