Discoverer - Modifying Pre-Defined Reports

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Distribution

ODS Specialist

Ownership

The Director of the Business Support Center is responsible for ensuring that this document is necessary, reflects actual practice, and supports corporate policy.

After opening a Pre-Defined Report you can Modify it to meet your needs. This example shows the IS.FM: Expenditure Details by Project report. This report requires that you select one or more values for the GL period (calendar month) and Project Carrying-Out Organization.

Do not use the parameters selected below, instead, select the past GL period and your own ORG.

Modifying Pre-Defined Reports

In this example, the Organization has only four projects.

1. Select the drop-down box of the Page Number field when it is in the first position on the Page Items line.

The report contains data for all four projects in the list. The project that is checked is the one for which data is displayed, therefore, when you select a different project you will see different data.
The data set does NOT change as you change the display - only the VIEW of the data.

Pre-Defined Reports

2. To see data for all four projects at once in the spreadsheet, drag the Project Number and Project Name off the Page Items line.

If you drag the Project Number into the spreadsheet but leave the Project Name, you are still seeing information for only one project at a time. In this case no column names remain on the Page Items line.

Sorting Data

Discoverer will allow you to Sort by any of the columns. The following example shows sorting by the award number.

3. Select [Tools, Sort] from the Menu bar.

4. Select [Add].

You will see a list of all the columns in the report.

5. To select the criteria that you want to sort by, put your cursor in the block to the left of the column name.

6. Select [Move Up] repeatedly until the criteria you want to sort by is in the first position.

Sort Data

7. Select Group Sort and each Award number will be listed only once.

8. Select [OK] to run the sort. In this example the sort is by award number.

9. Selecting [Line, 1] puts a line before the data for the next Award.

The data display below shows expenditures by Award. Group Sort caused the Award number to print out once.

Formatting the Sheet

Data is easier to analyze if it all shows on the screen without scrolling. You can format the data in a column or in a header to wrap text (similar to Excel).

10. Left click in the column header to select the column. Right click to bring up the formatting options.

In this example the user is causing the text within the column to wrap. Note that formatting the heading is a separate action.

11. Select [Wrap Text].

This feature enables you to produce a version for printing that is compact enough to print all columns on one page.

Some columns are redundant. You can delete them from your report.

12. Right click in the header for the column you want to delete.

The column will highlight as shown below.

13. Select [Delete] to remove the column from your report.

The column can be added back by selecting additional items. There is a navigation instruction that will guide you through that process.

Adding Grid Lines

14. Select [Tools \ Options].

The Table tab contains the option for lines.

15. Select [Horizontal Gridlines and or Vertical Gridlines].

End of activity.

Effective: 08/16/04