Reports within ResRequest are very flexible and powerful. ResRequest reports include parameters such as filters and display options that enable you to control the data set to be included in a report and to control aspects of the output presentation. These settings can be saved as profiles for repetitive use, e.g. for a financial report you want to run every month.

Report parameters can be divided into two broad categories; filters and options.

Filters

Filters govern the data set that is returned in a report, e.g. you could set a filter to include only reservations for one specific month. Filters are normally set via one of the following controls:

• Option buttons: allow you to make a single selection from a limited set of options
• Check boxes: allow you to make multiple selections from a set of options

Some reports contain a subsidiary set of filters that can be viewed and set by clicking on the ‘More’ button.

Options

Options are used to format the display output of a report, e.g. the setting of the ‘Show adults/children’ option determines whether adult and children figures should be displayed in separate columns or summed and displayed in a single column.

Output options

The output options for reports vary, some offer specific output displays.

• List
  This output displays a single list, e.g. the list report for the Standard Report displays a list of reservations from the earliest arrival date to the latest.
• Item
  This output groups the results by property.
• Detailed
  This output shows a highly detailed result and is advised to only be used for a short time period or limited results, e.g. reservations for the day.
• Financial
  This shows an overview of the financials.

Paging

Reports with a significant number of records get paged. This refers to browser paging, i.e. the number of records displayed on a browser page is limited. This is to speed up the display – the more records the program has to retrieve, the longer it takes. Some reports allow you to specify the number of records per page. When a report is paged it displays a control row at the top and bottom of the report output that enables you to page through the report, or to go to a specific page.

On screen functions

Once you have generated, there are some additional report functions.

• Show and hide Filters
  When you generate a report, the system retains the filter settings but hides them. Click the ‘>>Show filters’ button in the top right corner of the report display to re-display the parameter portion of the screen. Similarly, you can hide the parameters by clicking on ‘<
• Sorting
  Clicking on the up / down arrows in column headers has the effect of sorting ascending / descending on that column.
• Hide / show columns
  Clicking on the ‘<<’ symbol in a column header has the effect of hiding the column (in some of the newer reports, the collapse symbol is ‘x’). Clicking on ‘Show all columns’ restores all hidden columns.
• Select / deselect
  Click on the tick and cross icons in the column header to select or deselect all results in the list.
• Drill down
  When a row on a report turns green, it signifies that you can click on the row to ‘drill down’ to a lower level of detail, e.g. this often means you can open an item at reservation level.
• Last report
  Selecting the Last report button in the toolbar will re-display the last report that you ran with all the same filters that you had set.

Most reports offer the output options of HTML, PDF, Email as PDF and Export to CSV, for more see the Using reports tutorial. Some reports include built-in functions that enable data updates to be performed directly from the report.