Reports in Prime 14: A Primer
Part One – Finding the Report You Need
The following is a summary of finding and creating reports in Prime 14. There are over 500 pre-prepared reports that are easy to run. These reports provide you with the information you need in a useful format. Part One covers Finding Existing Reports. Part Two will cover Create Custom Reports.
Finding the Report You Need
There are ten tools that are useful for finding or creating reports. It is essential that you have a basic understanding of these tools to be able to find, run and create a report.
Part One – Finding Existing Reports
1. Preview Search
2. Tree View
3. Report Selector
These first three screens contain identical lists of all the reports in the system. This list of reports comes from the table subReportList. Each screen provides a different way of finding and selecting reports.
4. Your Frequent Reports
5. Recommended Reports
Part Two – Create Custom Reports
1. Report Creator
2. Custom Report Writer
3. Search Screens
4. Microsoft Queries
5. Microsoft Reports
Let’s take a look at using each of these tools to find or create a report. We will use the top line ribbon bar in Prime 14 to show you how to run reports. However, many of the steps we take can be recreated on the main menu choices such as the touch tiles and the tree view menus.
1. Preview Search
The Preview Search Screen is a standard Prime Search Screen. It allows you to find reports you want by using standard Prime search methods. You can search by a single field or drill down through your choices to find the report(s) you want.
Example
a. Go to the top ribbon bar menu
b. Choose Reports
c. Choose the Preview Search Choice
d. When the screen appears put *closed* in the search field and tap Enter
A list of reports appears (about 18) that have the word “closed” somewhere in their description. You can use all the methods you use in a normal Search Screen (drill down, wild cards, etc.) to find a report.
e. To preview what a report will look like when run, double click on the report you want to see. For example, double click on the report RPSLRclosed (reasons closed by office number).
f. What appears is an example of what the report will look like.
g. Press the close button
h. To run the report, click on the ‘Run Report’ button. This takes us to a Criteria (or QBF – query by form) screen. see Using the Criteria Screen below
i. Put 1/1/15 – 6/30/15 in the field next to date closed.
j. Then click on the ‘Prepare Report’ and then ‘Produce Report’ buttons.
k. Your report should appear with the data you want.
l. You can also find a report using the Browse Button. see Using the Browse Feature below
2. Tree View Report Selector
The Tree View Report Selector allows you to choose a table and see the report available under that table.
Example
a. Go to the top ribbon bar menu
b. Choose Reports
c. Choose the Tree View Search Choice
d. When the screen appears press the + next to Clients to see a list of reports that apply to the Clients Table.
e. If you single click on any of these a preview of the report appears on the right. It is a screen shot of what the report will look like when run.
f. To run the report, double click on the report or click on the ‘Run Report’ button. This :
i. Takes us to a Criteria (or QBF – query by form) screen or
ii. Prompts you to enter the criteria
g. Double Click on FBasicCL1 to run the basic client report. Follow steps explained in ‘Using the Criteria Screen’ above to limit the report. see Using the Criteria Screen below
h. You can also find a report using the Browse Button. see Using the Browse Feature below
3. Report Selector
The Report Selector screen allows you to choose reports based on groupings, such as PBI or Clients. It also allows you to choose from Report Packs, which are groupings of reports with their own menus.
Example
a. Go to the top ribbon bar menu
b. Choose Reports
c. Choose the Reports Selector Choice
d. When the screen appears, look at the choices under the Specialized/Admin Reports Section. Choose the Report Packs pull down and select Report Pack A
e. Choose ‘Graph – Three Closed Case’ reports. You are prompted to enter a beginning date closed and an ending date closed.
f. Graphs appear grouped by the subject area of the number of cases closed, the average length of time a case remained open and the number of adults and children helped in each subject area.
4. Your Frequent Reports
Go to the top ribbon bar menu and choose View. Select the Today Screen. Frequent reports are reports you’ve decided are useful to you and that you’ve added to this screen. The list appears in two separate places on the Today Screen, as a separate tab and as the second tab on the daily worksheet tab.
There are two ways to add a report to this list. The first is to type it into the blank row at the bottom of the screen. You must enter the exact report name. An easier way to add to this list is to find the report you want in the Preview Search screen. Single click on the report` and press the ‘Add to Frequent Button’. It will then appear on your list of frequent reports.
To run a report from your list of Frequent Reports, single click on it and then press the ‘Run Report’ button.
5. Suggested Reports
The Today Screen also has a tab titled Suggested Reports on the Daily worksheet. This is a list of suggested reports that an administrator has suggested. There are separate lists of suggested reports for Staff, PBI coordinators and Management. These show up depending upon which Daily worksheet you choose.
You can preview a suggested report by clicking on it and pressing the ‘Preview’ button. To run the report, click on the report and click on the ‘Run Report’ button.
If you are the database administrator, you can delete or add reports to the suggested list. Open the subFrequentReport table. The reports that appear for staff have a staff number of 9999, those for management have a 8888 and those for PBI have a 7777. You can delete rows or add additional rows by entering the same information as existing reports in the list, with an appropriate staff number.
Using the Criteria (QBF) Screen
The Criteria Screen allows you to limit the data shown by your reports. You select the data based on the available fields. It is very simple to use, especially if you follow a few easy rules.
Using a Single Criteria
If you want to limit your report to a single type of data, put that value next to the field you want. For example: putting 63 next to problem code limits the cases you report on to landlord tenant. If you add F next to gender, your report would contain landlord-tenant cases where the client is female.
Setting a Range
If you want a range of criteria, such as dates, use a dash. For example 1/1/16-6/30/16 next to dopen gives you cases opened in the first six months of 2016. Putting 60-69 next to pcode would give you housing cases. Beware when inputting criteria with a dash in it—for example, case numbers. (For more information, see Modifying the List or Range Criteria, below.)
Using a List of Values
If you want to report on a list of values, enter those values separated by commas. To find divorces, put 32, 63 next to the problem code. To find cases closed with an A or B, put A, B next to the reason closed label.
Using a Field not Listed
Suppose you want to choose a field that isn’t list on the form? Go to the ‘Choose Other Fields Below’ section and choose the field you want from the pull down. For example Children. You could then put > 4 next to children to get families with more that four children. You can choose up to two fields not listed in the specifically on the form this way.
Saving or Loading Your Criteria
The Save and Load Buttons allow you to save the criteria for later use. If you save it just for your use, only you see the criteria. You can also save it so other people can use the criteria.
Sort
If you are using a query or form, you can choose the order of your data by choosing a sort fields in the ‘Sort By’ pull down. ASC means the data will be arranged A to Z. The DESC will mean that data will be arranged Z to A. This works for Forms and Queries but not for Access Reports, since sorting is integrated into reports.
Operators
Many different operators can be used in the fields. For example, Not B used next to Reason Closed would include all reasons closed except ‘B’. The operator >= 60 used next to Age would include clients whose age is greater than or equal to 60.
Advanced Options
This section allows you to do two things, change the list and range designators, and modify the SQL language used to run the report.
Modifying the List or Range Criteria
You would do this only if you were searching for something containing a dash or a comma. For example, if you wanted case 15E-777777, you would change the range specifier from a dash to a colon. Otherwise the report would attempt to find cases whose case number was from 15E to 777777, an irrational request.
Modifying the SQL Language
This allows advanced users to modify the SQL language before generating the report. Explaining how to do this is beyond the scope of this paper.
Using the Browse Feature in the Preview Search and Tree View Search
Both the Preview Search and Tree View Search Screens have a utility that allows you to preview the group of reports available for a specific table. Let’s use an example of finding the reports available for Time from the Preview Search Screen.
a. Open the Preview Search screen as described above
b. Click on the Browse button.
c. Use the pull down to choose the table you want to browse, in our example TTime.
d. The first report available shows on the screen. Use the navigation buttons at the bottom left of the screen to move through the reports. The name and description of the report and a screen shot appears of what the report will look like.
e. You can find one you like, close the browse window, select the report in the list by single clicking on it, and press the ‘Run Report’ button to use the report.
END OF PART ONE ****************************************************