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By now the Options section should be completed, and the Order screen is displayed.
To produce a report complete the options, order, selection (or List),columns, and attachments tabs in sequence. (See report format topic).
The report Order screen is used to defined the sorting of information that will be displayed on the report. Here, specify the information to be sub totalled and define page breaks at suitable points in the report.
The following options are available:
On the left of the screen, items suitable for sorting the report by are listed (the sort options differ between the reports, depending on the report subject matter).
When selecting the items you would like to Sort by, it is important to remember the order that the items are ticked will be the order of the sort. A good starting point is to remove all the ticks on the left of the screen before selecting the sort items.
For example, to group all the clients on the report by the partner the client is registered under, place the first tick in Partner responsible. Partner will be displayed on the display on the right side of the screen.
It is possible to sort the clients further within each Partner list, to achieve this tick a second sort item such as Client name. The Client name will then be displayed under Partner on the right side of the screen.
Be careful not to sort by too many items, also check the order the report will be sorted by looking at sort order on the right side of the screen.
In the above example, if Client name was the first sort item and Partner responsible the second, the output would be meaningless from a sorting point of view. You would be attempting to sort clients with the same name in partner order, considering the client name is virtually unique, there is little point in sorting by any item after it.
A good rule to follow is to Sort by the item there are fewest of in the system first, up to the item there are most of in the system last, for example (the number in brackets shows the number of that item registered in the system):
First Sort: Partner (3)
Second Sort: Manager (6)
Third Sort: Client Name (1527)
This will provide you with a sensible report output.
The items selected to sort by have not relation to the information included in the report, this is defined under the Columns tab. You may sort by items that will not be included under the columns (for example, you may want to group clients by Partner responsible, but not include the partner column on the report).
On the right of the screen is the Sub-totals by column. Here it is possible to generate a subtotal for any item you have selected on the left of the screen under Sort by. The exceptions to this are the items such as Client name and Client identifier, because these are unique a subtotal for each would be unnecessary.
Usually a subtotal is not needed by the first item that has been Sorted by, be careful not to Sub-total by more than two items, this could create a confusing report (the system will warn you if this is likely).
If Summary subtotals only has been selected on the Options screen, only the lines containing the subtotal information for the first item you sort by will be included on the report. If Summary subtotals only are selected as the level of detail and are sub totalled by Partner responsible first, one line will be included on the report for each partner, this will contain a total of that partner's clients.
The first item you Sort by is available for page breaking on (for example, Partner responsible). This means that every time the report comes across a new item selected to sort by first, a new page will be started.
This is useful if each partner wants a list of their own client WIP balances, with each starting on a fresh page, therefore only one report needs to be produced.
Do not click OK at this point, doing so will run the report with the options set on this page and those retained from the last time the report was run for the other pages.
To continue the reporting topic click on the Selection tab at the top of the screen, or click here for the topic for using the selection tab.
Reporting Overview
Reporting format
Recommended reports (Time & Fees)
Memorised reports