Building Reports

Owned by Joss Herrmann
Last updated: Jun 26, 2017 by Deborah Pender (Unlicensed)
2 min read

Reports:

In Profit Diagnostix, every chart or table on a dashboard is based on reports. A report performs a query on the database. The result of this query equates to one data row. Depending what query is executed, the result can include one or more fields (columns) or can be empty.
There are also a few special types of reports, e.g. to perform calculations on results an variables (formulas) or to accumulate different rows to one big table or chart.

Variables:

Beside database results, static values, dates and date ranges, staff or product names as well as ledger accounts and manual data points are required to represent a meaningful chart or table. All of these values are kept in variables.
Variables always belong to a scope: Global, report and dashboard report. Additionally dashboard report variables can be overridden by a global variable and again by global dashboard variables. This stack allows it to re-use the same report for e.g. different date ranges (like annual, monthly or weekly reports or different staff groups.

Dashboards:

Each report can be assigned to one or more dashboards. Different output types per dashboard can be chosen to display a changed representation of the data.

Create a report:

To create a new report click on "Settings" (top navigation) > "Reports"

Now a list of existing reports appears. Click on "Create new Report" (right navigation)


Input fields:

  • Display name: A descriptive name for the report. We recommend to use categories, e.g. "Profit and Loss > Revenue > Annual"
  • Name: auto generated from display name if left empty. No spaces ore special chars allowed
  • Description: A more detailed description of the purpose of the report
  • Type: Depending on how the result of the report should be represented, different report types can be chosen:On the right is a list of the rows available for the selected report type.