Reports and Charts

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This topic acts as a reservoir of Help on items common to reports across the entire system and also provides a "switchboard" of links to the reports available in the Aspect Property Manager.

This first group of links takes you to the beginning of each major division within this subject.
Reports and Charts Overview
Common Report Items
System Reports and Charts



Reports and Charts Overview
The Aspect Property Manager has numerous reports and charts which are generally found on the menu to which they relate and usually in a sub-menu headed "Reports" or "Charts". Some high use reports are found directly on the primary menu as is also the case with some menus which have few items to choose from.  There are a few reports which are the output from other processing and not otherwise available such as the "End of Period Report" which only prints when "End of Period" is run.

Printing documents, letters, faxes and so on also use the same print routines from the point at which their [Print] button is pressed and the "Report" destination screen appears.

Notes
  • When "print" is used within the help topics it means either display the report on the screen or print immediately to a printer.
  • Although there is no [Help] button on many of the report windows help can often be obtained by pressing [F1] or from the menu.
  • In addition to the reports available on the various menus simple reports can be created using the Report Writer.



    Common Report Items
    Use the following links for help on functions and other miscellaneous topics common to reports across the system.
  • Oh The Trees
  • Print Preview - Ace Viewer
  • Saving Reports So You Can Find Them
  • Printing and Viewing Reports and Documents
  • Selecting what to print
  • Sorting Sequence
  • Report Sequence and Report Range
  • Period Selection
  • Portfolio Selection
  • Property Manager Selection
  • Report Destination
  • Emailing Reports



    System Reports and Charts
    These links will take you to the help topic for the named group where the various reports and charts are discussed while the Charts topic covers common chart styles and functions available such as zooming in on data.
  • Landlord Reports
  • Property Reports
  • Tenant Reports
  • Supplier Reports
  • Bond Reports
  • Banking Reports
  • Administration Reports
  • Setup Reports
  • Charts


    The Printing Process
    The remainder of this topic deals with selecting what you want to print, what order you want to print it in and where you want the output to go, screen, printer or email.


    Printing and Viewing Reports and Documents
    Regardless of how a print action is initiated the next steps will be:-
  • to make a selection of what data is to be extracted from the database
      4 Reports will usually have a selection screen 
      4 Documents will usually start from the [Mail] button or a Mail Merge menu selection
  • decide to print to the screen for previewing
  • or print directly to the printer bypassing the screen preview
  • and which printer to use
  • or save it to disk
  • or email the report to someone

    Note
    By default all reports are directed to the screen (to save the trees) for preview and possibly page selection before printing.



    Selecting what to print
    In a few cases the first screen after the menu may consist of only a [Start] and [Cancel] button but it usually has a number of selection parameters which determine what the report will contain.   If the report gives you something you didn't expect check the parameters you entered against the report selection criteria printed at the end of virtually every report because they will be correct for what is printed.

    Only the common system-wide selection parameters are covered in this topic.  Others are covered in the help topic associated with that particular report and others are so obvious they are not covered at all.  If you are unsure - experiment you can do no harm and if you print to the screen you will save some trees too. 



    Sorting Sequence
    Computers often seem pretty dumb when it comes to sorting things in sequence.  The problem is they have no brains and just work to a pattern.

    When sorting a file on a field that contains alphabetic characters (letters only), or alphanumeric characters (a mix of letters and numbers), the sorting usually works like a dictionary.  That is left to right starting with the leftmost letter first progressing to the left one character at a time.  This is great for the alphabetic characters and works just like in the dictionary.  But it all seems to fall apart when it hits numbers.  Try finding 3M or 246 Queen St in the telephone book and you will see what I mean.

    In an alphanumeric field the characters align to the left, so all the numbers starting with 1 come first whether it is 1, 135, 1000 etc.  Those records will all sort before any number that starts with anything else, (except 0).  Then the second from the left digit is considered, so 1 will be followed by 1000, then 135.  The second digit in 1000 is 0 which is less than the 3 in 135.

    Fields starting with numbers will precede those with letters.  The sorted order of records with a number in the second position will sort based on the alphabetic characters in the first position, followed by those with numbers in the second position then those with letters in position two and so on as in this list:-
  • 3M
  • advent
  • argent
  • b10vitamins
  • b1vitamins
  • bark

    In an alphanumeric field the sort order is blanks, then numbers and finally letters except when special characters (commas, underscore etc) are involved when they could sort either ahead of, or after, alphabetic or numeric characters.  Upper and lower case can also affect the order.  The fact that you are seeing a number does not necessarily mean the field is numeric it may be alphanumeric.  As a consequence, if you don't get displays or reports in the order expected, check what you are sorting on and watch out for unintentional leading blanks on alphabetic or alphanumeric fields and special characters.

    If the field is numeric, sorting on it will arrange the records in ascending numeric sequence, i.e. 1, 135, 1000 but remember the Code field is an alphanumeric field and could contain letters and special characters which may also give unexpected results.



    Report Sequence and Report Range
    The Report Sequence and the Report Range options are used in combination with each other.
    The Report Sequence radio button determines the display order of the output records.
    The Report Range From and To boxes allow partial selection of the records available in the report sequence selected.

    Notes
    Choosing Alphanumeric most often will use the SortKey and choosing Code will use the (usually) system generated number assigned to master records.  In fact both of those fields are alphanumeric and the system generated content can be overridden with "any" characters you wish to enter.

    Selecting alphanumeric with numbers in the range boxes will generally produce nothing.  Similarly selecting code and entering alphabetic letters will generally also produce nothing.

    The simplest way to print a report for a single main screen entity such as a landlord is to select the entity first, choose the report, next choose Code and Range which will automatically insert the code from the selected main screen record in both the Range From and To boxes.  If you select Alphanumeric and Range you will get multiple main screen records if the same SortKey is used more than once.



    Period Selection

    Selecting a period or period range restricts the report to transactions within that period or periods.  The period or period range is selected from one or a pair of list boxes which display the available periods.

    Note  Throughout the system you will often find two dates in a list box.  The first date indicates the earliest date associated with the item(s) being displayed and the second date the latest date.  In any period selection list box the first date will be the opening date of the period and the second date the last date of the period.  Typically these will be the first and last dates of the calendar month.  In other situations both dates may be the same indicating every item has the same date.



    Portfolio Selection

    Selecting a portfolio restricts the report to transactions within the portfolio(s) selected.  Any number of portfolios may be selected at one time by clicking the "three dots" button then ticking the desired check boxes.  Some reports allow each portfolio to start on a new page.



    Property Manager Selection
    The main screens are capable of displaying only master records for which a property manager is responsible and many reports have the same facility.  Where a property manager is responsible for multiple portfolios by selecting a property manager the system automatically selects all their portfolios in one hit.  However, further selection by portfolio (where available) can be made to limit the report to just some of the property manager's portfolios.

    Be Aware  When selection is done by property manager it is possible for data to appear unexpectedly from landlords or tenants who do not belong to the selected property manager.  This is caused when a landlord has multiple properties which are assigned to different portfolios which themselves have different property managers assigned.  The result is property manger A has property manager B's records included on property manager A's reports and v.v. because they both "report" to the same landlord albeit for different properties.  If you think about it for a moment , if you are talking to a landlord about their statement you need to see all the transactions not just the ones applicable to you.  The message here really is to avoid the situation where two property managers are responsible for the same landlord's properties wherever possible.



    Report Destination
    Once the selection is complete pressing Start will display the Report Destination screen

    Printer Setup will display the standard Windows setup page for the printers available on your system.  Choose the printer you wish to use and set any other printer parameters required.  You should only need to use this occasionally as the settings are remembered for the next report.

    Collate only applies when printing multiple copies.  For example with Collate ticked printing multiple copies of landlord statements prints them in this order Bloggs, Lorimer, Zambuka, Bloggs, Lorimer, Zambuka.  When Collate is unticked they print Bloggs, Bloggs, Lorimer, Lorimer, Zambuka, Zambuka.  In general unticked, which is the default, is best because one bundle gets posted and the other bundle filed.  It is easier than folding and stuffing one document to post and then having to file its mate.

    If you have a photocopier with a document feeder it is usually quicker and cheaper to use it for your second copies, particularly when using expensive letterhead. 

    Most organisations can save a great deal of time and money by emailing the bulk of the information sent from the system and in particular the landlord statements which will probably be 90% or more of the outward "mail".



    Emailing Reports
    When a report is produced you may wish to email it to someone.  This can be done simply by pressing [Email Report] on the print preview (Ace Viewer) screen, as outlined in the steps below.  Understand the report is every page contained in the print preview, not just the one you can see.

    So, when you press [Email Report] you are emailing the entire report to a single recipient.
    Let's just repeat that - the entire report will be emailed to a single recipient.

    As an example, if you print (all) the landlord statements and press [Email Report] and work through the next series of screens, which surely indicate you are sending to one email address, and then press [Send] on the last screen there is only one person who will receive the statements for all your landlords.

    I've told you a lie really when I said there is only one recipient, because, as with other emails throughout the Aspect Property Manager, you can CC emails to other email addresses which in this case may be added on the Email to screen along with any other attachments you may wish to send.  Several previously produced reports, or a newsletter, could have been saved to the disk and added to the final report as attachments.  They also would receive the entire report.

    1.  When emailing a report to a landlord, tenant or supplier, selecting that recipient before running the report is an advantage, but not essential.
    2.  Run the report and print it to the screen
    3.  Press [Email Report]  
    4.  Select the recipient using the radio buttons and the list boxes
    The landlord, tenant or supplier address offered will be the currently selected entity on the respective main screen
    5.  Or select Other and enter the email address
    6.  Press [OK]
    7.  On the Email to screen enter the email subject, any message required, add any EmailCC addresses and any further attachments.
    8.  Press [Send]