My Reports - Getting started

1What My Reports is #

My Reports lists your company's custom reports - registers, statements and lists made for your business on the desktop's query editor, beyond the standard reports that ship with InvoiceNET. They are filed in category folders, and each one opens in the Custom Report Viewer, where the same rows can be read as a Grid, a Pivot or a Graph.

The chain is short:

2Where to find help #

• On every screen: the Help rail on the right edge. Press its chevron to open it. My Reports explains the list and why a report may be missing; the viewer explains the three views, the toolbar and every message it shows.
• The manual: at the foot of this page, the My Reports list, the Custom Report Viewer and the custom-table screens in full.
• Search help... in the top bar searches every screen's guide at once; tick This screen only to keep to the page you are on.
• Getting Started on the My Reports page opens this guide.

3Where things are #

4First-day setup (administrator) #

1. Licence. The company's licence must include Custom Reports for the My Reports menu, and Dashboard for Home. Each custom report is filed under a module - Financial Accounting, Inventory Management, Sales, Purchase, CRM, Service, Cashier, Payroll, Employee Time Management, Linked Transactions, Project Management, Dashboard, or All - and is offered only when the licence holds that module.
2. Write the reports on the desktop's query editor: the query, the parameters (with their prompts and pick-lists), the columns (captions, formats, alignment, totals), the chart, the category and sub-category, and - for the dashboard - show in dashboard and the display mode (Grid, Chart or Pivot). A report marked hidden is never listed.
3. Give the rights. On User Manager > Custom Reports, pick the company and tick View for each report each user needs; tick Export for those who may e-mail or schedule it. A user also receives the rights of the login named as their template.
4. Tell users to press Refresh (F5) on My Reports after their rights change - the list is kept for the session.

5Keyboard shortcuts #

On My Reports

Opening a report is a click: selecting a report with the keyboard does not open it.

In the Custom Report Viewer

The viewer has no F5: run it again with the Refresh button, and change the parameters with the filter button. In the grid, the grid's own keys work - arrows to move, the column menu on each header.

On a custom table's data entry

6Finding a report in My Reports #

• The page shows Loading report list... and then a tree: top-level categories with a folder icon, their sub-categories inside them, and the reports under each. Folders open already expanded; click one to close or open it.
• Search reports... narrows the tree as you type: it keeps the reports whose name contains the text, with their folders. Typing a category's name keeps that whole category. Clear the box to see everything.
• Categories are in alphabetical order; inside a folder, reports keep the order in which they were created.
• A folder with nothing in it for you is not shown at all.
• The list is kept for your session, per company, branch and user. Switching company, branch or user reads a fresh list; any other change needs Refresh (F5).

Why a report is not in the list

7Running one #

1. Open My Reports. Use Search reports... or open the folders.
2. Click a report - it opens in its own tab, titled with its name. Clicking it again opens a second tab.
3. A report with parameters opens Report Parameters first. Fill them in - a pick-list offers its values and you can also type your own, a date takes the date picker, anything else a text box - and press Apply. A report with no parameters runs straight away.
4. Read it as a Grid, a Pivot or a Graph. The viewer opens on the view you last used for this report.

• The filter button on the toolbar opens the parameters again, to run it for other dates or values. Refresh runs it again with the same ones.
• While it runs the viewer shows Executing report...; a large report shows Loading rows: n of N with a bar. Cancel (Esc) gives up on the run, and the rows on screen are the previous answer.
• Above the result sits the report's heading: its title, the parameters the heading does not already mention, and your report option (All, Branch with its name, or Group with its name). Under it, the Run time and the row count.
• No data - "The report returned no rows for the current parameters." - is an answer, not a failure. Widen the parameters; remember your report option cuts what you may see first.

8Grid, Pivot and Graph #

All three read the same rows: changing the pivot or the chart never runs the report again. Pivot and Graph stay disabled until the report has returned rows.

Grid

• Fifty rows a page, with a page-size choice at the foot.
• Click a header to sort; its filter opens a spreadsheet-style list of values to tick; drag a header into the band above to group.
• Drag headers to reorder columns and their edges to resize them. Column chooser on the grid's toolbar hides or shows columns; the menu on each header does the same and more.
• Search on the grid's toolbar keeps the rows that contain what you type.
• Totals the report's author set up - Sum, Avg, Min, Max or Count - show at the foot of the grid and on each group's heading line.
• Numbers are right-aligned unless the report says otherwise.

Pivot

• Drag any column into Rows, Columns, Values or Filters; click a value's name to change how it adds up.
• A date column also offers its month and year.
• The layout is remembered for this report, in this browser, as you arrange it. Reset Layout returns to the report's default.

Graph

• Pick the Chart (Column, Bar, Line, Spline, Area, Pie or Donut), the Category (a text column) and the Figures (numeric columns - several plot side by side; a pie shows the first).
• Each bar or slice is the sum of the figure per category, largest first. Past 30 categories (12 for a pie) the rest fold into Others.
• Many categories: the chart's scrollbar walks them, and the mouse wheel zooms the category axis.

9Print, export, layouts #

The toolbar's buttons follow the view on screen, and every printout and file carries the same heading - the company, the report's title, the parameters and the report option.

Print and the exports are greyed until the report has returned rows. Printing opens a browser window - allow pop-ups for the site if it never appears.

Layouts

• Save Layout (grid) keeps the grid's arrangement - column order, widths, hidden columns, sorting, grouping - for this report. It comes back by itself the next time the report runs, in this browser.
• Restore Layout (grid) puts the saved arrangement back after you have changed things; with nothing saved it says "No saved layout found for this report."
• Reset Layout forgets the saved grid layout and runs the report again with its original columns - or, in the Pivot view, returns the pivot to the report's default.

E-mailing a report

1. Run the report and open the view you want to send.
2. Press the e-mail button. The compose window opens with a subject and covering note; the attachment strip names the file - the Grid as a PDF, the Pivot as an Excel workbook, the Graph as a picture.
3. Pick From (e-mail account), fill To, edit the note, add files if you wish, and press Send.

E-mailing needs the Export right on the report - without it the viewer says "You do not have the Export right on this report, which also governs e-mailing it out." The attachments together may not pass 25 MB.

10Scheduled delivery #

The clock button sets up a standing e-mail of this report - daily, weekly or monthly, at a time. It uses the same window as the standard reports (see the Reports guide for every field) and, like e-mail, needs the Export right.

• A new delivery saves the report's parameters as they stand now, with your session's company, branch and report option.
• Send as: The report (PDF), or - when you pressed the clock from that view - The Pivot view as laid out (Excel) or The Graph view (PDF, chart drawn). A view's layout is rebuilt from each fresh run.
• Period: As saved sends the values you ran it with. A rolling period (Today, Yesterday, This month to date, Last month, This financial year to date) re-dates the report's date parameters at every send - a single date takes the period's end, a from/to pair its start and end.
• It is sent as you: your rights apply, and every send lands in the access log. If the report is later deleted the delivery fails with "The custom report of this schedule no longer exists."

11Custom reports on the Home dashboard #

A custom report marked show in dashboard in its definition becomes a card on Home for every user who holds View on it and whose licence includes its module. The definition's display mode decides whether the card is a grid, a chart or a pivot. A card has its own Refresh, Report Parameters, Print, Export to Excel and Maximize; the Reports guide describes the dashboard in full.

12Who sees what - giving a user their reports #

A report is listed only when your licence includes its module and you hold its View right. Rights are given per report, per user and per company on User Manager's Custom Reports tab. The list is kept for your session: press Refresh (F5) after rights change.

The Custom Reports tab (administrator)

1. Open User Manager, pick the user and save them if they are new - rights need a saved user with at least one company allocated.
2. Open the Custom Reports tab and pick the company: the same user can have different rights in each company.
3. Each row is one report, with its Module. The tab lists only reports whose module the licence includes. Sort, filter and group the rows like any grid - filter the View column to see what a user already has.
4. Tick the rights and save.

• Each tick is a permission row for that report (its object type is CRPT) - the same rows the desktop reads.
• Administrator and Global Administrator hold every right automatically, so for them only the licence matters.
• The rights of the login named as a user's template count too.
• The same tab also holds the permission entries of the standard reports (Stock Report, Cash Book, Day Book...), whose View, Print and Export the standard report viewer does enforce.
• Opening a report is checked again on the server - licence first, then View - so an old link or bookmark to a refused report shows the reason instead of the report.

13Custom tables and data entry #

A custom table is a table your company designs for something InvoiceNET does not hold as standard - a register, a checklist, a set of codes. Rows keyed into it can then be read back by a custom report written for it; the standard reports do not read custom tables.

Designing a table

1. Open Masters > Custom Data > Custom Data Schema Defintion and press Add (F3).
2. Fill Table Name (fixed once created), Display Name, Description and Applicable To - None, Masters or General Transaction; the last two ask which record the rows belong to.
3. Add one row per field: Field Name, Data Type, Length, Primary, Allow Null, Identity, Order, Prompt Text and an optional Lookup SQL that turns the field into a searchable pick-list.
4. Press Save (F5). Saving creates or alters the real table in the database.

The save is refused while a header field is blank, a field has no type, two fields share a name, more than one field is an identity, or a string length is out of range (1-4000 for nchar and nvarchar, 1-8000 for the others).

Keying rows

• Custom Data Schema Browser lists the custom tables. Select one and press Data Entry (F6); View Schema (F2) opens its definition, Create Schema (F3) starts a new one.
• The data-entry form builds itself from the definition: a pick-list for a field with Lookup SQL, a switch for yes/no, a date picker for dates, a number box for numbers, a multi-line box for long text. Identity and computed fields are read-only; required fields carry a red star.
• It opens ready in Add. Find (F2) loads an existing row, Modify (F4) edits it, Save (F5) writes it and parks on Add for the next one, Delete removes it.
• A new row needs at least one value. A table without a primary key can take new rows but cannot edit or delete them in place.

14Settings that change My Reports #

15Moving from the desktop #

• The reports are the same ones: the web runs the definitions the desktop's query editor stores in the company database, with their parameters, columns, totals and categories.
• Rights are the same rows: a View tick given on the desktop lists the report on the web.
• Writing or changing a report is done on the desktop; the web has no report designer.

16When something is not right #

Each screen's Help rail lists every message it can show - open it and read If something does not work.