The Report Writer tool empowers portal administrators to create, organize, share, and schedule custom reports. There are several reporting entities you can use to develop reports: Course, Accreditation, Course Summary, Accreditation Summary, Course Attributes, User, Assessment Attempt, and Assessment Attributes. Note that some of the entities now available were not in this video, but the concepts for report development are the same.
Options for filters and columns vary depending on the entity selected. It’s important to note that you can only associate one entity to each report. For data analysis that requires multiple entities, such as accreditations AND the courses taken within them, you must run individual reports by entity and use Excel functions to merge results using common columns between reports.
Report execution is an asynchronous process to greatly reduce the risk of timeout errors. An email is sent when results are ready to view online. As with all LMS administrative tools, report filters and result data are scoped to a user’s profile organizational levels and the managerial reporting hierarchy, whether configured for Position-to-Position or Person-to-Person relationships. Portal Administrators may share custom reports with users in other roles who want to track employee progress. Report results can be downloaded as an Excel, CSV, or PDF file.
To get started, click the Reports link in the left navigation menu of the Classic Home page, or the Reports icon on the Navigation page. Manage your custom Report List, review Report Results from the last 30 days, or develop a list of Scheduled Reports for automatic execution.
Reports are organized by folder. To begin creating reports, Portal Administrators must add at least one folder.
*Name – Name the folder
Description – Provide information about the reports contained in the folder
*Language – English entry is required, translations are optional
The custom reporting engine provides the ability to write your own reports based on filters and columns related to these reporting entities: Course, Course Summary, Course Attributes, Accreditation, Accreditation Summary, User, Assessment Attempt, Assessment Attributes, and Organization.
Report Writer is designed to export raw data from the LMS into file formats that allow you to store and analyze results using external tools, such as Microsoft Excel or Access. It does not provide data analysis or aggregation options within the report setup inside the LMS.
To create a new report:
*Name: Name the report
Description: Provide a brief description of the report for users who will run it
*Language: English entry is required, translations are optional
*Folder: Choose the folder in which the report will reside
*Entity: Select either Course, Accreditation, Course Summary, Accreditation Summary, Course Attributes, User, Assessment Attempt, and Assessment Attributes. This setting determines all filter criteria, column options, and results data.
Summary reports will provide a grouping of selected columns with a count. Note that any duplicate records will be included in the count.
Share with Roles: Reports are always shared with Portal Administrators, who have full rights to run, edit, copy, or delete a report. If desired, you can allow users assigned other roles to run a report by selecting any of the following options. Their results will be scoped by their managerial purview. Non-managers, such as a student would only see their data.
• Administrator
• Instructor
• Location Administrator
• Location Manager
• Student
Note that it may be best to create and test the report prior to sharing it with others.
• Filter criteria will vary depending on the type of report being run: Course, Accreditation, Course Summary, Accreditation Summary, Course Attributes, User, Assessment Attempt, Assessment Attributes, and Organizations. See all options listed in Appendix A: Standard Filters.
• Standard Filters do not allow multiple value selection. Users can only enter one value per filter when running the report.
• Note that all standard filters are joined with “and” operators, so entering conflicting criteria will generate a report listing “No results found.”
– For example, when running a Course report, applying filters “Course is ExampleA” and “Course is ExampleB” will generate a report with no results. However, running a report with filters “Organization In Hierarchy Division” and “Position is Teacher” will only return transcripts for users who meet both criteria.
The Example Above
Some filter fields such as Transcript Status offer “is in list” as an option to select multiple values when all or nothing is not desireable.
The Advanced Filters Default statement is “Select records where all of the following apply”. Click the “all” link to select from a list of alternate operators.
To create a simple database query, modify the default statement, as needed, and then click [ Add new filter ] to select your criteria. Advanced Filter operators work to join filters in the reporting engine in the same way they do in the User Search tool.
• all = “and”
• any = “or”
• none = “and not”
• not all = “or not”
To restrict results to a specific subset of data:
• Add additional filters with the Add Condition icon
• Nest grouped criteria within each filter using the Add Group of Conditions icon
• Remove a condition using the Delete icon
Review the detailed criteria options for each Report Entity in Appendix B: Advanced Filters.
Are you seeing duplicate lines in your results? If learners have profiles in multiple locations or have multiple positions regardless of being active or inactive, their information may show duplication of transcript information per profile or per position. Use the Advanced filters under the User section of filters to eliminate duplication: User > User Profile is Primary and User > User Position is Primary. It’s a good practice to put these filters in the advance filters for all reports. If you still see duplication, other multi-value fields specified in your columns may cause this. A common one is User Group. When user’s have multiple user group associations, active or inactive, on an active profile, a user group column will list a line for each one. There is no current workaround to this particular issue except to remove user group as a column.
NOTE:
Do not create Advanced Filter criteria without providing search values. Leaving a condition with default [ select value ] will force the report to return results where condition matches [NULL], likely producing a “No results found” situation.
All Portal Administrators in your LMS enjoy full add, edit, copy, and delete rights for all custom reports and folders, even those they did not author. Share reports with other Roles to grant managers the ability to run custom reports, maintain their results repository, and setup a scheduled reports list for automatic execution. Report Folders will only display to users who have access to at least one custom report housed within the folder.
Next to the Folder Name, click the Edit icon to edit the record, or the Delete icon to delete it. NOTE: Deleting a folder permanently deletes all reports within the folder, as well as any online “Report Results” generated from them. If you want to remove a folder, but retain its reports and results, use the “Report Folder” field on the report setup to reassign each report to a different folder. When the folder is empty, it is safe to delete.
Modify a report using the same Edit icon. Note that the Edit Report page provides an audit log at the bottom:
• Created: [Date and Time] Created By: [Username]
• Last Updated: [Date and Time stamp] Last Updated By: [Username]
Make an exact copy of a report using the Copy Report icon, then use it as a template for a similar report.
Permanently delete a report using the Delete icon. NOTE: Deleting a report will have cascading effects for all users, as both the report and any online “Report Results” generated from it will be permanently erased from the database. Be sure to notify users that they need to export results to preserve data before deletion.
Custom reports can be built by system administrators and shared with other role. These shared reports are available for scheduling and distribution by email.
Portal administrators cannot schedule reports for other users, even other portal administrators. Each person with access must schedule a report for themselves. Regardless of role, the scheduling process is the same. Results will be scoped to your organizational purview.
To modify your scheduled report: