Reporting Options Overview

Use sets of options to control both the content and the formatting of a report.

If you apply report options to a report, Vision retains those settings for the report only until you log out. The next time that you log in, Vision again applies your default settings to the report. Because of this, if you have sets of report options that you use repeatedly, you should save them so that you do not have to select them each time.

For example, you might save two sets of report options for a report, one that you use when you generate the report to present it to a client, and another that you use when you generate the report to present in an internal meeting. Each set of saved report options is available only for the report for which it was saved.

For example, a set of saved options for the Project Summary report cannot be used with the Office Earnings report.

When you save a set of options, you save the following:

  • Report name
  • All options settings on the General tab, Sorting/Grouping tab, Columns tab, Layout tab, and other options tabs

You can combine a set of saved options with a set of record selection criteria. To do that, create a favorite report. You can run a favorite report with one click.

You can save more than one set of options for a single report if you save the sets with different names.

Security Settings and Saving Options

The procedures you can use to create and save favorites depend on the setting for your security role in Favorites Organizing on the Roles form (Configuration > Security > Roles).

Create and Save Sets of Options

The procedures you can use to create saved sets of options depend on the setting for your security role in Favorites Organizing on the Roles form (Configuration > Security > Roles).

The following are the available settings:

  • Save Personal Only — You can create, modify, save, or delete only your personal sets of options.
  • Save for My Role — You can create, modify, save, or delete personal sets of options, and you can also save sets of options for use by co-workers who share your security role.
  • Save for All Roles — You can create, modify, save, or delete personal sets of options, sets of options for use by co-workers who share your security role, and global sets of options for use by all Reporting users.

Saved Options as Personal Defaults

You can select a set of saved options to use as your personal defaults. Your personal default options take precedence over global options set for your security role or for all Reporting users.

Neither personal defaults nor global defaults take precedence over your last applied options. To restore your default options for the report, click the Default button at the bottom of the Options dialog box and then click Apply.

Access

To open the Options dialog box for a report, click in the Options column in the Reports grid and then click . The Options column may be blank, or it may contain text:

If the Options column... Then...
Is blank You have not specified any options for the report. If you do not set options before you generate the report, Vision uses default settings for all report options.

To set new options, click in the Options column, and then click . In the Options dialog box, specify the settings on the options tabs.

Has this label:

<options selected>

Option settings other than defaults have been specified for the report.

To review or change those settings, click .

Contains a name The report is set up to use a named set of saved report options.

To review or change those settings, click .

Multicompany

If you are using the Multicompany feature, the following applies:

  • You set report options on standard reports separately for each company. When you use the Change Company utility to switch companies (Utilities > Change Company), the standard report options reset back to the default options. However, saved favorite reports, saved favorite options. and saved favorite selections remain the same, even when you switch companies.
  • Some reports are company-specific and only include details for a single company. For example, payroll reports are company-specific because they only allow you to view an employee's payroll information for one company at a time. On those reports that are not company-specific, you can see details from multiple companies for the same employee. In this case, it is helpful to have a saved favorite with a top-level sort by company, so that each company's data is presented separately.

Report Languages

If your firm uses the Multilingual feature, you specify the language you want to use each time that you log in to Vision. If you create a set of saved options for a report, Vision saves that language as part of that saved set. As a result, each time that you or another person uses that saved set of options for the report, Vision generates it in that language, even if the person who generates the report is currently logged in with a different language.

Because each set of saved options is associated with a specific language, make sure you log in with the language you want before you create a set of options. For the same reason, if you need to make changes to a saved set of options, be sure you log in with the language for which you created it. If you do not, Vision sets the language for the saved set of options to the active language for your current Vision session when you save your changes.

If you generate a standard Vision report (that is, not a favorite report) and you do not use a saved set of options, Vision always generates the report in the language you specified when you logged in for your current session.