Tag Archives: Reports
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It’s Your Preference – 3 of 3 – PO Report

February 1, 2012 by Arlene 0 Comments

As with the Work Order Report covered in last week’s blog, the Purchase Order Report can be tailored to meet the needs of your organization using available Preferences. To modify the Purchase Order Report, select Tools->Preferences from the Menu Bar, ensure the Purchase Order Folder is selected, and then scroll down to the section on the Purchase Order Report.

The “Show” preferences highlighted above control the content that will be displayed in the top section of the report. These preferences often vary dependent on your organization’s use of the Purchase Order Report. If the report is intended for a vendor, contact information and shipping/receiving information are likely to be desired, as shown below.

In contrast, if the report is to be sent to staff members, you might desire more information about internal processing and departments. As shown below, the “Show Enhanced Status” preference was turned “on” to show additional information about the individuals requesting, issuing and approving the purchase order. The “Show Additional Detail” preference was also enabled to display organizational information such as repair center, department and account:

The section of preferences for “Line Items”, allows you to control the columns that will be displayed. In the first example, the display is more vendor oriented, showing “conversion to issue units” in the “Order Qty” column, as well as displaying any applied discounts:

In contrast, preferences can be set to provide more information for internal staff, such as “location” (stock room and bin), and account:

The additional settings allow you to replace the Purchase Order ID with a UDF that stores an internal ID, and determine the type of approval information that should be displayed at the bottom of the report. To clarify the options for the Approval Section, “default” lists approvals that been made, “static” provides blank lines to allow for approval, and “enhanced” shows approvals if they exist, providing a blank line if none exist. The “line height” preference determines the amount of space provided when approval lines are displayed.

It should also be noted that the Purchase Order Barcoding Preferences, found directly below the Purchase Order Report Preferences, allow you to determine whether or not barcodes should display on the report:

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Report Preferences

It’s Your Preference – 1 of 3 – Reports

January 18, 2012 by Arlene 0 Comments

Maintenance Connection’s System Preferences are a great way to tailor the system to meet the unique needs of your organization. Once the focus on system set up has passed, these valuable preferences can be overlooked. To refocus attention on this feature, we are publishing an “It’s Your Preference” Blog Series to highlight popular settings in three areas. In this first post we will cover several helpful Report Preferences. In the next two posts in the series, we will review the preferences available to tailor the appearance of the printed work order and purchase order.

Report Preferences

To access Report Preferences, select Tools->Preferences from the Menu Bar, and then select the Report Folder. Since several preferences are repair center based (the ones that do not display a globe), these settings can be unique for each repair center as needed. In the following example, the XYZ University has defined their report preferences, some of which are unique for their “Athletics” Repair Center.

Return Path for Bounced Email: This preference allows you to list a specific individual to receive messages from bounced emails. Listing “SENDER” will result in the individual sending the report receiving the “bounce” notification.

BCC/CC Email List for All Outgoing Emails: These preferences define the email address of any individual who should be copied (or blind copied) on reports sent via email. Listing “SENDER” will result in the individual sending the report receiving a copy (or blind copy).

Email Address FROM/FROM NAME: These preferences determine the Email from Name (and Address) that is used when a report is manually emailed (using the Email Button on the Report Preview Window). If a value is not set, the email address of the logged in user will be used.

Number of Lines Per Report Section: This preference determines the default number of rows (records) that will be displayed before another “report section” is generated. Records included in the same section are displayed on a single HTML Page, allowing you to scroll down to view other records without moving to another section using the control available on the Report Preview Toolbar. This preference is set to 1000 records by default. If you would like to have more records displayed on a single “HTML Page” to avoid navigating to different sections, you may wish to increase this value (e.g. to 2000). It should be noted, however, that there are performance implications to increasing this value, as the system must retrieve and present more data at once.

Replacement/Additional Logo for Reports: The logo preferences allow you to have a logo displayed on reports that is different from the one displayed on your MC Home Page (or in addition to). This setting is often used when a different logo is desired for a particular repair center’s reports. In the following example, XYZ University uses a different logo to display on reports generated by the “Athletics” Repair Center:

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Smart Reports – 2 of 3

September 21, 2011 by Arlene 1 Comment

In this second post in the series on Smart Reports, we will review the benefits of creating “editable reports” to update field values. Providing editable fields on a report is a very convenient feature, as multiple records can be updated on a single page.  In addition, since the report form is set up to include only the fields of importance to the intended audience, it can provide an expedient and intuitive data entry point, eliminating the need to navigate to different records and tabs. Let’s review some examples of smart reports that customers have found to be beneficial.

In our first example, a smart report has been set up to enter or update Serial Numbers on Assets. After the Serial Number has been entered and the user clicks “Save”, the record refreshes in green, indicating that the change has been saved:

In the next example, a smart report has been set up to edit the Account and Target Date on work orders targeted for completion on a given date. During smart report editing, users can even access lookups to retrieve acceptable values. As shown below, double clicking in the AccountID brings forward the Account Lookup from which the correct account can be selected. If an invalid entry is typed directly into a field, a warning will display upon “save”, ensuring the integrity of your data.

This last example shows a report created to allow supervisors to review and edit entries technicians have made to the Labor Report, ensuring that work order feedback displayed in the Service Requester or emailed through a notification rule is presented as desired.

Also note the “Save All” Button shown above the first record. This new feature, added in V5, allows changes made to multiple rows to be saved in a single step. After saving, the page refreshes showing the records that updated correctly in “green” and highlighting rows with errors in “red.” It is important to note that this feature saves all records displayed in the report, not just those for which an update has been entered. As such, it is wise to carefully define report criteria when performing a “Save All’ to ensure performance efficiency.

Editable Smart Reports must be carefully defined to ensure that only desired data is updated. For assistance in setting up a report for editable fields, contact Maintenance Connection Support.

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Smart Reports – 1 of 3

September 13, 2011 by Arlene 1 Comment

Did you know that Maintenance Connection Reports can include “smart” actions, allowing you to click on a row/column displayed in a report and open the respective record or a defined report? You can even use “smart” features to allow editing of report fields from within a report, or updates to status (e.g., Issue work orders). In this three part series on Smart Reports we will review each of these capabilities.

In this first blog in the series, we will demonstrate how to directly access the Workcenter tabs of a work order by clicking on an associated row listed in a “smart” report.

Tip: It would be a good idea to copy an “Open Work Order List” to use for testing out the features in this Blog Series. Consider naming the report: Smart Report Test.

  • Select and Run the report on which you will be setting up this feature (e.g., the copied “Smart Report Test”). When the report displays in the Report Preview Window, click on Setup to define your smart action:


  • Click on the Smart Elements Tab and turn Smart Mode “On”:


  • Select the Smart Actions Sub-Tab. From this sub-tab, we can specify the type of smart action to enable.


  • Select “Row (Single Smart Action per Row)” from the Smart Action Type Dropdown Control:


  • Additional fields will display to define the desired “action.” From the Smart Action Dropdown Control, ensure “Popup WorkCenter” is displayed.
  • In our example, we will allow the user viewing the report to open the work order listed. To enable this, scroll to the bottom of the Smart Action Field Value Dropdown Control and select “[WO]WO“:


  • In the Smart Action Tool Tip field, enter “Click here to open this work order“. Your page should appear as follows:


  • Click Apply when you are finished to view the “smart action” in the report.
  • Hover your mouse over a report row. Notice that the row becomes highlighted and the “tool tip” you specified is shown:


  • Click on a desired row. The Work Order WorkCenter should pop up, displaying the work order identified in the report:


Be sure to refer to the Reporter Guide for additional instructions. The Tips and Troubleshooting: Advanced Reporting Tips Section includes specific examples for connecting fields and rows to both WorkCenter Popups and Reports.

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Report Features – 3 of 3

July 21, 2011 by Arlene 0 Comments

In this last blog in the series on Report Features and Tips, we will review the options available to automate the distribution of scheduled reports. Report scheduling is used for many purposes including weekly status updates for shop supervisors, expiration reminders (e.g., for licenses or certifications), and executive/management updates. Reports can be scheduled on a wide variety of intervals:

Note:  Only customers that have the MC Agent Service can use this scheduling feature. Also, if the Schedule Tab is not displayed, you may be a member of an access group that does not have access to this feature.

To schedule a report for automated distribution:

  • Access Report Setup for the report on which automation will be scheduled.
  • Select the Schedule Tab. The Email Sub-Tab will be selected by default, allowing you to specify email instructions.
  • To define automated generation and distribution, change the Email Schedule Dropdown Control to “On“. The remaining controls on the page will display.


  • Select the desired frequency from the Frequency dropdown controls. For example, to schedule a management report for distribution the first of each quarter you could select: “Every 3 Month(s)“.
  • In the Begin On dropdown controls, specify the first date you would like this report to be sent. In our example, you could select “10/1/2011“, as this is the next date that corresponds to the first of a calendar quarter.
  • Specify the Attachment Type. For most reports, the HTML option is preferable. The XML and CSV options are most often used when reports are to be opened in Excel or another software system.


  • The “Do not send if report returns no records” option is especially valuable for conditional notifications. For example, you could send a license expiration report only if there are individuals with licenses expiring or a list of work orders pending approval only if there are work orders in this state.
  • In the Email Recipients area, you can directly enter the email addresses of the individuals who should receive this report, separated by commas. Alternatively, if email addresses are already defined for these individuals in their Labor or Requester Records, it is best to add the addresses using the Add Button.
    • Click Add and the Select Recipients Dialog will display.
    • Change the dropdown control at the top of the page to locate the desired individual(s), typically “Labor“.
    • All individuals of the chosen type will be displayed. Those with valid email addresses specified will be selectable.
    • Select the individuals that you wish to receive this report.
    • Click Apply when finished.


       

  • In the area on the right of this page, specify the Email Address and Name that should appear on the email that distributes the report. It should be noted that a default value for “new reports” can be specified in System Preferences.


Click Apply when finished and the MC Agent will prepare and distribute the report to specified recipients on the next scheduled date.

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