Running a Report

You can run any of the predefined reports that are held in vFire Core, defining their parameters when you run the report.

Before you start

You must have Reporting selected in your Reporting security role.

If you have a report summary visible, close it before running a new report.

  1. ClosedDisplay the Reporting window, if it is not already on screen.

    Select Menu and then Reports. From the submenu, select Run a Report . Alternatively, select the Reports button on the wrapper if visible, and then Run a Report.

  1. The Explorer pane on the left of the window contains a list of reports, covering both current and historical data, organized into groups. Some reports and groups are orange, indicating that further reports have been created based on the system standard one.

    Select the group to expand it if necessary and then select a report to display the details.

  2. The report summary is displayed, showing the title, subject and description of the report. If the details are not visible, expand the section by clicking on the title. You can select to:

    3. Display report description to display the report description in the generated or scheduled report
    Display report selection criteria to display the selection criteria will be displayed and included within the generated or scheduled report.

  3. You can then specify the Report Selection Criteria. These vary between reports and include a summary of parameters for running or scheduling a report. Certain reports also include further fields for specifying date ranges, IPK Groups, Analysts, Consultants and other variables.

    4. All fields for selecting parameters are case sensitive. For example, if for a report you have selected External Supplier as “Xyz Corp”, it will not match “XYZ Corp”.

    If you cannot see the details, ensure that the sections within Report Selection Criteria are expanded.

  4. Select Refresh Selection Criteria to display a summary of the defined parameters for the report.
  5. Select on the toolbar to run the report and display the details.

Viewing a Report

Run the report to display it on screen.

If vFire Core does not find any data that matches the criteria you have specified, the message “No Data Found” is displayed.

Any call or request report by service, configuration item, service action, service bundle and so on may display an Unspecified value. This represents any call or request that was logged without a linked service, configuration item, service action, service bundle, etc.

You will see the current page displayed in the bottom left corner of the reporting window. This can either appear as Page X or Page X of Y. You can determine how you want it displayed within the Report Designer.

If a report contains information from a partitioned table, the report will only include the information contained within the partition of the analyst who created the report unless the support analyst has ‘All Partitions’ access.

Copying Report Elements

After a report has been run, elements from the report such as text and images can be copied to from the report to the clipboard and pasted into another suitable application. For example, you can copy a chart from a report and paste it into Microsoft Word.

  1. Run the report.
  2. Right-click the report element and select Copy Element . The selected element is copied to the Windows Clipboard.
  3. Open the application into which you want to paste the copied element, and paste it in the normal way.

Changing Report Parameters

If you decide after you run a report that you want to alter some of the parameters, you can do so.

  1. Run the report.
  2. When the report details are displayed on screen, select the Configure button on the toolbar. The previous window is displayed once more, and you can update the selection criteria to suit your needs.

Saving a Report

After you run a report, you may decide that you want to save it under a new name if, say, you have changed the parameters and do not want to overwrite the original.

  1. Run the report.
  2. When the report details are displayed on screen, select on the toolbar.
  3. Type in a Report Title and select .
  4. The new report will appear beneath the original in the Explorer pane, and the original will now appear orange. If you cannot see the new report, select the arrow to the left of the original report to expand it.

Exporting a Report

You may decide that you want to save the report output to a file.

  1. Run the report.
  2. When the report details are displayed on screen, select the drop-down arrow to the right of the empty filename box on the toolbar. Then select a format from the drop down list.
  3. Select the Print to File button beside the box.
  4. In the Save As dialog box, navigate to the folder in which you want to save the file and select Save .

Graphs and pie charts are only exported to RTF and PDF files, not to an Excel spreadsheet.

When you export a report to Excel you may encounter an error message that says “File error: data may have been lost.” This is generally caused when multiple objects are placed very close together in the report design. This issue can be resolved by modifying the report to create more space between the objects.

When exporting to Excel, the BIFF5 file format is used. Each cell is limited to 246 bytes as opposed to the normal 255, as headers use up 9 bytes. This is a limitation of the third party reporting software. Note that Excel automation is not used when reports are exported.

Printing a Report

  1. Run the report.
  2. Select the Print button on the toolbar.
  3. Print the report, following the instructions on your screen.

You can change the existing layout of a report, if it is required, and then print the report on any printers to which you are connected. You should note that changing the layout of the report from Portrait to Landscape will truncate the data displayed from each side of the report.

If you print multiple copies of a report with an odd number of pages and your printer is set to print on both sides of the page, the second copy of the report will start printing on the back of the last page of the first copy. This is a technical limitation within the underlying vFire Core reporting engine. It is suggested you export such reports to a PDF file and print them from Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Modifying a Report

The reports within vFire Core have been designed to cater for most organizational needs. However, you can edit the format and layout to add further fields and charts and modify properties if you wish.

Reports are modified using a feature of vFire Core called Report Designer. While this makes creating and tailoring reports easier than it would be otherwise, you should have an understanding of relational database structures and a familiarity with report creation methodologies and terminology before attempting to alter existing templates or create custom ones. You should also be familiar with running a report within vFire Core.

  1. Run the report.
  2. Select on the toolbar. This displays the report designer, and you can adjust the design and layout to suit your requirements.