From MITMS wiki

Overview

Report Builder is a general purpose feature that lets administrators build reports to be viewed by themselves and other users.

Report Features

• Basic and advanced filtering
• Pagination
• Sort by table columns
• Export to CSV/ODS/XLS

Report Builder Features

• Add/remove/reorder filters displayed on report
• Add/remove/reorder columns displayed on report
• Custom column headers
• Access restrictions to limit who can view the report
• Content restrictions to limit which records are displayed by various criteria
• Plugin architecture for easy definition of new filters/columns/restrictions

Settings

Initial Configuration

Before use by a Moodle administrator the site must be configured by a developer to provide a set of available sources. See the Technical Documentation for details.

Report Settings

Report builder can be accessed through the "Report Settings" menu on the site administration block. Settings for an individual report can also be accessed by clicking the "Edit this report" button on the report page, or via the Settings icon in the Report Manager Block (visible when page editing is switched on).

Main report settings page

Report Builder settings in "Site administration > Report Settings > Report Builder"

The main settings page allows you to view existing reports and create new ones. Existing reports are listed, with user generated reports appearing first, then any embedded reports appearing below that. Finally there is a form for creating a new report.

When creating a report you must define:

• A title. This is the name of the report which appears on the report page and in the Report Manager block
• A source. This is the type of data that the report will display (e.g. Face to face session data or course completion data). The pulldown will provide a list of possible sources. If you want to produce a report for a new source you must create certain files. See the Technical Documentation for more details.
• Hidden option. If this checkbox is checked, the report will not be shown in the Report Manager block, but will still be accessible if a user visits the report's page.

Once you have created a new report you will be taken to the access options for that report, which you should configure so the correct users have access to the report. Based on the source chosen the report will be pre-populated with some default filters and columns, but these can be modified by clicking on the appropriate tabs.

Individual report settings page

Each report settings page contains options spread across multiple tabs:

• General Settings. This allows you to update the title of a report, and alter whether the report is shown in report manager. The report source is also shown. Note that once a report has been created you cannot change its source, you must create a new report with the new source.
• Filter Settings. This section determines which search filters will be available to users of the report. You can add, remove and reorder filters. If the advanced checkbox is selected then that filter will be hidden on the report page by default, and will only become visible when the user clicks the "Show Advanced" button.

The filter options available in the pulldown is determined by the source of the report. To add additional filter options, see the Technical Documentation for more details.

• Columns Settings. This section determines which columns are show when the report is displayed or exported. You can add, remove and reorder the columns. Columns at the top of the list appear on the left of the report. You can enter your own column heading in the text box and it will be displayed above that column in the report.

The column choices available in the pulldown is determined by the source of the report. To add additional columns, see the Technical Documentation for more details.

• Content Settings This section lets you restrict which records appear in the report, based on a number of criteria. If you want all available records to appear then select 'Show all records'. If you want to restrict the content you can choose if you want to show records where all the criteria below must match, or if you want to show records where any of the criteria below match.

Below the 'Content Controls' radio button you will see a number of options for how to restrict your content. Which appear depends on the source of the report. To enable an option select the enable checkbox and configure any additional settings.

Common options may include:

• • Show by Current Organisation Determine which office the viewer of the report belongs to. Show the user all records for staff members that currently belong to that office, or any office below that office in the hiearchary (if child option is selected).
  • Show by Completed Organisation Subtly different from the above, this restriction considers where the record was completed, rather than the current office of the user that completed it.
  • Show by User Only display records that belong to the current user, or that belong to a user who's manager is the current user, or both.
  • Show by Date Only display records that match the specified date criteria.

• Access Settings This section allows you to restrict which users can view the report. If you don't want any restrictions then select the 'All users can view this report' button. Otherwise select 'Only certain users can view this report', then check which roles you want to have access.

Individual Report General settings tab	Individual Report columns tab	Individual Report filters tab
Individual Report content tab	Individual Report access tab

Report Page

An example report

Once a report has been created it can be viewed on the report page. A link to this page will be added to the Report Manager block for any user who has permission to view the report (unless the report is set to hidden).

The report itself consists of a filter block, which contains all of the filters selected on the settings page. Below that is page navigation, followed by the report itself.

Once filters have been defined an active filter block appears below the define filters block. This shows which filters are currently active and allows you to remove some or all of them. The heading lists the total number of records and the number left after the current filters have been applied.

Clicking on the column headings sorts the report by the values in that column. Clicking a second time does a reverse order sort. Once sorted, an arrow will appear in the heading indicating the direction and column which is being sorted. Sort options will be carried over to the exported version of a report.

Filters and sort order will be remembered over the course of a session for each user.

In addition to the columns defined from within site builder, the report may show one or more additional administration columns to users with the appropriate permissions to view them. These are defined in the adminoption.php file for the report's source. See the Technical Documentation for more details.

Export

Below the main report is an export button which can be used to produce a hardcopy of any report. Select the format from the pulldown then click Export and you will be prompted to save the file to your hard drive. Format options are:

• CSV Comma separated variable format. This is a simple plain text format which can be read by most spreadsheet programs.
• ODS ODS files are an open format that can be viewed in OpenOffice.
• XLS XLS files are the standard format for Microsoft Excel.

The results provided in the file will reflect any active filters and column sorting from the main report page.

Report Manager Block

Report Manager Block

The Report Manager Block provides a single location for a user to view all the reports which they have permission to view. The list is built automatically based on available reports and user capabilities.

If the user has permission and has turned page editing on, they will also see an icon to edit individual reports.