CREATING AN AD HOC QUERY

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1 Ad Hoc Reporting AD HOC REPORTS are custom reports that you create on the fly so that you can view specific information that is important to you. An ad hoc report is created from a query, which means that you are requesting the computer system to create a report based on a combination of data selections that you have chosen to include in the report. CREATING AN AD HOC QUERY 1. Open VAST Point of Sale. 2. Click the VAST Utilities button, which is located on the left side of the screen. 3. When the Utilities screen appears, CLICK Reports/Graphs. 4. When the Report/Graph pop-up menu appears, click Create Ad Hoc Report. 5. The Ad Hoc Report Designer screen appears as shown below. This is where you will select what you want to see in your report. The Report Designer screen is made up of 6 key sections, which are used to create queries, add filters, add expressions, generate queries, save queries, and save reports. The Toolbar in the top left corner of the screen allows you to perform a variety of functions. The buttons in order from left to right perform the following: a. Create a new query b. Open an existing query c. Save an edited query 1

2 d. Import/Export templates e. Run a query f. Save a report g. Export the query to a Word or Excel text file h. Refresh the data in the Source Tables. 6. The DATA SOURCES section of the screen is comprised of two parts: a) Tables - Your shop s database is made up of many data tables. These hold all of your shop s information. b) Selected Data (Query Definitions) These contain information from multiple tables that has already been put together for you. They have common information that customers regularly like to report on. 7. Click the Plus [ + ] symbol next to the Selected Data (Query Defs) folder, in the Data Sources list, which is located in the upper left corner of the screen. 8. When the folder opens, as shown below, you can see a list of report types, which have already been defined for you. For Example: Click on CUSTOMER HISTORY. 9. All of the data fields associated with this data source (EX. CUSTOMER HISTORY) will now appear automatically in the Data Fields box, as shown below. 2

3 10. Double-click the data fields that you want to include in the report: For Example: Invoice Date, Invoice Number, First Name, Last Name, Sales Total, and Zip Code. As each one is selected, it is automatically moved to the center portion of the screen, as shown below. You can also drag and drop the fields to the middle of the screen. You can change the order in which the data fields appear by clicking a record and dropping it in between two other records. Also, if you change your mind about including a data record, you can remove it by clicking the gray area directly above the name of the record. When the data record turns yellow, press the Delete key on your keyboard and it will be removed. 11. If desired, click inside the Report Description Brief field, and enter the name of your report. For our example: Customer History. Then click inside the larger field below it and enter a full description. Example: This report includes records for the invoice date, invoice number, first name, last name, sales total, and zip code. (Note: These two description fields are optional and may be left blank.) CUSTOMIZING YOUR REPORT There are ways for you to customize your report even further. You can filter information, so you only see what you want to see, you can also create expressions that will help you get the results you want to see and you can hide fields if you want to use them to select information 3

4 but don t necessarily want to see them in your report. The following will demonstrate how to filter, build expressions, and hide fields. FILTERING Filtering allows you to block out the data you are not interested in seeing. There are two filtering methods: a) DATE FILTER b) ALPHA-NUMERIC FILTER. ** NOTE: You cannot have more than two filters per report, and you cannot filter on memo fields, such as Comment fields. FILTERING BY DATE To filter the data by dates, click the name of the selected field, (INVOICE DATE), as shown below. The Select Dates screen appears with the various filtering options along the left side of the screen. Click on the date range you want to use, so the dot appears next to it. For Example: Select Date Range in order to show all of the invoices within a specific time period. Click inside the upper date field and enter the date, 01/01/04. Click inside the lower field and enter 03/01/04. You can also click the drop down arrow and select the dates from the calendar. Click OK to return to the Report Designer Screen. When the Report Designer screen returns, the filter indicator is displayed in blue beneath the data field, as shown below. 4

5 FILTERING BY ALPHA-NUMERIC VALUES To filter by specific alpha-numeric text values, click the field header you want to filter (EX. Zip Code). When the Text Values Filter screen appears, as shown below, click the down arrow next to the Value Is field. The value options appear as shown below. Select the option that will work for you. For Example: ( = ) Equal To. When the second field appears, click inside it and enter the information you want to filter on. For Example: Zip code, Then click the OK button. EXPRESSIONS Expressions are a way to manipulate the data in your report. You can do the following: 5

6 It will allow you to add, subtract, multiply, divide, sum, or count the data in your report. The other option that you have is concatenation. This allows you to combine two fields into one. For Example: First Name + Last Name = Name To build an expression: 1. Click the Expression Builder button, shown below, in order to combine two fields into one, using the Concatenation feature. 2. When the Expressions screen appears, as shown below, notice that the data records that appear on the left side of the screen are those that are associated with the query definition you selected earlier. Move the fields that you want to manipulate over the empty white box. If you want to remove a data field from the white box on the right side of the Expression screen, just click and drag it back over to the left side of the screen. Or, double-click it to remove it. For Example: Select the First Name and Last Name records and drag them one at a time into the empty white box. If necessary, scroll down the list to view additional records. 6

7 On the right side of the screen, select an operation, in this case Concatenation, which means to link two or more items together. 3. The system will then automatically populate the PREVIEW FOR ACCESS field and the ALTERNATIVE PREVIEW FOR SQLDB field. 4. Click inside the Title field and enter the title (Ex. Name), which will then appear as the name of the column header for the concatenated record on the report. Then click OK. 5. When the Results screen returns, the new record will appear on the far right within the Selected Fields section of the screen, as shown below. HIDING FIELDS You can use fields to select information, but you might not necessarily want to see these fields displayed in the report. If this is the case, you can hide these fields. 1. If you want to hide one or more columns on the report, click the Hide This Field checkbox on the Report Designer screen, as shown below. PREVIEWING YOUR REPORT Once you have completed these steps, you are now ready to generate and preview your report. 7

8 1. To preview the report, click the Generate Query button. The Results screen appears as shown below. You can look at the results and decide if this is what you wish to see. NOTICE that the FIRST NAME and LAST NAME appear as NAME as a result of the concatenation. 2. Perhaps the results are not exactly what you are looking for. You can go back to the previous screen and tweak your query further to get the results you would like. To exit out of the Results screen, click the Windows Exit button, displayed as an X in the top right corner of the screen, as shown below. ** Note: There are two sets of Windows Exit buttons. The upper X is for the VAST program. The lower X, which is for the Results screen, is the one you should click. If you click the upper X, which is for the VAST program, you will lose all of your data selections. 3. When you are ready to generate your report again, click the Generate Query button. MANAGING YOUR RESULTS GROUPING You can GROUP the results according to any of the headers in the grid. You can even change the groupings as often as you like, or group by more than one header. To group the results by a specific column heading: 1. Click and drag the heading, such as Invoice Number, into the dark gray area above the grid, as shown below. 8

9 You will know that the column heading is activated if a small triangle appears next to the header name. If the triangle points up, the line items will be listed from lowest to highest; if the triangle points down, the items will be listed from highest to lowest. The results are now grouped according to the column heading you selected, as shown below. (Note: Whichever line was highlighted before you grouped the results will still be highlighted.) VIEWING ADDITONAL INFORMATION 1. To view additional information, you can RIGHT CLICK on a column header and you will see the Option menu shown below. **NOTE: NEVER select Hide from the pop-up menu when you right-click a column header AFTER you generate your report. This Hide option will hide the column permanently, and you will not be able to view it again even if you rerun the query. To show the column again later, just un-check the checkbox. 9

10 For Example: If you would like to see the totals for each customer, click the Sales Total header to activate it. (Note: The header will be activated when a small triangle appears next to the column name, as shown below.) 2. Next, right-click the column header. When the Option menu appears, select Sum. The total amount spent per invoice appears as shown below. 3. To view the report on-screen, click the Preview Report button. REPORT OUTPUT OPTIONS 10

11 You have 3 option buttons on the top of the REPORT PREVIEW screen: a) PREVIEW REPORT This brings you to another screen, where you can preview what the report will look like in the finished format and where you can print the entire report. This will include the date, your shop information, and page numbers on the print out. b) PRINT SELECTED ITEMS - This only prints the line items that are highlighted. The report then goes directly to the printer and cannot be previewed first. c) EXPORT TO TEXT This will save the report as a.txt file, which can then be viewed and printed in Microsoft Word or Excel. To exit out of the report viewer, click the appropriate X in the upper right corner of the screen. (Remember, don t click the upper X, which is for the VAST software.) SAVING YOUR REPORT You can save your custom report so that you can run it again on demand when ever you need to. SAVED QUERIES and SAVED REPORTS are not the same. The key difference is that the structure of a saved query can be changed, the SAVE QUERY button allows you to manipulate the data as desired and rerun the report repeatedly, so that you get updated data each time. The SAVE AS button, however, does not allow you to make any changes to the structure of the query (i.e., the data or the filters, etc.), although it does deliver updated results each time you run it. To Save Your Query 1. You will have to get back to the QUERY screen in order to save your query so you can run it again in the future. If you are in the report results screen, you can get back to the QUERY screen by clicking the LOWER X in the top right hand corner of the screen. 2. When you return to the QUERY screen, you will see the buttons across the top of the screen. 11

12 3. Click the Save Query button, shown below, in order to save the query, so that you can modify the data fields, filters, and expressions later. 4. When the Save Report screen appears, as shown below, right-click the Ad Hoc folder. A pop-up menu appears as shown below. Select New Folder. 5. When the New Folder screen appears, as shown below, name the folder Saved Queries. Then click OK. 6. Click the new folder, Saved Queries, to highlight it. Then click inside the Report Name field located at the bottom of the screen. Type Customer History 1 in the field, and then click OK. 12

13 To Save Your Report Structure 1. Click the Save As button, shown below, in order to save this report structure for future use. (Remember, the Save As button saves the structure of the report as you have defined it, and you will not be able to modify the structure later.) 2. When the Save Report screen appears, right-click the Ad Hoc folder and select New Folder from the pop-up menu. Name the folder Saved Reports. Click OK. 3. Click the Saved Reports folder to highlight it, and then click inside the Report Name field. Enter Customer History, and click OK. 4. Click the Windows X in the upper right corner of the screen in order to return to the Utilities Module. RUNNING AN EXISTING REPORT 1. To run a report, right-click Reports/Graphs on the Utilities Module screen. When the pop-up menu appears, as shown below, select Run Existing Report. 2. When the Select Report screen appears, open the Ad Hoc folder, as shown below. To run a saved report, click the Plus [+] symbol next to the Saved Reports folder to open it. Then, double-click the desired report to view it. 13

14 3. Print the report as desired, or save it to a file. When you are finished viewing the report, click the Windows X (the upper X) to return to the Utilities Module. REOPENING AN EXISTING QUERY FOR MODIFICATION 1. To run a report from a saved query, right-click Reports/Graphs and select Create an Ad Hoc Report. When the Report Designer screen appears, click the Open Query button, shown below. 2. The Open Report screen appears as shown below. Click the Plus [+] symbol next to the Ad Hoc folder. 14

15 3. When the Ad Hoc folder opens, as shown below, click the Plus [+] symbol next to the Saved Queries folder. Then double-click the desired report to open the query. 4. When the Report Designer screen appears, you can add or delete data fields, filters, and expressions, as appropriate. 5. Run the report or save it, as desired. When finished, click the Windows X to return to the UTILITIES MODULE. **NOTE: If you want to clear all of the data sources from the grid and create a new query, click the NEW button on the toolbar on the Report Designer screen. 15