Report Form

When creating a new or editing an existing set of report criteria, you will perform your work within a standard form, called the Report form. This form automatically appears in the large display frame to the right of the Millennium Explorer when you identify a report name, a template name, or choose to create a custom criteria. When it is presented, the Report form will display the elements of the report, the template, or your default settings, depending on the nature of your task.

The Report form is divided into the following general areas:

Function Menu Bar

The top of the Report form shows a dark gray, horizontal menu bar listing the kinds of functions that are available. Most of these items trigger the display of three to six different items that are associated with that function and which will be displayed below in the Action menu bar. The exception is the New Line item, which directly initiates the process of creating a new line of criteria. You can tell at a glance which of the functions is activated by the lighter gray box highlighting the item in the Function Menu Bar.

When the items in the Action menu bar are displayed, they may be enabled or disabled, depending on the conditions at that time. For example, the Paste item will be disabled if there is nothing available on the clipboard to be pasted into the set of report criteria. Likewise, the Cut and Copy items will be disabled until a line of criteria has been highlighted and is available to cut or copy.

Each of the Functions, with the exception of Help, is described in detail in a topic of its own.

The functions and their actions are listed below.

File - Save, Save As, Save Group, Save Total, Print, and Run.

New Line - Leads immediately to Step 1 of the creation of a new line of criteria.

Add - Mandatory Group, Group, Gift Total, Dues Total, Use a Total, and Saved Criteria.

Edit - Change, Cut, Copy, Paste, Clipboard and Undo.

Option - Report, Param(eters), and Default.

Help

Report Info displays the available statistics about this report. These statistics include the report name, create date and create user, last edited date and last edited user, last run date and last run user, the amount of time the last run of the report took to select, export, and format the database records, the number of records selected and the total time elapsed. Report Info also lists any users who may have used the report's Criteria as a basis for an Express Report.

Starting Out accesses a Help Contents page composed of links to those Help topics that pertain to the reporting world. A new instance of the browser opens to display this Help Contents page.

File, Add, Edit, and Options accesses the Help topics that pertain to these functions. A new instance of the browser opens to display each topic.

Basic Report Options

There are several "basic" reporting options that are displayed and which may be edited from the text and pull-down list boxes just below the Function menu bars. These options may be edited at any time that the Report form is displayed.

These options are the Report Title, the Format/Utility name, the Combine Name Options, Duplicate Options, and the Deceased Options. Each is described below.

Report Title

The Report Title is a free text box which you may use to hold the title of the current report. This information may be up to 60 characters in length and it is the title that will (usually) display below the Institution or Division Name at the top of the report output. (You may also create or design formats that do not use this information.) Note that this title need not be the same as the name that you assign when saving the report criteria. The Report Title is passed to Crystal as a standard parameter.

Format/Utilities

When a report is launched in the Millennium Reporter, the system uses the criteria statements and other optional settings and examines the database to construct a generic worktable which identifies the appropriate constituent data. That worktable may then be 'handed off' to another process, which is identified in the Format/Utilities list box on the Report Form.

On the Options, Report form, under Output List, you may specify which of several lists you want to have displayed in the Format/Utilities list box. You may display the names of report formats from one particular library of Crystal Formats, a Batch file of your own creation, or a set of standard Millennium reporting utilities.

Each of these lists includes an entry labeled, (none). If you choose (none) from this list box, the MR will create the export worktable and (if you choose the corresponding option from the Run Report form) save it. In that situation, no further action is launched by the MR regarding that export worktable.

Crystal Formats

Report formats take the raw data in the export worktable and manipulate it into its final output form. Formats are created using the third party software, Crystal Reports. When Millennium is delivered, it includes a large number of standard formats which are used with the standard templates in the construction of report criteria. These were created using Crystal Reports and are stored in a specific Formats (or OracleFormats) directory structure, based on the Millennium standard report libraries: Biographical, Comparison, Daily, Events, Financial, Mailing, Membership, Pledge, and Prospect.

If you are creating a new report from one of the standard report libraries, then the report formats (.rpt files) that are available are those that are specific to the report library that you selected. For example, if you are creating a new report based on a template from the Daily library, then the Crystal formats that are listed in the Format/Utilities list box are all of the formats that are stored in the Formats/Daily (or OracleFormats/Daily) directory.

You can also construct and save your own formats into these same standard directories, or you may save them into a different location. To have available a list of report formats from a location other than the default library location, you must first specify the location by using the Options, Report, Report Path text box. When the Options, Report Form, Output List Crystal radio button is activated, the Format/Utilities list will display the Crystal Formats that are found in that library/directory.

To edit the choice of a Format name and use another Format in the same directory, display the list and click on one to choose it. To edit the choice to a Format that is in another library/directory, click on the Option, Report menu items and edit the Report Path text box to show the location of the desired directory.

Batch File

The MR provides the means of automatically launching an executable program (a batch file) of your own construction from within the Millennium Reporter. When the Batch File Output List option is activated, the Format/Utilities list in the report form will display a list of all files (regardless of type) from the Report Path location identified via Options, Report, Report Path. While this feature was designed with the expectation that this would be a batch file, it may also list files of other types.

Utilities

When the Utilities Output List option is activated, the Format/Utilities list box will display the names of the standard Millennium utilities that are designed to be launched from the MR, using a generic worktable to identify constituents or specific data rows that should be considered for the action of the utility.

Combine Options

This function does not apply to Event Reporting and therefore this text box is not shown on the Event Report Form.

The functions described here are available for two constituents who are linked by the Spousal Relationship Types of "sp - Spouse", "cm - Combine Mail", and "lp - Life Partner". For simplicity, we will use the terminology, "spouse" to include all three of these Relationship Types.

There are three options available in the handling of spouse name data in reporting.

Combine when either selected

The Combine when either selected option is used when you want to use a combined name form, regardless of whether one or both of the constituents in a pair were selected. With this option activated, the following things occur:

  1. The system checks to identify constituent spouse pairs where either spouse owns a row of data that "passed" all the selection criteria.

  2. The spouse whose passing row was encountered first will have the combined form of his and his spouse's (or hers and her spouse's) placed in the export worktable in the Name field and the combined salutation name copied to the Salutation field (assuming all other name options are set to include this data).

  3. That spouse whose data was encountered first will have a flag (the field, Combine, Y/N) added to the export table for each of his or her rows that are delivered. The flag is a reflection of the kind of name that is being held in the Name and Salutation field.

  4. The system automatically removes the rows belonging to the second spouse from the export worktable and report (if there were any that passed). There is no protocol for determining which spouse's rows are kept and which are removed.

    5. Note: This behavior can be altered by use of the Option, Report, Spouse Removal option.

Combine when both selected

  1. The Combine when both selected option is used when you want to use the combined name form only when both spouses have rows that passed the selection criteria. If only one spouse is selected, the combined name form is not used for that spouse. When this option is selected, the following will happen:

  2. The system checks to identify constituent spouse pairs where both spouses have at least one row of data that has passed all the selection criteria.

  3. The spouse whose row was encountered first will have the combined form of his Format Name and Salutation Name placed in the export worktable in the Format and Salutation fields (assuming all other name options are set to include this data).

  4. That spouse whose row was encountered first will have a flag (the field, Combine, Y/N) added to the export worktable for each of his or her rows that are delivered. The flag is a reflection of the kind of name that is being held in the Name and Salutation columns.

Do not combine spouse names

The Do not combine spouse names option is used when you do not want to use the combined name form under any circumstances in this report. Each spouse that is chosen will have his or her own singular formatted name delivered to the export worktable and report.

Duplicate Options

The Duplicate Options allow you to accept or not accept multiple rows belonging to the same constituent into the worktable.   Selection criteria are constructed to select rows (rather than simply identify constituents) and so there may be multiple data rows identified in the worktable that belong to the same constituent. In some cases, you might want the final report output to show all the selected rows and in others, you may prefer to show only one row per constituent.

For example, a set of criteria may be designed to find all gifts to the annual fund last year. If you want to produce a report that calculates totals for these transactions, then you do NOT want to remove any of the duplicates (different rows belonging to the same constituent). If you are producing an end of the year mailing to each constituent who contributed to the annual fund last year, then you DO want to remove duplicates so that each person only receives one piece of mail.

Allow duplicates

When the Allow duplicates option is chosen all selected rows are delivered to the export worktable (unless some other option removes certain ones of them for other reasons).

Remove duplicates

When the Remove duplicates option is chosen, the selected rows are examined to see if any belong to the same constituent. If so, only one is kept and the others are removed from the export worktable. It is not possible to predict or control which of the selected rows are saved and which are removed.

Deceased Options

This function does not apply to Event Reporting and therefore this text box is not shown on the Event Report Form.

The Deceased options give you the ability to very easily include or exclude rows that belong to constituents who are deceased or, for corporations or foundations, disbanded. For simplicity, we will use the term, "deceased" to describe both. This status is determined by the existence of a Death row .

Include Deceased

The Include Deceased option allows all selected constituents to be delivered to the export worktable, regardless of the presence of a Death row.

Exclude deceased

When the Exclude deceased option is chosen, the system will examine all selected rows to see if the owner also has a Death row. If so, that selected row is removed from the export worktable.

Criteria Statement Display

The Report form includes a large display area where all criteria statements for the current report are shown. The set of statements will generally begin with the words, "Select all", followed by text that describes in (approximately) standard English, those rows that will be selected by the run of the report criteria.

In general, each criteria statement will be shown on a separate line in the display, though statements may use many lines if there are multiple objects in the statement.

These criteria statements can not be created or edited as if they were free text. These tasks must be accomplished via the action buttons associated with the Add and Edit Functions shown at the top of the Report form.

If there are more lines of criteria than will fit in the display area, a scrolling elevator will appear. If you choose to Print (accessed via the File Function shown at the top of the Report form) a set of report criteria, all statements will be included, not just those that are visible at the moment.

For more information about understanding Criteria, and writing or editing Criteria, see the following topics:

Understanding Criteria Statements

Criteria Statement Organization

Writing Criteria Statements

Groups in Criteria

Totals in Criteria

Edit Report Criteria

Report Form Edit Modes

For Profile reporting, the Main Report Form can be placed into one of two edit modes: Normal Edit mode, which is also known as single-select mode, and Clipboard Edit mode, which is also known a multi-select mode. This is a user Default Report Option; each user determines which mode he or she wants to work in, and then sets it via Default Option, Show Clipboard. When set to Yes, the Report Form can be placed in Clipboard Edit mode - the ability to select multiple criteria lines and statements is enabled. When set to No, the Report Form can only remain in Normal Edit mode, and the ability to select multiple criteria lines and statements is disabled.

Clipboard Edit Mode

The Main Report Form cannot be placed into Clipboard Edit mode for Event reporting.

The Edit Function Menu bar's Clipboard action item can be enabled when one or more criteria lines or statements have been added to the Criteria Statement Display, or if criteria has been placed on the clipboard at any point when the user is logged into Millennium.

Multiple criteria lines and statements can be Copied or Cut and placed in the clipboard, and then Pasted, all at one time. Criteria can be pasted into the current report, or into a different report. This criteria will remain on the Report Form's clipboard until

  1. they are replaced with the next set of criteria that the user Copies or Cuts.

  2. they are removed via the Clear Clipboard button located on this form.

  3. the user logs out of Millennium.

Behind the scenes, the criteria that is in the user's clipboard is stored in the report_clipboard system table.

Clipboard Controls

Three Clipboard Controls will display on the Report Form.

Paste Window The last set of criteria that the user has Cut or Copied will display in this window. When different criteria is selected and then Cut or Copied, the Paste Window current contents will be emptied, and then replaced with the currently selected criteria. When the Report Form is in Clipboard Edit mode, only the criteria that is currently displayed in the Paste Window will be available for Pasting. And all criteria lines and statements that currently display in the Paste Window will be Pasted; a user cannot select individual criteria lines or statements out of this window to paste into a report.

Clear Clipboard clears the contents of the Main Report Form's clipboard, the contents of the Paste Window, and deletes the rows in the report_clipboard system table that are owned by the user.

Cancel will place the Report Form back into Normal Edit Mode. You will not be able to Copy or Cut multiple lines of criteria, nor will the contents of the Paste Window be available. Cancel does not clear the contents of the Main Report Form's clipboard nor the contents of the Paste Window, and the rows in the report_clipboard system table, that are owned by the user, will not be deleted.

Normal Edit Mode

Only one line of criteria or one criteria statement can be selected for Copy or Cut, and can held in the clipboard for Pasting, at one time. The criteria can only be pasted into the current report. If the Show Clipboard Default Option is set to No, the Edit>Clipboard action item remains disabled. The Clipboard controls - Paste Window, Clear Clipboard, and Cancel - will not be shown on the Main Report Form. The contents of the clipboard will be cleared when the current report is saved (via Save, Save As, or Run) or when the current report is no longer displayed for editing.

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