Giltbyte Helpdesk

Aim

This chapter is designed to explain the general process of running reports in Easy.

Objective

After reading this chapter you will be able to:

• Find and Run Reports
• Understand Report Options
• Download Report

Background

The EASY system has many different areas such as Expenses, Forms, Time and Attendance and Absence and several different levels of access such as Self Service, Management and Admin. Each area of the system has its own reports with different reports available to different levels of access.

Reports are designed to give access to obtain information on individual, group or Trust level over specific periods of time. This will enable users to obtain information in report format of data previously entered through the Easy system.

For details on the settings for each report view the guide covering the reports available in each area of Easy which will detail the options and settings available.

Easy Reports

Under each area of the system you have access to you will find the reports :

When you click on the reports a list of the reports available will be displayed. This will vary in each area of the Easy system and depending on your access level but an example of the expenses area is shown below :

The reports may be either listed individually where there are few options or you may see further menu options of the reports available such as reports by assignment or group, or reports by month or pay period.

When you select a report you will find a description of what the report is intended to do on the top of the report screen as shown :

Easy Report Options

When the report has a field that requires you to select from a drop down list, select the down arrow on the far right of the field and select the relevant option.

When the report has a field that requires you to locate something in the database such as an Assignment it will show the looking glass at the far right of the field. Click on the looking glass and find the relevant detail.

If a field required dates it will need to be entered in the same format as other date fields in Easy or selected by clicking on the date picker icon and selecting the date.

On some reports you may have a list of options in a box that you can select to report on. If you do not select anything from these items then the report will run on all the items listed. To select one item only just click on the relevant item. To report on a range of items click on the first item and hold the shift key (sometimes an up arrow) and then select the last item in the range and all items between the first and last item clicked will be selected. To select multiple items that are not in a specific range click on each item whilst holding the Ctrl key. As long as you keep hold of the Ctrl key you can select or deselect an item by clicking it on the list.

Easy Report Format

The report may include fields to allow you to format how the report is presented when output for download.

Where these fields appear you can select output to a single worksheet which will create just one worksheet in Excel with all the data. This is the normal default, however by unticking this the report will split different selection criteria onto different worksheets. So for example if you are reporting by department you will get a separate worksheet for each employee, or if reporting on different travel expenses you will get a separate worksheet for each expenses type.

The simplified worksheet does not use split lines or multiple lines that are sometimes used to make the format of the excel sheet look nicer for those viewing. However by selecting this option the worksheet will be easier to manipulate in excel such as resorting the data or creating lists or tables. Select this option if you want to manipulate the data once downloaded.

You may also have the option of the format of the output such as Excel, CSV or PDF etc.. To select the output format click the down arrow on the right hand side which will provide a list of the available output formats. If you do nothing the report will default to that shown.

Easy Reports – Running Reports

Once you have selected the report parameters, and output format where available, you can then click the on the  button, found at the bottom right of the report.

After clicking on Run Report you may see the additional options box as follows :

You can select the priority of the report. Depending on your access permissions to the database you may have the option from High, Medium or Low. You may only see some of these option or even just one option. High priority will normally be reserved for system administrators, Medium and low priority will be run in the appropriate order when system resources allow.

You can decide that you do not want the report to be run until a date in the future, therefore enabling you to set up a report to be scheduled to run after a certain date.  When you enter a date in the future you must also include a time for the report to be run which you pick by clicking on the clock icon.

If the report is to be run in the future or you expect the report to take some time you can request the system to e-mail you when the report is ready. To do this click the little box at the side of the “email me when task is complete”.

The Abort button will cancel the running of the report, or the confirm will enable the report to run with the required settings.

Once you select , the report will commence unless the criteria requested results in no valid data to be reported on. In this case you will see the error message.

You will need to change your criteria to produce any data in the report.

Once the report has commenced it will move to the Tasks area which is accessed by clicking on the Tasks menu option.

Note that whilst the report is running there is no need to wait for it to finish. You will be able to perform any other actions in the database such as entering or approving absence or expenses or even running a further report. Whilst the task is running it will show with a yellow background. It may then change to an orange background showing that the report is rendering which means it being produced in the format required.

You will not be able to see the report at any of these stages. Once the background has turned green you will be able to view the report by clicking on the green report name.

This will open up the report result screen below detailing if the report was run successfully or if there were errors, the date the report was run and completed and finally any output files generated. To view the report click on the relevant file (identified below).

There will also be an indication of how long the report will be retained for, usually 30 days but this may be different depending on your organisation.

Viewing Reports

The action taken in respect of the report will depend on the internet security settings within your organisation but in most organisations by clicking the file the report will be downloaded to your local drive (often this is the download folder).

You can often open the report by clicking on it in the task bar on the bottom left of your screen, although you may need to wait for the download to be completed or in some cases you may only be able to view the report by going to your download folder.

Viewing Tasks

You can access previous tasks that have been run by selecting the detailed tasks status screen.

This screen indicates if you have any tasks (reports) running, any that have been set but queued to run at a later stage and lists any that have completed and how long they will remain available for. You can access the report status screen by clicking on the report in the completed list, which would enable you to download the report.