Dialog Controls for Reports |
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Each of the statistical reports is created interactively from a dialog. Just select the desired options in the dialog, then click the Generate Report button. You can then Print the report, or adjust the options to generate other reports. Whenever you have finished generating reports of a particular type, just Close the dialog. The last options you selected (except for the dates) will be saved for that report and used as the default the next time you open that report dialog.
The reports are grid-based summary reports similar to the Summary Transaction reports in the Transaction tab. Thus they use the same print option settings and have the same look. One difference is that there is no right-click menu in these report grids (but the common Grid Lines and Orientation options are available in the dialogs). Most of the controls in the three different report dialogs are similar, as detailed here.
Dates
You can select any start and end date for the reports, to filter reservations occurring in the selected date range. There are also helper buttons to quickly select Month-to-Date, Year-to-Date, Last Month and Last Year date ranges.
Summarize period
You can summarize the reports by days, months, quarters, or years. This results in one column (or row) for each day, month, or year of the selected date range. Keep in mind that the date range selected takes precedence. So for example if you summarize by month and selected the range 4/1/2001 to 5/1/2001, it will show April and May months in the report but will be reporting for only one day in May due to the 5/1/2001 ending date.
Site/Reservation Filtering
Most of the reports can be filtered by site type/class/park, and also by specific reservation details. This button will open the Reservation Filtering dialog and allow complex reservation selection and/or Site Filtering.
Note that the "Use filtering" box must be checked in order for the filtering to take effect -- this is checked automatically if you edit the filter, but you can easily toggle this option on and off to see how the filtering affects the report.
There's also an option to "Save filter" for next time, which can be checked when you set up a filter that you want to use as the default. If this is checked when you close the report, then the filter will be saved and re-used the next time you run the report (and "Use filtering" will be checked automatically.) If you make changes to the filter but this box isn't checked upon exit, then the changes won't be saved but the previous filter will still be loaded (but will no longer be used automatically -- just check "Use filtering" again to re-activate it next time).
Auto-Generate
By default, you must click the Generate Report before it will calculate a report and fill the grid, since some reports can take a significant time to generate. If you're reporting on a small date range or using a fast enough computer, you can select the auto-generate option so that the report is refreshed every time you change one of the options. This can be useful for experimenting with the controls to see how they affect the report before generating a report for a large date range.
Grid Lines
Any of the reports may have their grid lines turned on or off by checking or unchecking this option.
Dates on Top
The orientation of any report can be flipped with this option (uncheck it to put the dates in rows).
Hide groups with zero totals
The wording is slightly different according to each report, but the option does basically the same for each report. It will prevent showing group rows or columns (but not date summaries) that have no possible results for the entire date range. Each report treats this slightly differently. In the Occupancy report, it will hide any site types with no available sites in the date range (according to the other options). In the How-Heard report, it will hide any sources that had no reservations reporting that source. In the Unfulfilled Reservations report, it will hide any of the reservation statuses that had no reservations with the given status.
Show as Percentages
Any of the reports can show either percentages or total number of reservations (or reservation nights). When showing percentages, some of the totals may be an Average percentage rather than a Total percentage. (If they are totals, then they should add up to 100% for that row or column). If there are no possible sites/reservations for a given cell total, it will show dashes (---).
If not showing as percentages, each cell will have two numbers, in the form "80 / 95". The first number is the total number of reservations (or nights) for that value, and the second number is the total that could be possible for that date period (all available site nights for the Occupancy report, or all reservations for that period in the other reports). If there are no possible sites/reservations for a given cell total, it will show dashes (--/--).
Note: a space is included in front of the --/-- values so that it's not interpreted as a date when copied or exported to Excel.
Show total possible sites
This only applies if not showing the report as percentages, and when selected will show the values in fractional format (e.g. "3/6"). This is no by default, but it can be turned off so only the number (e.g. "3") is shown. This is helpful when the data needs to be exported to Excel, for instance, for further manipulation.
Count sites even if unavailable
When this option is available for a report, selecting it will include sites in the calculations for each date even if it's not available for that date, according to its season dates and/or special dates available or unavailable. (It doesn't matter whether the site was "open" on that date or whether had a reservation.) Since this can result in less meaningful results, such as in Occupancy reports, you can disable this so that a site is only counted in the total possible for occupancy for a given date if it's available for that date.
Use all reservation nights (vs. arrivals)
For the How-heard Report and the Unfulfilled Reservations, you can generate statistics one of two ways. The two options can result in very different results, each of which have their advantages, but when the results each way are compared to each other it can be especially useful.
With this option selected, it will count each night of a reservation as a separate "hit", like a separate reservation with the given value or status for each night of the reservation. Thus a reservation lasting 30 nights would count 30 times, while a reservation lasting 2 nights would only count twice. This also means that a reservation starting in May and ending in June would count some for May and some for June in a monthly report.
With this option not selected, every reservation counts only once regardless of its length, and it only counts for the date on which it started. Thus a reservation starting in January and ending in June would only count once, and only for the January total in a monthly report. In fact this can result in many reservations that cover the report's date range being skipped entirely because they started before the date range. (However, this report is much faster to generate.)
The reason to check a report each way is to compare the results. For instance, when looking at "highway signs" results in a How-heard Report, a high percentage based on arrivals and a low percentage based on nights could mean that you get a lot of customers from highway signs, but they only stay a short time compared to other references. This revelation might even affect your advertising decisions because it creates a lot of work and expenses (checking them in and out, small credit card transactions, etc.) for smaller bits of income.
Each report has a Print button which will print the current report. This may print just the grid, or print the requested envelopes, mailing labels, or receipts, depending on the report type. A preview will be shown before printing if you have the "Always preview reports" option enabled under File / Printing Options.
Export List
Each report has an Export List button, which can be used to export the currently shown list/grid to a CSV file (see the Exporting Reports section for more details). This could be used to get the meter lists into a PDA for taking readings, or for exporting a mailing list to be used in another program.