More information

Reporting Services

Dashboards

The ability to graphically-render reports, called dashboards, is found through the Report module or dynamically on Overview pages in enabled modules. You may also click-through to List pages for more informative data results where applicable and each user may configure his or her dashboard to decide which reports and designs are delivered for each module. Dashboards may be configured and delivered for the following modules:

  • CRM
  • Events
  • Membership
  • Accounting
  • Fundraising

Getting Started

As mentioned above there are four main dashboards that can be personalized by each user to return the data he or she desires to see on a regular basis. Those are:

  • Executive Dashboard - Reports that will return a sampling of all other dashboards at a very high level
  • Events Dashboard - Reports that will return detailed Events information including information such as the Top 3 Events, Event Registrations vs. Cancellations, Registration Revenues, Registration Count Weeks Out and so forth.
  • Membership Dashboard - Graphic Reports that will return detailed Membership information such as Members Past Due, Members Due to Renew, New Members by Join Year, and so forth.
  • Accounting Dashboard - Graphic Reports that will return detailed Accounting and financial reports such as Sales by Product Type by Month, Sales by Month, Sales by Week, and so forth.
  • Fundraising Dashboard - Graphic Reports that will return detailed Fundraising reports such as Largest Donors by Individual, Funds Raised Compared to Last Year, and so forth.
To access each dashboard:
  1. Select the Reports module.
  2. On the Dashboards Group Item menu, select Dashboards. Choose the corresponding dashboard you want to view.
  3. You may also access each individual dashboard from its corresponding module, Overview menu. For example, to access the Financial Dashboard from Accounting. Select the Accounting module, click Overview, then select the Financial Dashboard link.

Reading Dashboard Reports

When you first access each dashboard you will notice that six reports are available for you to view by default. You are able to specify if you want to keep those six reports and how they are viewed in the next section.

Dashboard reports support hovering. This means that if you hover your mouse over the graphic, you will see that certain data becomes available to you.

For example, by hovering the mouse over the 60-day bar you are able to see immediately that 4 members are 60-days past due. Notice also that a hand icon is available which means that you can click-through on this report for more information. If you click this bar, you will receive another image that then tells you how those 4 members are broken up within that 60-days.

You are quickly able to see that, of those 4 members that were 60-days past due, 3 of them fall into the April time-frame (assuming this report is being ran in June).

Finally, notice that, should you choose, the hand icon was available once more when you hovered over the April bar chart so you are able to click through one more time if you wish to find out exactly who those 3 members are.

A final click pull up a List of the members where all normal NetForum list functions are in place including the ability to use the GoTobutton as well as Exporting and sending e-mail to a list.

This is what makes the graphically-rendered reports so powerful. They create visual images that give you data at a glance that are then backed-up with the ability to manipulate that data with normal NetForum functions .

Note: It is important to note that not all dashboard reports function in the manner described above in that some do not drill down two levels deep with graphical reports - some go directly to lists and some do not bring up a list at all but report in a simple chart only one level deep. This topic attempts to explain how to use the most complicated of reports so that you are prepared to interpret what you may see. You will have to experiment with the reports that you choose to use in the end. However, if a report does not prompt another report or list, this is working as intended. If you suspect that is not the case, please contact NetForum support.

Personalizing the Dashboard

You can specify where each of your dashboard reports will appear on the dashboard by clicking on the Personalize Your Dashboard button in the upper left corner of each dashboard.

When you click the Personalize Your Dashboard button, each of the dashboard reports that are visible can now be dragged to a new area on the dashboard as you can see in the screenshot below.

For example, if you have reports that you want on the top row of your dashboard, you may move them there by left-clicking in the title bar of the report and dragging them to that position. If a report currently exists there, it will switch places with the report you are moving there.

Notice that there are three buttons at the top of the personalize screen. They function in the following manner:

  • Cancel: Cancels the current action and personalization process and returns you to the previously saved dashboard.
  • Save: Saves your changes and personalizes your dashboard.
  • Reset All: If you decide you do not like the changes you have made, this returns all reports and dashboard settings to the default settings.

You can also decide which reports will be shown on your dashboard in addition to where they are displayed. This is discussed in the next section.

Personalizing the Dashboard Reports

In addition to deciding where you want your dashboard reports to appear, you can decide which reports you want to display on your dashboard. Notice that in the upper-left corner of each report is a Report Menu button. When you click this button, a Personalize this report dialogue box appears as seen in the screenshot below.

Notice that that the top two options of every report menu are:

  • Default - The default reports are the reports that are originally placed on each dashboard. You may return to those by selecting this option should you modify them by selecting a different report for this spot.
  • Empty - You can choose to leave this particular space empty and show no report

To select a different report other than the default, highlight the report name and click the Save button. That report will now run in the selected spot.

You will also notice that some reports have an additional drop-down menu beside the Report Menu drop-down titled Report Parameters. This menu enables you to change the specifications of the report to return different sets of data. For example, the Registration Count vs. Registration Goal Event report below allows you to change the parameter to select the various events currently active to check registration counts.

Personalizing the Dashboard Overview Reports

Each module that contains a dashboard (CRM, Events, Membership, and Accounting) also contains one dashboard report on their overview screen as well. The dashboard overview report contains all the click-through functionality of a regular dashboard report and can be personalized through the Personalize This Report menu as well and described in the previous section. The best use of this feature is to store a report here that will bring you information that you tend to check daily.

Advanced Tasks

There is also an Admin component to dashboards. Administrators can:

  • Configure dashboards and reports
  • Create report formats
  • Create templates

Hiding Dashboard Pages

If you'd like to hide a dashboard page, go to the Toolkit module>Overview> Find>Group Item Link.

Search for any Group Item Links that have Link File equal to DynamicDashboard.aspx. There will be around a dozen results.

Go to the dashboard link you want to hide and select the Hide/Disable checkbox and save the record.

Note: To hide the dashboard report on a Module Overview page, select the reports icon above the report and then select the option 'Empty (do not display any report in this area' and click Save.

Additional Information

The tools used for this functionality include:

  • Microsoft SQL Reporting Services 2008
  • Dundas Charts/Mapping/Calendar
    • Charts are included with Microsoft Reporting Services
    • Maps and Calendars cost extra as of release 2009.01 although cost is minimal - Microsoft is working on implementing these into Reporting Services.