Report Sections

This help file applies to an out-of-date version of MainBoss.
The most recent version of MainBoss is MainBoss 4.2.4.
For the latest version of this help file can be found here.

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The window associated with a report organizes options into sections. Different reports have different sections, but here are the most common:

Grouping, Sorting or Grouping and Sorting: Lets you control how the report is organized. For example, suppose you're printing information on work orders. The report will be divided into sections, with each section containing work orders that have something in common. For example, each section might refer to a different location (which gives you a location-by-location breakdown of the work you do). As another example, you might group your information by unit, so that you get a unit-by-unit breakdown of your work orders.

Within each section, you can sort by other criteria. With work orders, for example, you can sort by "Start Date" (the date each job began), by "End Date" (the date each job ended), by work order number, and so on.

If you choose a grouping option, MainBoss offers you more options so that you can create sub-groups within groups. Similarly, if you choose a sorting option, MainBoss offers you more options so that you can refine the sorting process.

Grouping options break a report into sections; each section has headings to indicate the start of the section, and may have footers as well. (If a section has more than five entries, the total number of entries will be shown in parentheses after the group heading.) Sorting options sort information within each section; they do not result in headings.

If a particular group has no elements, that group will not appear in the report. For example, suppose you're printing information about inventory items, grouped by item category. If a particular category has no items in it, that category will be omitted from the report.

Filtering: A report filter lets you select which records you do and don't want in the report. For example, you might want to restrict a report on units to units in a particular category or range of unit IDs. Filter sections let you specify such restrictions. For more on how report filters work, see Report Filters.

Advanced: Lets you specify a title for the report when it is printed, the fonts to be used, and (usually) the types of data that the report contains.

In some reports, Advanced options let you obtain summaries. A summary typically gives totals and sub-totals of monetary amounts for the groups and sub-groups of the report. In some cases, the summary may also give you averages (e.g. the average lifespan of a particular kind of equipment). If you do not specify Grouping section options, summaries may not give you much information.

Show checkboxes: In most reports, the Advanced section contains a number of checkboxes that let you specify what information the report should contain. For example, in the window for printing work reports, you can use the checkboxes to say which information from a work report should be shown in the report.

When you specify that a particular piece of information should appear in a report, it will generally appear in a labeled column or else it will be labeled within a row. If you are grouping by a particular field, that field will be used as a group heading, so it won't also appear in a labeled column.

The columns in a report are made wider or narrower, depending on how many pieces of information you've asked for. Asking for many different data fields will shrink the width of each column and may make the report difficult to read. Printing a report in landscape format rather than portrait may improve readability. Another option is to export the report to Microsoft Excel; if you do that, you can avoid the problems that arise from trying to cram a lot of information onto a limited piece of paper.

Preview: Displays a preview of the report—a version of what you'd see if you actually printed the report on paper. Preparing such a preview may take some time, since MainBoss may have to process a lot of data; therefore, you might have to wait while MainBoss creates the preview.

The Preview section has buttons that let you specify which printer you want to use, the size of page margins, and other printing details. Another button lets you export data from the report (e.g. to Microsoft Excel). Finally, the Preview section has a button that will actually print the report.

Depending on the contents of your database, certain combinations of options in Grouping, Sorting, Filtering, and Advanced may result in a report with little or no useful information. You are encouraged to experiment with the options to find combinations that are particularly helpful to your work.

For more details on any of the standard buttons in a print window, see Report Buttons.

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