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Who: |
Data Analyst |
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Why: |
Create a customised report to display information extracted from LPG. |
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When: |
When existing standard reports do not present the desired information and/or format. |
Before you begin
IMPORTANT NOTE: What you can see and do within the Report portal is dependent on your role and permissions. Reports will only contain data available to your Workgroup.
This Guide will provide:
- An overview of the ‘Create a Report’ functions
- Instructions on editing a report you have created
- Instructions on how to create a Table
- Instructions on how to create Charts
- Instructions on how to create a Crosstab
Procedure
1. On the LPG menu select Reporting > Portal.
The Reports page opens in your web browser.
2. Click create a report.
The Select Topic window opens. A list of standardised topics for the LPG Customer side is displayed.
Click the topic from which you wish to create the report. (This determines the data that will be available to add into the report.)
3. Click an icon to select the report type.
Table – display data in a table format which is useful for export to a spreadsheet application such as Excel.
Chart – display the data in a variety of graphical representations.
Crosstab – display data in a matrix which is useful for grouping and summarising data.
4. Click the Open Report
Depending on the selected topic, a Filters pop-up window may appear.
5. Fill in the required filter parameters.
6. Click the OK
The Build Report screen appears.
A – The Item List of data that can be dragged and dropped into the report. NOTE: It may take several seconds for the data to load and become visible.
B – The Design Area where you create the report. Drag and drop data to here.
C – Report type can be changed here. The grey highlighted type is the current selection.
7. Click the Palette icon 
to select the report style from a pre-defined library (colours, font etc).
8.Click the Sort icon 
to define the order in which the data in the report will be sorted.
You can add more than one field and arrange them to determine the priority of the sort (e.g. sort first by Order Status then by Project ID).
9. Click the Data Set icon 
to toggle between the full data set and a sample set in Design mode.
Each click of the icon switches sample set on or off.
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Sample set on: This is recommended while you are designing the report so that you can quickly generate the report preview to see how it looks with only a few lines of data. |
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Sample Set off: The full data set will be used when you preview the report. This may take a long time to load depending on the amount of data that satisfies your filter criteria. |
10. Click the Display icon 
to toggle between the Design and Display modes.
Each click of the icon changes between Design screen and a preview screen of what the final report will look like.
11. Click the Filter icon 
to open the Filters window and define the filters that limit the data in the report. (In the example shown below the filter is set for a specific Schedule(A), for only Orders that are Work In Progress (B) and that had a Start Date last month (C).)
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IMPORTANT: Setting filters is strongly recommended to ensure that the volume of data is not too large. Running large reports may cause your system to slow down. |
12. Click on the Display options icon 
to open another sub-menu with additional report display options.
From this menu, you can (A) toggle the Title Bar and/or Filter Pane (if in-report filtering was used) off; (B) switch between landscape and portrait modes for your output; (C) select the print size of your output; and (D) determine if additional information should be displayed on your output.
Your selections for (D) include:
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Group on New Page |
If your Report is being Grouped, selecting this option will start each Group on a new page |
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Group Summary in Header |
If your Report is being Grouped, selecting this option will display sub-totals in the Header line of each Group. |
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Display Run Date |
This will display the date that the report was generated at the bottom of the report. |
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Display Page Number |
This will display page numbers at the bottom of the report. |
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Display Parameters |
This will display the Topic Filter selections at the top of the report. |
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Display Report Totals |
This will display report totals at the bottom of your report. |
13. To add a title to the Report, click in the title area then enter the text of the title.
14. To preview the report, click the Run icon 
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While the data is being loaded the Retrieving… pop-up appears (A).
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If the “No data was returned” (A) message is displayed when you run the report, click More… (B) to see a possible reason. A common cause is that the filters have not been set correctly (e.g. Order Start Date and End Date set to today).
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15. To resize a column on the report:
a. Hover the mouse over the join between the columns until the mouse pointer changes to a double- headed arrow (A).
b. Click and drag the column divider (blue vertical line) then drop when the divider is at the required position.
The column is resized (A).
16. To save the report, click the Save icon 
and select Save Report.
The Save Report window opens.
17. Enter the Report Name, select the Location Folder by clicking on the Browse button and optionally enter a Description.
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NOTE: The Location Folder must be a location you have permission to. You can save to your personal reports folder (e.g. /USERS/GREG10) or to the Ad Hoc Reports folder, or any folders nested within these two sub-folders. Although other folders are displayed when you browse the repository, the OK button to allow you to select these folders is disabled. |
18. Click the Save
To make future edits to the report
1. Navigate to the location of the report in the Reports portal.
2. Right-click the report.
The Resource pop-up menu is displayed.
3. Click Open in Designer…
4. In Design Mode, the Change Control icons 
allow you to:
5. When you click on the Save button after editing a previously saved report, the changes are saved without opening the Save Report If you wish to save a new version of the report under a different name, use the Save Report As… option from the save icon.
6. When an item is highlighted in the Item List, clicking on the right mouse button will open a format menu that relates specifically to that item.
7. Apart from the column formatting options available from the Design Areas, Items in the Item List can be used for grouping by dragging the item to the Groups box in the Layout Band between the Item list and the Design Area or by selecting ‘Add as Group’ for an item in the Item List. This introduces horizontal grouping rows into the report that can be formatted in the same way as columns (ie right mouse click to open formatting menu). A Header and Footer row is introduced for each Grouping item. If Summaries have been applied to any columns, sub-totals are added at Grouping levels.
8. When creating a filter from a selected item, a filter popup relating to that item is presented on the right side of the screen. If the selected item contains text or list values, the popup presents a multi-select box of all unique values. The user can select one, all or some of these values.
If the Selected item is a number or a date, the filter popup display a ‘From’ and ‘To’ selection choice populated with the smallest/earliest and largest/latest values recorded for the selected item. The user can then adjust these values to restrict the result set.
The result set shown in the Design Area is immediately impacted by the in-report filter selections.
Multiple filters can be created from items within a single report.
Build a Table
A Table is a simple report containing columns of data. When creating your new report, first have an idea of what your report is going to look like, such as, what columns are needed? What is the order of the columns? Should the information be sorted? Is grouping required? Are totals required? What is the Title? Should data constraints be applied?
When building your report:
1. Scroll down the Item List to find an item then drag and drop the item onto the Design Area.
The item is displayed as a heading on the report.
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If no data is returned when you drag the item into the report area, either no data has been recorded for that item or no data satisfies your filter criteria. It is advisable to drag an item onto the Design area that you know contains data to ensure that your filters are valid. |
2. To add spaces between the columns of the report, scroll to the bottom of the Item List and drag the “Spacer” onto the Design Area.
The spacer is represented by a small diamond on the report header.
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To insert an item between other columns, drag the item across the Design Area (A). As you pass between existing columns on the header, a blue line appears (B). Let go of the mouse button to drop the item at that location.
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To reposition a column heading, click and drag the heading (A), as you start to drag it changes to blue (B). As you reach a position where it can be placed it changes colour to brown (C). Let go of the mouse button to drop the heading at that location (D).
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3. When a column is highlighted in the Design Area, clicking on the right mouse button will open a format menu that relates specifically to that column.
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Column Formatting Options:
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Build a Chart
A Chart is a flexible, interactive way to present your data graphically. It is useful for presentations where a visual summary can more effectively highlight a problem or an achievement than a page full of words.
To create your Chart:
1. Scroll down the Item List to find an item that you want to graph, right click and select Add as Group
The values in the selected item are now represented as bars on the Chart with each bar representing the number of items with that value.
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Only Items with a limited set of discrete values should be used for grouping – if the item has more than 30 discrete values, the resulting chart becomes increasingly difficult to interpret. |
2. Select the item you wish to use as the measure in the Chart. In the example we have been using, we grouped by Order Status. Now we could select Matter Id as the measure to give us a count of the matter engagements at each order status. Selecting a text, date or list item as a measure will give a count of the discrete values of that item. Selecting a numeric item as a measure will give us the sum of the values for that item.
3. Right click on the Design Area to open an Options menu.
The Chart Title (A) is a sub-title placed on the Chart and displayed under the Report Title.
The Reporting Portal defaults to a Bar Chart presentation but the user can change the Chart Type (B) to one of the following:
Depending on the Chart Type that is selected, different Display Options (C) are available for selection.
From the Legends and Labels option (D), the user can show/hide the Legend, show/hide the Group title and show/hide the Measure title.
The user can change the Summary Functions (E) associated to the measure. The options available vary based on whether the measure is a text or a numeric item.
The user is also able to change the Data Format (F) of the measure.
Build a Crosstab
A Crosstab report shows the relationship between two or more variables in a matrix format enabling the user to assess the relationship between the variables. When building your report:
1. Scroll down the Item List to select the two items that you want to cross-tabulate, right click and select one as Row Group and the other as Column Group
The values in the selected item are now represented as columns and rows on the Crosstab. In the example below, I have selected Area of Law and Invoiced Entity as my Row group and Column group, respectively. I have then selected Engagement Budget from the Item list as my measure.
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The Switch Groups |
on the menu bar allows column and row groups to be easily swapped.2. You can select more than one measure and/or grouping item and sort the information displayed in the crosstab by the measure values by clicking on the sort icon 
next to the measure name.
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Note: Many of the layout and formatting options that are set manually in tables are set automatically in crosstabs. In particular, row and column sizes are fixed and no spacer is available. |
Tips & Troubleshooting
1. Reports can be sorted by Items that are not included as Columns or Groups in the report.
2. Using Dates in Filters:
The filter defaults to a ‘User Defined’ range where you can input a Start and End date for the displayed date field. Alternatively, you can change the Range filter to:
- This Week
- Last Week
- This Month
- Last Month
- This Quarter
- Last Quarter
- This Year
- Last Year
If you use these selections, the Reporting Portal will ignore the Start and End dates. NOTE: do not clear the Start and End dates as these are mandatory fields, even though the values are ignored.
3. If you have created a table report with grouping, you can select Hide Detail Rows from the Display Options menu which will hide all data rows and only display totals and sub-totals for each grouping level. The totals for each non-numeric column show the number of unique values in that column. Columns containing numeric values are summed.
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