Reports
A report is a saved question about your data. It gathers the records matching your rules and shows them grouped and totalled however you chose.
The important part: a report stores the question, not the answer. It re-reads your live data every time somebody opens it, so there is no such thing as an out-of-date report and no copy to get stale.
The two things you will do
Run one somebody else built. Most people only ever do this. Start at Finding a report, then Running a report.
Build your own. Choose what the report is about, pick columns, group, total, filter and save. Start at Report types — that choice is the one you cannot easily undo.
The whole section, in order
| Page | Covers |
|---|---|
| Finding a report | Folders, favourites, who can see what |
| Running a report | Opening one, reading it, refreshing |
| Report types | What a report is about. Fixed at creation |
| The builder | Every control on the screen |
| Columns | Adding, ordering, removing |
| Grouping | Rows, columns, and the three report shapes |
| Totals | Sum, average, minimum, maximum |
| Filters | Which records are included |
| Filter logic | AND, OR, NOT and brackets |
| Bucket columns | Categories you invent |
| Formula columns | Row-level and summary calculations |
| Charts | Turning a grouping into a picture |
| Saving | Save, Save As, and working on somebody else's report |
| Exporting | Spreadsheet downloads |
| Folders | Where reports live and who sees them |
| Sharing | Giving another company access |
The order that works
If you are building your first report, do it in this order. Each step depends on the one before it.
- Report type — what the report is about.
- Filters — which records are in it.
- Columns — which fields you can see.
- Grouping — how rows gather together.
- Totals — what gets added up.
- Chart — optional, and only possible once you have a grouping.
- Save — into a folder, with a name somebody else will understand.
Building out of order mostly works, but grouping before filtering means you are reading totals of records you are about to remove.