Overview of Managing Reports

To serve all your organization’s needs, InterAction provides you with a robust reporting tool that is accessible from the Windows Client, Web Client, and Personal Information Manager (PIM). This reporting tool provides you with out-of-the-box reports and a report design tool that report managers can use to edit reports, create new reports, and make reports available to your organization.

Reports are managed in the Windows Client by users with permission to manage/create reports. These report managers are given these privileges in InterAction Administrator by the report or system administrator.

NOTE For more information on giving users report manager privileges, see Setting Up Report Managers.

Reports are view/print only in the Web Client. Your report managers are responsible for making reports available in the Web Client and creating reports that are necessary for your organization.

See the following topics for more information:

• Who is a Report Manager?
• Reporting Roles in Your Organization
• The Manage Report List Dialog Box

Who is a Report Manager?

Unlike most reporting users who can only view/print reports and create personal reports, report managers have additional responsibilities like managing and distributing your organization’s report list.

Following is a list of common report manager responsibilities:

• Editing InterAction’s out-of-the-box reports so that they match your organization’s InterAction configuration
• Creating, modifying, or removing reports based on the needs of your organization
• Customizing end users’ reporting experience by configuring who can view each report, where they can be viewed, and how they appear in the Report Chooser
• Integrating InterAction with Crystal Reports® or Microsoft® SQL Server™ Reporting Services to create custom reports with InterAction data (if your organization uses either of these programs).

Reporting Roles in Your Organization

Reports are valuable tools to each member of your organization. Each type of user uses reporting differently, but all users use reports to extract information from the InterAction database and display it in a form that is most useful to them.

• Professionals use reports to help serve clients. For example, professionals want access to reports like contact overview and activity reports to help prepare for a meeting, and upcoming appointment reports to help manage their schedules. Assistants also use similar reports to help support professionals’ efforts.
• Sales Management needs to report on prospects and opportunities to manage the sales pipeline and analyze wins and losses.
• Marketing users need reports to manage marketing activities. These users help professionals target and execute marketing plans by administering marketing lists and planning social events and seminars. Marketing users are usually more advanced reporting users and are likely to create new reports and assist in report planning.

It helps to know these roles when creating and managing reports for your organization. If you are just getting started, you may want to document reporting needs for each department or practice area so you know which reports to create and make available to users.

Reporting Resources Available on the InterAction Support Center Web Site

The InterAction Support Center Web Site contains a wealth of reporting information for report managers. For example, you can find the following:

• Troubleshooting
• Out-of-the-box reports, sections, and export instructions to download, including change history for each report, section, and export
• Recommendations for report design standards
• Information on upgrading reports
• Documents on creating reports using Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services and Crystal Reports
• Training courses (both hands-on and web-based)

The Manage Report List Dialog Box

All InterAction reports are managed from the Manage Report List dialog box in the Windows Client. Only report managers have access to this dialog box.

To access the Manage Report List dialog box, choose Tools > Reports from the menu bar then choose the Manage button.

Manage Report List Dialog Box

All your organization’s InterAction reports display in the Manage Report List dialog box in alphabetical order with details of each report in columns.

Column	Description
Name	The name of the report
Type	The type of report, as defined in Report Output Formats
ID	An ID number for the report, generated by InterAction
Date Modified	The date the report was last modified
Available	Where the report can be accessed (Web Client/Windows Client/PIM). See Indicate Where a Report Can Be Accessed for details.
Category	The category of the report (specified by the report manager)

Choosing the Reports to View

The View Reports for field lets you show reports for:

• Contacts
• Activities/Appointments
• InterAction Matters, Opportunities, or Engagements
• My Reports

Filtering the List of Reports

When creating or modifying reports, you must choose the type of report first in the View Reports for field. For example, to create a report on activities, choose Activities/Appointments in the View Reports for drop-down list then choose New to create the report.

What Else Can I Do?

The buttons on the right side of the Manage Report List dialog box let you do more.

Choose this ....	To to this ....
View/Print	To view and print the report. See Viewing and Printing Reports.
New	To create a new report. See Creating and Editing Reports.
Edit	To edit an existing report. See Editing Reports.
Save as New	To save an existing report as a new report. See Saving a Report as New.
Delete	To delete a report. See Deleting Reports.
Add to Favorites	To push reports out to users’ My Favorite Reports list. See Adding Reports to Users' My Favorite Reports List.
Advanced	To import or export a report. See Importing/Exporting Reports.

NOTE Because activity/appointment and InterAction Matters, Opportunities, and Engagements reports cannot be printed in the Windows Client, the View Now button is disabled when one of these reports is selected.

Why are Activity Reports Separate from Contact Reports in the Manage Report List Dialog Box?

In the Manage Report List dialog box, the View Reports for field lets you show reports for Contacts, Activities/Appointments, Matters, Opportunities, Engagements, or My Reports. Reports are separated into different views to help reduce the number of reports you are viewing. For example, it is easier to manage reports on just activities/appointments when only those reports are in view.

Activity/appointment reports and contact reports are also separated into different views because the process to create these reports is different - these reports include different InterAction data and display in different areas of InterAction. Contact reports let you include contact fields, and activity/appointment reports let you include activity/appointment fields.

For example:

• When reporting on contacts, you may want to create a report that displays a contact’s name, primary contact information, contact types, and notes you have on the contact. You can include this report in the Windows Client, Web Client, or PIM Report Chooser.
• When reporting on activities, you may want to create a report that displays each activity’s date, subject, originator, and the contacts included on the activity. Since you can only view a list of activities the Web Client, you only have the option to include this report in the Web Client Report Chooser.

InterAction keeps contact and activity reports separate so when you create, edit, or manage these reports, you only see the options available for that type of report.