Jack Wiebe

Modified on: Mon, 15 Mar, 2021 at 3:48 PM

Creating New Reports - The Basics

This Guide will cover how to create a basic report using the Report Designer.

Add a new Report Definition

Open Report Designer > Report Definitions.
Create a new Report Definition by pressing Insert.
Shortcut
Press Ctrl + i to create a new Report Definition.

Setting up the Report Definition

The Insert - Report Definition window will open. From this window we will be able to create the report definition, as well as preview while designing it.

The Name, and Title fields of the report are at the top of the window, and below this are the various tabs where the settings for the report can be changed.

Enter the Name and Title of the report.

The name cannot be the same as another report, and you can only use letters and numbers. The title can be up to 128 characters long and include symbols and punctuation.

Report Layout

The Report Layout tab should be open by default, but open it now if it is not.

The first step when designing a report it to consider what data you want to include in the report. Each source is linked to a column in the report and will be populated with data from the source when the report is run.

For the Employee Location report we want the following information:

The name of the employee,
What location the employee is assigned.

Lets add the source for the employee name to the report now.

From the source tree open Employee Profile > Personal > Employee Name (first/last).

Add the source to the report by dragging the Employee Name (first/last) from the source-tree into Column 1 of the report.

Double-Clicking

Double-click on a report source to add it as the last column in the report.

Dragging

Drag a source by the clicking the mouse on the source and moving the mouse while holding the mouse button down.

Now we need to add the source for the employee location.

Try finding the source by searching for "location" in the source-tree, but if you can’t locate the source you can find it at Employee Profile > Employment Data > Location Description in the source-tree.

Searching

Select the source-tree by clicking on it.
Press Ctrl+F to open the search box.
Enter the text to search for, then press Find.
(Optional) Press F3 to search for the next search result until you have located the source.

Figure 1. Searching for 'location' will return each source that contains the word location.

From the source-tree open Location Description.
Add the source to the report by dragging the Location Description source from the source-tree into Column 2 of the report.

Oh, wait!
We don’t have a Column 2 yet! Lets add a column to the report for the location source first.
1. Right-click on the report columns and select Add New Column from the right-click menu. This will add a Column 2 column to the end of the report columns.
2. Now add the Location Description source to Column 2.

Preview Your Report

You can preview your report at anytime without saving.

Select Preview Layout, to confirm the columns display as expected.

Enter the Name and Title of the report.

This displays each column as it appears when printed or saved to PDF.

Save & Print Report

Now that our report has the data sources that we wanted to report on we should take a minute to preview the report using real-data.

Save the Report Definition by pressing Apply at the bottom of the Report Definition window.
Press Print Report.

If Print Report is unavailable, make sure that the report is saved.
On the window that opens, press Print Preview.

Example

Figure 2. Example of what the Employee Location report looks like when printed using A5 paper-size.

1	The title of the report is displayed here.
2	The name of the report is displayed here.
3	The employee name source is listed in the first column (Column 1).
4	The location description source is listed in the second column (Column 2).