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Using Views and Advanced Search to Create Custom Reports

You can use a combination of page views and advanced search to create a wide variety of custom reports. For example, to know how many books have been borrowed by each gender in each tutor group, you can run the 'Past Loans By Year Group And Tutor Group' report from the Past Loans table in the 'Reports' module. However this report does not show which books have been borrowed, just how many. You can achieve this using a page view or advanced search. 

Advanced Search or Page View?

Which you choose will depend on whether the information shown in the default table is all you need to know or not and whether you wish to carry out this search just once or multiple times.

In the Past Loans table the data columns are 'Issue date', 'Return Date', 'Author', 'Title', 'Borrower Surname', 'Borrower Forename' and 'Borrower Year Group'. If this is all the information you would need and this is a one off search then you can use advanced search, if you require more information (Such as ISBN or location) or you wish to save this search for use in the future you will need to use a page view. 

 

Advanced Search

The advanced search feature is used to filter the table down to just the records you require. For this report you will need to filter the table down, a good start would be one year group and one gender at a time.

  • While in management select the 'Past Loans' table on the left-hand side.
  • Select 'Advanced Search' under the 'Quick Search' box.
  • If the large box in the middle is not empty press 'Remove All'.
  • From the menu under 'Field' select 'Gender' under 'Borrower table'.
  • From the menu under 'Operator' select 'Equal To'.
  • From the menu under 'Value' select 'Female'.
  • Press 'Add'.
  • This search will now be added to the large box in the middle.
  • Now back at the top of the box, from the menu under 'Boolean' select 'And'.
  • From the menu under 'Field' select 'Year Group' under 'Borrower table'.
  • From the menu under 'Operator' Select 'Equal To'.
  • From the menu under 'Value' type '1'.
  • Press 'Add'.
  • This search will now be added to the large box in the middle'
  • The large box will now say 'New Gender Equal To Female and Year Group Equal To 1'.
  • Press 'Apply'

The table will now be filtered to only past/current loans to female borrowers in year 1. The number of loans will be displayed in the top right corner. You can then use the sort feature to group the records by tutor group. 

You can select 'Print' on the right of the screen to print this list. Now return to advanced search and edit these searches to male in year 1, female in year 2, male in year 2 etc. 

You can add a whole host of different searches in advanced search to create some really custom reports. 

 

Page View

A page view is used when you wish to see more information than that which is displayed on the table by default or if you wish to save this search for later use. 

  • To create a new view, first carry out the steps above using advanced search to create your search criteria.

  • Select 'More...' from the bottom right-hand corner of the screen under 'Views'.

  • Select 'New'.

  • When asked if you wish to create a new view based on the current one, select 'Yes'.

  • When the box appears select the 'Record Selection' tab and you will see the search you applied in the advanced search has been imported into search box.

  • Select the 'Layout' tab.

  • This page allows you to decide what will show in the table, if there is a field you do not want, select it from the 'Display Fields' box in the middle and press the arrow pointing to the left to remove it.

  • To add a field, select it from the 'Available Fields' box on the left and press the arrow pointing to the right to add it to the box in the middle.

  • Use the up and down arrows to arrange the order in which the fields display, the fields from top to bottom will display from left to right .

  • When you are happy with the layout give the view a name in the 'Description' box at the top.

  • Press 'Save'.

You will now be returned to the 'Views' box. Close this and select 'More...' again and then select the view you have just created. You can now use the 'Print' feature on the right to print off the table. 

When creating a report with a date or date range, avoid using the 'Equal to' or 'Not Equal to' options in the 'Operator' field as the time stamp can make this very picky. It is better to use 'Greater Than' and 'Less Than'. This search is not inclusive, for example "Date Issued Greater Than 31/01/2022 And Date Issued Less Than 01/03/2022" will show only resources issued in February 2022.