Getting Started with Reports Builder

Aloha Insight provides numerous industry standard reports to use; however, you may need a report not supplied. The Reports Builder wizard enables you to create custom reports containing polled POS data for any single store or all of your stores combined. Using Reports Builder wizard you can build a report with the information you deem important. You determine the format, the headings, and the line items on the report.

A custom report consists of three elements:

Element	Description
Report Settings	Includes the name, description, report style, and category for the custom report.
Report Groups	Contains user-defined groupings within your custom report. This allows you to break the report into logical sections. For example, you can break your report into Voids and Comps and place all of your void-related line items in the ‘Voids’ group, and place all of your comp-related items in the ‘Comps’ group.
Line Items	Data elements from within your Aloha Insight data warehouse that you can include in the report. For example, if you wanted to include the number of draft beer voids your store had during your happy hour daypart within your patio revenue center, you would use the ‘Void Count by Day Part by Revenue Center’ line item. You can use one of the system-supplied line items provided by Aloha Insight, or create a custom line item using the Custom Line Item wizard.

Before creating your custom report, consider the following:

•	Verify the report does not already exist. Aloha Insight furnishes you with predefined reports that meet the needs of most companies.

•	Define exactly what information you are trying to extract in the report. At this stage, you might want to write down the expected results. If you have a report you are trying to reproduce, you should get a copy of the report to use as an example.

•	Determine who can access the report. You may want to note the name of the security classes that can access the report.

While working in the Reports Builder wizard, keep in mind that your access and rights to the Reports Builder wizard depend on your security settings, which are defined in Security Class Setup within Aloha Insight. Now you are ready to create your custom report.

Adding a Custom Report

The Add button on the Welcome to Reports Builder wizard screen enables you to create a new report, and to define the report groups and line items contained in that report.

To add a custom report:

1.	Click Add on the Welcome to the Reports Builder wizard screen. The Custom Report Settings screen appears.

2.	Clear Active, if you do not want the selected report included in the list of active reports in Reports wizard.

3.	Enter a unique name for the report.

4.	Enter a description, if desired. A description is useful for denoting what the report contains.

5.	Select a report style to determine the format of the report.

The ‘Report Style’ drop-down list contains various formats for your custom report. Choose a style that conveys the meaning of the intended report.

6.	Select a report category, if desired. This defines where you can access the report in the Reports Viewer wizard.

7.	Click Next. The Security Class Selection screen appears.

This screen determines who has access to the report. All security classes display on the left, and the classes with access to the report display on the right. Because this is a new report, the list box on the right contains your security class.

Your security class determines who can view the report in Reports wizard.

8.	Select the security classes that can access the report from the ‘All Classes’ list.

To select multiple adjacent classes, hold down Shift and click the first and last class. To select non-adjacent classes, hold down Ctrl and click one class at a time.

9.	Select the classes in the ‘All Classes’ list box and use the arrows to move them to the ‘Classes with Access to the Report’ list box.

10.	Click Save. The Group Setup screen displays.

11.	Click Add. The Group Name screen appears.

12.	Enter a unique name in the ‘Group Name’ text box.

13.	Click Next. You are returned to the Group Setup screen.

14.	Select the report group in the ‘Group Name’ list.

15.	Click Edit. The Group Line Item Setup screen appears.

16.	Click Add. The Line Item Selection screen appears.

17.	Select a category from the ‘Line Item Options’ drop-down list. The items contained within the selected category display in the list box.

18.	Select the new line item. The line item name automatically displays in the Line Item Name text box.

a.	Click View Definition to view a detailed description of the selected line item, if desired.

b.	Click Close to return to the Line Item Selection screen.

19.	Select Display this Line Item as a Negative Item to display the new line item as a negative value, rather than a positive value. This subtracts the value for the line item on the report, rather than adding it to the total.

20.	Click Next.

Depending on the line item selected, you may need to make additional selections. For example, you may need to select the comps to include on the report.

21.	Click Save to return to the Group Line Item Setup screen.

22.	Add any additional line items to the report group.

23.	Click Save.

24.	Click Done to return to the Welcome to Reports Builder Wizard screen.

For detailed information on the Reports Builder wizard, refer to Working with Reports Builder Wizard.

For more information on report groups, refer to Defining Your Report Groups.

For more information on line items, refer to Defining Group Line Item Setup.