Administration - How to Build a Report

Where found? Operations menu > Reports

Accessibility? Users with administration permission can create and edit reports. All other users can run reports (Note that each report will only reflect the projects that each user has permission to access).

How used?

SolarNexus provides two distinct types of reports:

1) Project Detail Reports

Each row in these reports is a project that meets the defined criteria. The columns are selected in the definition. Project Detail reports should be defined to focus on a clear and limited set of projects. For example: Sales Status by Owner, Sold Jobs Needing Permit, Upcoming Installations, etc. When run, the report will give you current information about the projects listed.

2) Project Summary Reports

Summary reports provide statistics (sums, min/max/avg) for various measures of interest about projects. For example: Sales Funnel by Lead Source, Sales Process Completion Times, kW Sold by Month, Current Projects by Milestone, Pricing and Job Size Trends, etc.

Create Report

To create a new Detail or Summary report, click the button to "Add Report For..." button, and select which job process you wish to create a report for.  Reports are specific to each of your job processes since form options are heavily dependent on the specific milestones defined for each process.

TIP: You can also create a new report by copying an existing report. From the report edit screen, click the "Clone" button. Then make your desired edits.

Complete the following fields for each report:

Report Name: Provide a short descriptive name for your report.

Job Process:  Once created, the Job Process for which the report will be run is shown read-only, for your reference, because changing job process would practically invalidate several report option selections. In addition, Job Process will be read-only when editing a report.

Report Format: One record per row means that the fields for the record are in columns. One Field Per Line means that the entire report is in a single column where the last field of one record is followed by the first field of the next record.

Description: We strongly suggest including a clear description of the report so that you and other users know what projects are included, who should use it, and what information it provides or what it is used for.

Restrict CSV download to administrators Check this box if your report includes any sensitive information that you don't want users to be able to export. For example, you don't want a salesperson to export a list of sales leads.

Define Project Criteria

Every report has a Project Criteria section that defines what projects will be included in the report.

The first criteria is to define what projects will be included by their high level status. Its important to limit your report output to only the projects that are relevant. The following is a list of the high level project status's and their meanings:

• Active - Any project that is not lost/archived, completed, cancelled, or deferred. Its the stuff your company is currently working on.
• Archived (Lost) - Any pre-sale leads/opportunities that have been taken out of your active leads for any reason (the Archive button was used - reasons may include unqualified, purchased from competitor, not interested, etc).
• Cancelled - Any project that was sold but cancelled for any reason (the Cancel button was used).
• Completed - Projects where the "Project Complete" milestone has been completed.
• Deferred - This includes Pre-sale leads/opportunities that are deferred for action until a later date (the "Defer" button was used), OR for sold projects or work orders that have been put On-Hold (the "Put on Hold" button was used).

If you only want to see projects currently in your sales process, you should uncheck Archived, Cancelled, Completed, and possibly Deferred.

The second criteria is a set of one or more fields for which you can set specific values. If you only want to see residential or commercial projects listed in your report, then select "Sector" from the list of Available Criteria. Once you've picked the criteria fields, you have the option to specify values for each. Your options include:

• Leave criteria unchecked to allow user to specify their desired value when running the report
• Check the criteria box to define a default value to be populated when running the report, but allowing the report user to change the value.
• Check the criteria box AND check the default criteria lock box (next to each default criterion) to specify a criteria value that cannot be changed by the report user. This is best option for very specific criteria that should not be changed because it would change the very meaning of the report. It also makes the report easier to use because the user does not have to think about setting options.   

Showing projects in a given project phase

To return projects in a very specific phase of a project, use a combination of the "Complete Milestone" and "Incomplete Milestone" criteria. The example below shows the case of showing only projects where the "Permit Issued" milestone has been completed (project has a permit), but "Work Started" milestone has not been completed (the installation has not yet started). Both of these conditions have been locked so that when the report is run, those conditions are not available to be changed.

NOTE: Custom fields are not currently listed in the Available Criteria.

Output Columns (Detail Reports only)

For Project Details reports, you select what data fields you want to include in the output. Simply scroll through the list and click on fields to add. They will be automatically moved to the selected output fields column. Just click the "X" icon if you make a mistake. Drag and drop the selected output column fields into the order in which you want the columns to appear in the report. Be conscious of how many output fields you select - too many fields tend to be "noise" without benefit. Only include fields that you'll use.

Date format: For date-time outputs, you can specify whether you want the time to be included with the date, or just the simple date as output.

NOTE: All custom fields are included in the list of available output columns

Summarize Project Data By (Summary Reports only)

Summary reports provide totals, so you can select "Dimensions" on which you can summarize the data (get totals, averages, etc). Here are some example dimensions:

• Last Completed Standard Milestone - will summarize the results for all projects where the Last Completed Milestone is equal to the specified standard milestones
• Lead Source - will show results summarized by the Lead Source of the project
• Sold Finance Program - will show results summarized by the finance program used for the sale

You can select one or more dimensions to summarize by. After selecting a dimension, you can check its box and get a list of available options from which to pick the specific values of that dimension you want to include. For example, the lead source dimension would provide you a list of lead sources from which you could select a subset or all. To select a subset, hold down the CTRL key while selecting values.

Summary Stats (Summary Reports only)

Select the stats that you want to know about the projects that meet the defined criteria. Some example stats:

• Projects - number of projects that meet the defined criteria
• Avg / Min / Max Sold Price - Stats on the prices for sold projects that meet the defined criteria
• Avg Milestone Completion Time - For all projects that meet the defined criteria, this is the average elapsed time from when the specified milestone is started until it is completed
• Avg Milestone Elapsed Time - For all projects that meet the defined criteria, this is the average time it takes from project lead creation until the specified milestone is completed
• Total Sold Capacity (kWstc) - The sum total of all the rated PV system capacity for sold projects that meet the defined criteria