Advanced Reporting

Advanced Reports allows you to build complex and feature-rich reports with the use of the Report Designer. 

The most powerful reporting tools are available with Advanced Reports, including geographic maps; repeating groups; complex join, filter, and sort logic; drilldowns to linked child reports, and more. Advanced Reports are made using a spreadsheet-like cell-grid interface. Advanced Reports can be executed to a browser-based Report Viewer interface, which allows for interactivity, additional changes to be made without re-running the report, and for saving user-specific customization. 

👍 It is always best, before writing a custom report, to check the Default reports to see if there is a report that already does what you want. At the very least, there may be a default report that you can copy and then edit in order to save yourself some time.  

Creating a New Custom Report  

1. From the Main Menu, select Reports.
   
   
2. From the Reports Index page, click the Create (+) button on the Getting Started window or the Add (+) button to create a new report and then select Advanced Report.
3. The Add Data Objects dialog appears. Select from the list of data objects the ones you wish to add to the report by clicking on them and dragging them onto the right panel.  
   For example, if you wish to add Volunteer objects to the report, click the arrow next to ‘Volunteer’ category to expand a list of objects. On the list, click on the Volunteer object and drag it to the section on the right, or double click on it to add.
   
   You may have to select objects to provide a “join path” between the required objects, but not all of these data objects need to appear on the report.
   
   Click Okay. 
4. This example report will group and summarize data by the Volunteer Name, and by the Active Status name. Sorts are required to create groups. To create sorts: 
   1. 1. Click the Sorts  icon on the toolbar to open the Report Sorts dialog.
         
         
      2. From the dropdown on the top-left, choose the Volunteer object, and on the selection of fields, click on Active Volunteer and drag it to the section on the right, or double click on it to add Active Status as a sort.
         
         
      3. Repeat step b to add Full Name as a second sort. You can also add Opportunity Name last as a sort.
      4. Click Okay to close the Report Sorts dialog.
5. Identify how many columns you’ll need for the report. For this example, we will need two columns: one with the Active Category and Volunteer Names, the other with the Opportunity Names. The other columns can be removed from the grid. To remove:
1. 1. Hold the Ctrl key on the keyboard and click the column headers for columns C, D and E.
   2. Click the Column Menu icon to open the Column Menu.
   3. Click  Delete 3 Column(s). Alternatively, you can click delete for each column one by one.
      
      
6. The Page Header section is also not needed for this example report. Click the Section Menu  icon on the Page Header, then click Delete Section. The design grid should now look like this:
   
7. The chart will reside in the Report Header section. To add it:
   1. 1. Click the Add Section button.
      2. Click Report Header.
         
         
8. Add the Group Header sections for the Active Category and Volunteer Name:
1. 1. Click the Add Section button.
   2. Click Group Header.
   3. In the Group Header dialog, select Volunteer.Active Volunteer from the dropdown list.
      
      
   4. Click Okay to close the Group Header dialog.
   5. Repeat steps 1–3 for Volunteer.Full Name. 
      The design grid should now look like this:
      
      
9. Add the data to the cells on the design grid:
1. 1. Add Volunteer.Active Volunteer, Volunteer.Full Name, and Opportunity.Opportunity Name directly from the Data Objects Pane by dragging it to the appropriate cells.
   2. Type the columns names.
10. Now is a good time to save the report. Click the Save  icon on the toolbar. Enter a Name, an optional Description and select the NonProfitEasy folder then select your organization folder to save.
11. Apply font and color formatting.
    1. 1. Select a cell, then click the Background Color icon on the toolbar.
       2. Click the Bold icon to increase a font's weight. 
       3. Click the Horizontal Alignment  icon, then choose Center to center the text.
       4. Hold the Ctrl key on the keyboard and click multiple cells. Click the Merge Cells icon on the toolbar to combine cells together.
12. The design grid will look something like this:
    
    
13. Click Run on the toolbar to execute the report to see the progress so far. In the Report Viewer, the report should look like this:
    
     

Additional Resources 

• Advanced Reports: Sections 
• Advanced Reports: Design Grid
• Advanced Reports: Sorts 
• Charts